The Arts & Science Council, Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s chief policymaking authority for public and private spending on the city’s and county’s cultural activities, is losing sight of the historical significance of its oldest fine arts gallery, according to some longtime supporters of the Mint Museum of Art.

The ASC wants to move the Mint’s works to a yet-undetermined site uptown, from its current location on Randolph Road in the Eastover neighborhood, a development of homes built in the 1920s and 1930s. Elected officials, business leaders, and economic developers want to create a mass of cultural offerings in uptown, which they expect to lure visitors and their dollars.

The ASC estimates that moving the Mint’s works to a larger facility in “Center City” would cost about $90 million, including $50 million in capital costs and a $40 million endowment.

“I’m so much against it, that I’m just sick,” said Betty Griffin, a longtime supporter of the Mint whose father helped finance its relocation from downtown in 1933. “It’s just the most stupid thing to move that museum.”

“We almost don’t have anything in Charlotte as historic as that is,” said another patron who did not want to be identified. She said she has been involved with the Mint for more than 50 years.

The first branch outside Philadelphia of the U.S. Mint was built near the intersection of West Trade Street and Mint Street in uptown Charlotte, and opened in 1837. According to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, “the Piedmont was the largest producer of gold in the U.S.” at the time.

The building served as a mint until the Civil War, then later served as a federal courthouse and several other purposes until plans to expand a nearby Post Office led to its threatened demolition in 1933.

According to a written history compiled by Betty Griffin, local lawyer and historian Julia Alexander called upon fellow Charlotteans to help save the Mint building. Griffin’s father, Dr. Joseph Shull, and a few other citizens formed the Mint Museum Society. The group sought to raise $1,500 in order to move the Mint to its Eastover Park location on land that was donated by E.C. Griffith, the neighborhood’s developer.

“When the drive to raise funds faltered short of its goal, Dr. Shull offered a gesture of faith that inspired the community resolve to complete the project,” his biography says. “Having already watched his wife’s family fortune lost in bank stocks that became worthless overnight, Dr. Shull put up the one thing of value he owned as collateral in purchasing the old Mint — his X-ray machines.” Charlotte Observer articles from 1933 confirm Dr. Shull’s role in the Mint’s relocation.

In 1934 Dr. Shull persuaded Sen. R. R. Reynolds to sponsor the reconstruction of the Mint under Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civil Works Administration. The Mint was dismantled stone by stone, with each one numbered, Griffin said, and rebuilt at its present location in Eastover. It opened as the Mint Museum of Art in 1936.

The ASC gives three reasons for moving the Mint Museum to uptown:

• More space is needed for the Mint’s collections, exhibits, programs, and audience;

• “The current city-owned site is in a flood plain, which along with property deed restrictions, limit expansion potential to about half of near-term needs. Also, the site is isolated from Center City visitor traffic;”

• “A Center City location would allow the Mint to serve residents and visitors better by establishing a destination attraction for Charlotte.”

Supporters of the Mint’s current location say that those are excuses, and that the powerful business and political leaders “want everything uptown.”

“I can’t tell you how much that Mint has meant to Charlotte,” Griffin said. “You just don’t tear down things like that.”

Paul Chesser is associate editor of Carolina Journal.