Historical Heavyweights: The 'Mother' of UNC Charlotte
Historical Heavyweights: The 'Mother' of UNC Charlotte
Plus: Top news of the week — Uptown shooting on New Year's Eve; Former bank CEO Ed Crutchfield dies — Tepper fined for throwing drink — Court affirms Charlotte Latin's right to expel students
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Bonnie Cone: Her vision and tireless advocacy proved the region had sustainable demand for higher education.
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, and for the next few Saturdays, we’re sharing them with you.
by John Short
UNC Charlotte’s logo is built around the pickaxe of a miner.
But the true story behind the 49ers nickname has nothing to do with prospecting for gold.
It has everything to do with tireless and tenacious Bonnie Cone, the administrator-turned-savior of the university that would become the third-largest in the UNC system.
Bonnie Cone, later affectionately known as “Miss Bonnie”, was born in 1907 in Lodge, S.C. After completing her schooling at Coker College and later earning a master’s degree from Duke University, Bonnie would move to Charlotte at the age of 33 to teach at Central High School.
To this point, Cone’s career was primarily in high school education, against a backdrop of a still-forming university education system in North Carolina in the early 1900s. During Cone’s early teaching days, the state’s university system was a collection of disparate state-supported institutions until 1931, when Gov. Max Gardner led an effort to consolidate the schools at Chapel Hill, Raleigh (then State College), and Greensboro (then the North Carolina College for Women) into a single university system with a shared board of trustees.
Bonnie E. Cone, or “Miss Bonnie,” as she was often called, was a dedicated educator and community leader who played an instrumental role in the vision and history of UNC Charlotte. (Courtesy University City Partners)
For the next decade, American resources shifted the focus to supporting the World War II effort but returned to education in 1944, when Congress passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, later known as the “GI Bill”. The bill sought to support returning veterans with a path toward education and civilian careers. The effect of the bill on American life can’t be understated, and by the late 1940s, almost half of all college students in the country were veterans studying under the GI Bill.
Now back to Miss Bonnie.
After a brief stint at Duke University teaching math as the only female faculty member on Duke's all-male West Campus, she moved to Washington, D.C., to study mine detection reports as a statistical analyst in the Naval Ordnance Laboratory to support the war effort. Once her services were no longer needed, she returned to Charlotte and resumed teaching math at Central High School in 1946.
While in this position, Charlotte educational legend Elmer Garinger recruited Cone to also teach part-time at the newly established Charlotte Center of the University of North Carolina. This outpost was among the 14 such institutions created in 1945 by the GI Bill to expand the capacity of the North Carolina educational system and serve local veterans so they didn’t have to travel to other parts of the state to be educated.
The Charlotte Center was opened in September 1946, serving 278 students, and exclusively teaching evening classes and used the facility at Central High School on Elizabeth Avenue. After the school was operational for a year, Cone was elevated to acting director of the school.
By 1949, the state legislature determined that the facilities had served their purpose in educating returning veterans and moved to close the 14 centers created by the GI bill.
This conflict is where the Legend of Miss Bonnie as the champion of Charlotte’s higher education was born. Despite the opinions of state leadership that Charlotte no longer needed the Charlotte Center, the educational and economic leadership of Charlotte at the time had believed for a number of years that the region had sustainable demand for higher education.
Cone, as acting director of the school, was among the leaders of a cohort that ultimately traveled to Raleigh to make the case to leave the Charlotte Center open, moving it under control of the Charlotte city school district and operating as a two year school known as Charlotte College.
After Cone’s impassioned plea to the legislature, which pointed out that students would have to travel more than 90 miles away to the closest public university, the Legislature demurred, and Charlotte College was born.
To fund the school in the short term, the Charlotte Board of Education granted Cone a $10,000 grant to operate Charlotte College for five years. During these early years of her leadership, the school set about becoming a proper two-year institution, adopting school colors of maroon and gray and the nickname “Owls” as classes were still primarily taught at night. The school even fielded a football team.
Once the board grant ran out, Cone lobbied city leadership for a special election to support a 2-cent tax to support the school. The proposal passed, and continued funding for the school was secured, once again thanks to Bonnie Cone.
Years later, Charlotte College had outgrown its campus in the city, and in 1961 moved into new buildings in its current location, 10 miles from the city, thanks to another local bond vote and Mecklenburg County's gift of land.
This move prompted another change in addition to the move, as the school adopted the nickname “49ers” after a student vote, to commemorate the year the school was saved thanks to Bonnie Cone’s vision and tireless efforts culminating in her 1949 trip to Raleigh to save the school from closing.
In 1965, Cone once again traveled to Raleigh, this time to convince the legislature to adopt Charlotte College as the fourth member of the University of North Carolina system. On March 2, 1965, the legislature agreed, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte was officially a four-year institution, joining UNC Chapel Hill, N.C. State and UNC Greensboro as part of the UNC system. Upon Bonnie’s return home, she was greeted with a surprise reception from students and faculty as the UNC Charlotte community celebrated the milestone.
