Trail of History & Charlotte Liberty Walk

The Trail of History is a privately funded 501(c)(3) non-profit organization formed in 2005 to recapture and preserve the significance of key people who contributed to the history, growth, and development of Mecklenburg County by erecting larger-than-life representative statues along the urban section of the Little Sugar Creek Greenway, a 16-mile natural treasure that runs through the heart of Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

Trail of History individuals are chosen for commemoration by a select committee of local historians through a rigorous process. The bronze statues represent Mecklenburg County’s ethnic, religious, political, and gendered diversity across the 250-year history.

The Spirit of Mecklenburg was the first statue erected on The Trail of History in 2010, depicting Captain James Jack on his horse bearing the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence on his ride to Philadelphia in 1775.

Currently, there are eleven statue sites on the Little Sugar Creek Greenway in Midtown Charlotte. They include Thomas Spratt and Chief King Haigler, leader of the Catawba nation in the mid-18th century; Jane Wilkes, a leader in Charlotte health care in the 1800s; Thaddeus Tate, African American entrepreneur and philanthropist; William Henry Belk; James B. Duke; Thomspon Orphanage; Philip Lance Van Every; Julius Chambers, civil rights leader; and Dr. Annie Alexander, the first licensed female physician in North Carolina. 

Three more statue sites are in the fundraising phase, expected to be erected by 2027, including African-American educators George and Marie Davis.