Historical Heavyweights: He built a ToastChee empire and became Charlotte’s mayor
Plus: Top news of the week — Towers planned for Morehead Street — Mask mandate could come to an end soon — 2 more guns seized at a CMS school — Lowe's tower in SouthEnd under contract
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Philip Van Every expanded Lance from its surplus-peanut foundations into a snack-making powerhouse
Editor’s note: You see their names on street signs or parks, but who were some of the big-name people from decades ago who shaped Charlotte? They have fascinating stories. We’re sharing them with you. This is the finale of our monthlong series.
Philip Lance Van Every (1913-2010) grew the family business, Lance Corp., into a snack giant and served as mayor in the 1950s. His statue along the Little Sugar Creek Greenway was dedicated in 2019.
by John Short
The story of the Lance Corp. is a quintessential Charlotte success story. One way to spot the difference between the “born heres” and “came heres” in Charlotte is by examining the importance of ToastChees during those formative snacking years.
While dietary trends and corporate mergers and acquisitions may have whittled away at the legend of the company built by the Lance and Van Every families, it’s one worth revisiting. It’s the story of minor misfortune turned into massive commercial success — vacuum sealed in a wrapper with a wholesome family feel.
For Charlotte business success stories, you simply can’t beat the origin story of the founding of the Lance Corp. The year was 1913. Local Charlotte coffee salesman Philip Lance had ordered 500 pounds of peanuts for a customer. But the customer had just informed Philip that he would no longer be needing the 500 pounds of peanuts.
Rather than return the nuts, eat the nuts or curse his misfortune, young Philip followed the adage of turning lemons to lemonade and roasted and sold the peanuts on the streets of downtown Charlotte for five cents a bag.
Turns out, the folks of Charlotte were amenable to this concept, and Philip became the Vic the Chili Man of his time, ultimately growing his burgeoning nut biz enough to buy new roasting equipment and a facility on College Street. This machine was able to make the nuts into peanut butter, which in a stroke of brilliance was eventually put on a cracker, which eventually turned into a popular snack among the hungry soldiers during the heyday of Camp Greene in 1917.
As the company grew, tragedy struck the Lance Packing family twice. Both Philip Lance (in 1926) and his business partner and son-in-law, Salem Van Every (in 1943), passed away, leaving the responsibility of running Lance Packing to the 29-year-old Philip Van Every.
The young Philip Van Every inherited a company with $9 million in sales and would grow the company to over $80 million in sales 30 years later, when he retired in 1973. Van Every successfully navigated the pitfalls of a family business, turning it into a large corporation by maintaining delightfully quaint company traditions like a Thanksgiving feast for employees at the factory and Christmas parties at the old (and almost new again!) Carolina Theater. And if that’s not enough of an idyllic story of Southern capitalism for you, the company would pause twice each workday to deliver prayers over the loudspeakers.
In his “spare” time, Philip Van Every also served as mayor pro tem and mayor of Charlotte from 1953-1957. During his two terms, he oversaw the arrival of iconic symbols of Charlotte’s modern growth like Park Road Shopping Center, the completion of Independence Boulevard and Ovens Auditorium.
On the other side of his political stint, Lance debuted in the public equity markets in 1961, and the company’s factory moved down South Boulevard to a new facility in 1962, where it remains today, steps from the Sharon Road West light rail station.
Philip Van Every retired three years after the company’s last five-cent product was made in 1970, and the company continued for decades without family leadership, ultimately merging in 2010 with Snyder’s of Hanover. That entity was acquired in 2018 by Campbell Soup Co. for around $6 billion. Not a bad return on a mistaken order of 500 pounds of peanuts.
In 2019, Philip Van Every was commemorated on the Charlotte Trail of History with a bronze statue along Kings Drive.
John Short is a freelance writer and co-host of The Charlotte Podcast who loves digging up Charlotte’s past and pondering its future. Say hey when you see him on the streetcar.
Other mini-biographies from our “Historical Heavyweights” series:
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This week in Charlotte: New election maps pass General Assembly; Covid numbers improve and mask mandate could lift soon; three tall towers planned between SouthEnd and Uptown
On Saturdays, The Ledger sifts through the local news of the week and links to the top articles — even if they appeared somewhere else. We’ll help you get caught up. That’s what Saturdays are for.
Education
Q&A with Earnest Winston: (QCity Metro) QCity Metro editor Glenn Burkins sat down with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools superintendent Earnest Winston for a discussion that included the district’s low test scores post-Covid, safety in schools and what grade he’d give himself so far as superintendent.
Guns at CMS: Five students were taken into custody and two firearms were seized at Hopewell High School on Wednesday, bringing the total number of guns confiscated at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools campuses this school year to 15.
School funding: (N.C. Policy Watch) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools stands to lose $15.2M in state funding, or the equivalent of about 220 teaching positions, because student enrollment was below projections. Of 115 N.C. school districts, 95 had lower-than-anticipated enrollment.
Politics
Redistricting: (News & Observer) The General Assembly approved new election maps for congressional and state legislative races. The maps, passed on party-line votes, are predicted to be favorable to Republicans. Democrats said the new districts produce an unfair outcome, and the first lawsuit contesting the maps was filed Friday.
