We’re Just Crazy About Johnny Fly’s Leather Rolltop Backpack
Photography by Lisa Crates
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Even though we’d rather not take our work home with us, it’s inevitable. So if you have to do it, why not do it in style with the Leather Rolltop Backpack by Johnny Fly Co.? This backpack features solid brass fittings that won’t rust, tarnish or leave black marks, and it’s constructed with lightweight, naturally water resistant Moroccan leather. In addition, it has padded adjustable arm straps and an internal computer storage sleeve. Go ahead, get packing. You can purchase this Leather Rolltop Backpack by Johnny Fly Co. for $280 at LUMEN at Luna’s at the Lake, 19732 One Norman Boulevard, #320, Cornelius. You can also visit Luna’s on Facebook.
Beneath The Surface
What’s in a Name? NOVEMBER 2016
12 LAKE NORMAN CURRENTS
Back in August, we told you the stories behind some popular sites around Lake Norman. In an area changing as fast as north Mecklenburg and southern Iredell, it’s easy to overlook history, but it is all around — in things as seemingly mundane as street names. Here’s another installment of What’s In a Name: Lake Norman Edition. Cowan’s Ford Hydroelectric Station — The dam and power station that sits at the Mecklenburg/ Lincoln County border holds a unique position in the area’s history. While the dam and power station are responsible for the creation of Lake Norman, and thus its future, its name harkens back to the earliest days of the area’s history. Before the lake, the Catawba River provided water and fertile land for growing crops. But being shallow and rocky, it was impassible by most boats and an obstacle for transportation. Early European settlers, and the Native American tribes
that inhabited the land before them, used the shallowest spots, or fords, to cross on foot, horseback or wagon. The fords came to be named for the families who lived nearby, and the Lake Norman area today is filled with their names — Sherrill’s Ford, Beatties Ford and, of course, Cowan’s Ford. In 1781, in the final months of the American Revolution, American troops camped out near Cowan’s Ford heard British troops were approaching the river. In the early morning darkness on February 1, 5,000 British soldiers charged on Cowan’s Ford, overpowering the 900 American militias and sending them scattering up the muddy road toward Salisbury. One of the casualties of the battle was American General William Davidson, for whom Davidson College would later be named. In the late 1950s, when Duke Power was making plans for Lake Norman and the hydroelectric plant that would run there, the company chose Revolutionary War
William B. McGuire
imagery to announce the plans. While it had become standard practice at Duke to name plants after high-ranking officials, the company decided to keep the history name. Today, just across the street from the plant’s entrance, a replica Revolutionary cannon and historic marker pay tribute to the area’s history. McGuire Nuclear Station — Duke Power took a more traditional route in naming the first nuclear power station in the Lake Norman area, despite the fact that there was nothing traditional or simple about opening the McGuire Nuclear Station. Though plans for the plant were initially released in 1969, it would take almost 11
years and serious opposition from environmentalists and neighbors for the plant to finally open. When it did, the company named the plant after William B. McGuire, the seventh president of the Duke Power Company, who had joined the company as a young law school graduate from Duke University in 1933. McGuire rose in the ranks to president in 1959, just as the company broke ground on the Cowan’s Ford project. A photo shows him with North Carolina’s Luther Hodges helping to start the first charges of dynamite that would begin the Cowan’s Ford dam project. McGuire would remain president until 1971, long before the nuclear station that bore his name finally opened. He died in 2012 at the age of 102. — Chuck McShane, photography courtesy of the Duke Endowment Chuck McShane is director of research at the Charlotte Chamber and the author of A History of Lake Norman: Fish Camps and Ferraris. Contact him at chuckmcshane@gmail.com . On Twitter: @chuckmcshane