1907 Oaklawn Avenue

During the 1920s-30 Oaklawn Avenue became a prestigious suburban address for African American physicians, ministers and other leaders. 1907 Oaklawn Avenue first appeared in the 1932 city directory, occupied by Rev. William Moore and wife Sallie. Subsequent directories through 1937 listed him as Rev. Wade H. Moore, but did not indicate his church, nor give an occupation for her.

About 1938, Alexander W. Davis and wife Leila bought the house, living here for twenty years. He was a porter at Pound and Moore, the city’s leading office supply store, and she taught at Myers Street School. Most businesses in that era employed a “porter” as a jack-of-all trades delivering packages, running errands and doing light building maintenance. Davis eventually joined the Federal Reserve Bank, one of Charlotte’s most prestigious institutions, where he was initially listed as “porter” and later as “clerk.”

In 1956-57 the couple built a new brick house next door at 1911 Oaklawn Avenue. They kept 1907 Oaklawn as a rental property, along with adjoining 1901 Oaklawn, into the 1970s.

In 1974 the City of Charlotte used its eminent domain power to take land on both sides of Oaklawn Avenue in order to widen the the street. The project was part of a planned thoroughfare that would have included present-day Matheson Avenue in the NoDa area. Community activists, especially in the neighborhood that became known as Plaza Midwood, succeeded in blocking the plan but not before Oaklawn Avenue was widened. Alexander and Leila Davis were compelled to sell about twenty feet of lawn in front of their two houses at 1907 and 1911 Oaklawn and they also had to sell land they held adjacent to 1901 Oaklawn.