Mint Museum

The Federal-style mint building was designed by architect William Strickland, and Perry & Ligon of Raleigh began construction in 1836. It opened on July 27, 1837, on West Trade Street, as a branch of the United States Mint, and Wikipedia describes it as the first branch mint. Before the Civil War it coined about $5 million in gold. The federal assay office that later occupied the building closed permanently in 1913.

In the early 1930s, plans to expand the adjacent post office threatened the building. Community protests delayed demolition, and in 1933 Mary Myers Dwelle led a group to save the Mint and found an art museum. After the Treasury said it had no objection to a move, citizens raised $950 to dismantle the building and rebuild it on donated land on Randolph Road, with federal relief agencies funding reconstruction between 1933 and 1936. The museum opened to the public on October 22, 1936.

The Randolph site was expanded in 1967 and 1985 and was listed as a Charlotte-Mecklenburg landmark in 1976. The Delhom Wing opened in 1968 to house about 2,000 pieces of historic pottery and porcelain purchased from M. Mellanay Delhom. A Costume Collection was founded in 1972, now the basis of the museum's fashion holdings, and the library was dedicated in 1976. In 1980 the museum mounted the first major retrospective of Charlotte-born artist Romare Bearden, which then toured nationally, and a permanent Bearden gallery was established in 2004. The 1988-89 exhibition Ramesses the Great drew more than 600,000 visitors, according to the museum.

The Mint Museum of Craft + Design opened in 1999 in uptown Charlotte. In October 2010 the museum opened Mint Museum Uptown, designed by Machado and Silvetti Associates of Boston, in the Levine Center for the Arts. Wikipedia describes it as about 145,000 square feet over five floors and reports an estimated cost of $57 million. It houses the Craft + Design collection, which focuses on glass, metal, fiber, wood, clay, jewelry and furniture, along with contemporary, American and some European art.

Between the two sites, the museum highlights Craft + Design, the Delhom pottery and porcelain collection, Art of the Ancient Americas, fashion, and Romare Bearden's work, along with contemporary art and craft by African American artists. The museum also maintains a library of more than 19,000 volumes.

The two sites keep different schedules and rotate exhibitions, so check the museum for current hours, admission and which galleries are on view. On a Voyzo private tour, a private vehicle and driver with door-to-door pickup makes it simple to visit both sites in one outing.