Cone and UNC Charlotte’s efforts even made national news, being featured in the July 16, 1965, edition of Time magazine, which detailed the story of Charlotte College’s journey to joining the UNC System.
Cone would remain an integral part of the UNC Charlotte system for decades, and her name is immortalized on campus with the naming of the Bonnie E. Cone University Center student union building.
She passed away in 2003 in Saluda, S.C., and was posthumously inducted into the Order of the Long Leaf Pine to recognize her contributions to the history of North Carolina.
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.
➡️ This is the start of our third season of “Historical Heavyweights.” For previous installments of this feature — including profiles of settler Thomas Polk, doctor J.T. Williams, businessman Edward Dilworth Latta, westside visionary Henry L. McCrorey, snack pioneer Philip Van Every and more — check out our Historical Heavyweights page.
This week in Charlotte: 5 shot uptown on New Year’s Eve; Bank titan Ed Crutchfield dies; Tepper fined $300,000 for throwing a drink at a fan
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.
Local news
Focus on uptown safety after NYE shootings: (WFAE) Charlotte City Council member Tariq Bokhari has suggested the formation of a task force to address public safety in uptown Charlotte, particularly focusing on data-driven approaches and addressing youth crime, following a shooting on New Year's Eve at Romare Bearden Park uptown that injured five people.
Pornhub blocks North Carolina access to website: (WSOC) One of the world's largest pornography websites, Pornhub, has blocked access to users in North Carolina due to a new state law that requires age verification. The site redirects users to a message urging them to ask lawmakers to oppose the law, which allows parents to sue porn websites if their child accesses the site.
Education
Students missing programs because of ‘opt-in’ rules: (WFAE) CMS is facing a significant drop in participation in sex education, health screenings and well-being surveys due to changes in response to North Carolina's Parents’ Bill of Rights, which requires explicit parental consent for participation.
Partnership grows: (Ledger 🔒) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and the Charlotte Executive Leadership Council are growing their partnership, in which Charlotte-area businesses loan their executives on a full or part-time basis, as well as offering the school district other types of help like leadership programs and loaned meeting space.
Business
In memoriam: (Observer) Ed Crutchfield, former CEO of First Union, a predecessor to Wells Fargo, passed away at the age of 82, leaving behind a legacy of shaping Charlotte into a national banking center alongside rival Hugh McColl Jr.
Tim Newman sentenced to 3 years for probation violation: (Observer) Tim Newman, a former top business leader in Charlotte, has been sentenced to serve three years of an original five-year sentence after a South Carolina judge revoked his probation, alleging new offenses and leaving the state.
Sports
Tepper fined for drink-throwing: (Associated Press) Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper was fined $300,000 by the NFL after being caught on video throwing the contents of his drink at a fan at Sunday’s game in Jacksonville, Fla. Tepper said in a statement: “I am deeply passionate about this team and regret my behavior on Sunday.”
From the Ledger family of newsletters
Wednesday (🔒)
N.C. appeals court sides with Charlotte Latin: The N.C. Court of Appeals has affirmed Charlotte Latin School's right to expel two students, following their father's objections to the school's alleged political curriculum. The Turpin family plans to appeal to the N.C. Supreme Court.
Vandalism at Big Rock: Big Rock Nature Preserve in the Ballantyne area was vandalized last week on its historic granite boulders. Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation workers are cleaning up the graffiti, and no culprit has been identified.
Local companies with best-performing stocks in 2023: In 2023, Charlotte-based manufacturing companies outpaced major indexes, with Jeld-Wen leading the local pack with a 96% stock price increase.
South Charlotte post office shuffle: The U.S. Postal Service might be relocating the Rea Farms post office to a former Petco near Trader Joe's in Piper Glen, following the announcement of the closure of the Providence Road post office last September. While USPS says it doesn’t know of any plans to relocate to the former Petco, leasing agents for the shopping center suggest that plans have been in motion for months, prompting concerns about potential parking challenges in the already congested area.
Friday (🔒)
Duke Energy text blast about conserving power: Duke Energy alerted Charlotte customers Thursday to minimize power consumption due to expected high demand, initially causing concerns of potential blackouts, but later clarified it was an educational message, not indicating reliability issues.
Free cookies returning to Harris Teeter? Harris Teeter hints at the revival of its longstanding tradition of offering free cookies in stores through a video featuring mascot Harry the Happy Dragon making what appears to be cookie dough, with an upcoming public announcement scheduled for next week regarding the cookies' potential return after being removed during Covid.
A hot meeting in Pineville over substation: More than 200 people turned out for a community meeting in Pineville on Thursday to express concerns over a proposed electrical substation's impact on property values, health risks and aesthetics.
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Business manager: Brie Chrisman, BC Creative