Commissioner’s Covid statement: (WFAE) Mecklenburg County Commissioner Vilma Leake on Wednesday night criticized the local rollout of the Covid vaccine and asked whether public health officials are part of a plan to kill Black people. “Is this a part of the plan to get rid of us?” Leake asked county health director Gibbie Harris. Leake has repeatedly said that the county health department first made vaccines available in wealthier, whiter areas rather than places with higher Black populations like west Charlotte. But a WFAE fact-check found that’s not the case.
Local news
Mask mandate lifted soon? (WFAE) Mecklenburg County has a new plan for lifting its mask mandate, after county commissioners decided Wednesday to end the mandate once the average Covid test positivity rate falls below 5% for 7 days in a row. The average percent-positive rate in Mecklenburg County for the past 7 days was 5.5%, according to data released Friday.
Racial equity funding: (Axios Charlotte, Observer, Biz Journal) Some of Charlotte’s best-known business executives and civic leaders announced $196M in commitments to advance racial equity, part of a $250M fundraising goal, with the money going toward job creation in economically troubled areas of the city, providing internet access and improving Johnson C. Smith University. The total includes $72M from the city of Charlotte and $8M from Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. The project, called “The Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative,” will be overseen by the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance, with the money held at Foundation for the Carolinas.
Giant-Size Mini-Con: (WFAE) Some 5,000 to 6,000 comic book aficionados, artists and writers are expected at the Charlotte Convention Center this weekend for the Giant-Size Charlotte Mini-Con. Covid knocked out the highly popular HeroesCon annual event in Charlotte for the last two years, so organizers say they’re excited for this scaled-down version that’ll be somewhere in size between the HeroesCon and the one-day Mini-Con that’s been happening since 1977.
Business
Big development plans: (Biz Journal, Axios Charlotte, Ledger) A Chicago developer announced plans for three towers on the site of Uptown Cabaret, Midnight Diner and several surface parking lots off Morehead Street, between uptown and South End. It’s envisioned as a mixed-use project with offices, apartments and open space.
Charlotte Pipe rezoning: (Ledger 🔒) The request by Charlotte Pipe & Foundry to rezone 55 acres of prime uptown land hit a snag this week, as the city’s Zoning Committee refused to recommend approval of the plans, saying they were too vague. The rezoning would allow a wide range of possible uses – including building a football stadium.
Surgical training center? (Ledger 🔒) Charlotte is in the running to land a North American headquarters of a surgical training center called Ircad, Atrium Health CEO Gene Woods told the City Council on Monday. He said it’s one example of how Atrium’s proposed medical school can attract private companies here.
Real estate cooldown: (Ledger 🔒) House hunters and their Realtors nowadays say they just aren’t willing to do the real estate gymnastics that were required to buy a house in the spring and summer, like putting down enormous over-asking offers on homes sight-unseen or waiving the sellers’ responsibilities to fix defects. Now, many buyers say they’ll wait for more normal real estate times to return. Fall is typically a time when sales and prices dip.
From the Ledger family of newsletters
Furniture giant remembered: (Ways of Life 🔒) Paul Broyhill wasn’t just a leader in the Broyhill furniture legacy, but he was an empathetic developer of people who made a mark in his community through his faith and service to others.
Transit mailbag (Transit Time): This week’s edition of our transit and transportation-themed newsletter shared reader letters on street design, red light cameras, traffic fatalities and more. Plus coverage of a council member’s solo trip to Raleigh to lobby legislators on the transit plan.
When airlines strand you: (Wednesday 🔒) With American Airlines in the news for canceling a bunch of flights last weekend, we turned to a travel pro for tips on navigating flight cancellations. “What these tips mostly come down to is taking matters into your own hands proactively, rather than waiting for the airline to solve the problem for you when they’re completely overwhelmed,” Gary Leff of View from the Wing told us.
Lowe’s building about to sell: (Wednesday 🔒) The new Lowe’s Design Center Tower in South End is under contract, a well-informed source told The Ledger this week. The person also divulged the approximate sales price, which would be a record per square foot for Charlotte, as well as when the deal is expected to close.
Keeper of history: (Monday) Shelia Bumgarner has been described as “a one-person search engine” as it relates to Charlotte’s history. As a librarian in the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room at Charlotte Mecklenburg Library’s main uptown location, she’s helped authors do research for books, schoolchildren write reports for class and journalists track down key research to put stories in perspective. As the main uptown library location prepared to close for demolition and rebuilding, The Ledger down with Bumgarner to hear her personal story and what she’s learned documenting Charlotte all these years.
Flyover Friday: (Friday) The latest installment of the Flyover Friday series presented by The Charlotte Ledger and The 5 and 2 Project has us hovering over Lake Norman waterfront estates, talking to Austin Wrench of Augusta Homes about trends in lakefront real estate and home amenities.
Prom time: (Monday) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools gave schools the go-ahead to start planning proms and other dances this spring. Those have been on hold in CMS since Covid hit in March 2019.
Goodbye, GoodRoad: (Friday 🔒) GoodRoad CiderWorks, a staple in the LoSo beverage scene since 2017 with its ciders and meads, announced this week that it’ll close up after this weekend.
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