Welcome to the Hidden Valley Community – Charlotte site. This is a joint effort between The Hidden Valley Community Development Corporation (CDC), the Hidden Valley Community Association, The Hidden Valley Optimist Club, and our various partnering groups, organizations and agencies.
This venture is a continuation of our efforts to keep the Hidden Valley Community informed of important events and changes in and around our community. Thank you for stopping in and we hope you’ll visit our platforms often. If you have questions or comments, please use the contact form to get in touch with us; and we’ll reply as soon as we can. We appreciate you and hope the resources you find here prove to be useful.
Hidden Valley History:
In the 1960’s, Developer George S. Goodyear built one of Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest subdivision communities, Hidden Valley. It is five miles from the center of uptown Charlotte, twenty miles from Charlotte-Douglas Airport, five miles from two large medical centers, and its boundaries are North Tryon Street, West Sugar Creek and Reagan Drive and Tom Hunter Road. It includes four-thousand five hundred single-family houses. Mr. Goodyear used a story-book theme for Hidden Valley with streets named Cinderella Road, Candy Stick Lane, Snow White Street and Hidden Forest Road. The community was occupied with all-white residents or homeowners until the 1970’s, when it was integrated with African Americans home buyers.
“White flight” is the termed used to describe Whites selling their homes to African Americans out of fear and misinformation regarding, property value, schools, crime, and other social issues. There was resistance from some of the white homeowners, and as a result, the homes of black residents were shot into and experienced cross-burnings on lawns. The integration continued through the seventies and eighties, as blacks and other minority groups purchased homes in Hidden Valley.
The African American buyers soon became the majority homeowners, as most whites moved out of the neighborhood. As the majority African American residents, the neighbors formed several influential organizations, acquired several previously white-owned neighborhood churches, and started neighborhood businesses.
In support of the integration of Hidden Valley Elementary School, the residents responded to Judge James B. Mc Millan’s court order to end segregation of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in 1970. The black residents formed the Hidden Valley Community Association (HVCA) in 1975 to address busing of the children, and other issues of the community. The Hidden Valley Optimist Club of Charlotte, NC (HVOC) is a not-for-profit service club chartered in 1979. Similarly, the Hidden Valley Community Development Corporation (HVCDC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization was chartered in 1996. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Lynx Blue Light Rail service has caused the acceleration of apartments construction bringing more residents into the neighborhood. As a result, Hidden Valley community continues to grow. The neighborhood has become a destination for many, that live and work in Charlotte.
Written by:
Priscilla Duncan, Patricia McDonald, and John F. Wall.
HiddenValleyClt 