Standing on the wooded hillside you can see suburban houses through the leafless trees and hear the roar of cars on a highway. But next to the Big Rock, these reminders of the everyday fade as you feel the pull of time.
An outcropping of granite some 40 feet high, tall as a two-story building, the Big Rock for thousands of years was significant for Native Americans. From its height they scanned the horizon for game. Within its cracks they found shelter.
Now, after years of being isolated and then defaced, the Big Rock is getting needed attention.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission recently voted to nominate it and the surrounding 23 acres for historic designation.
If approved by the Charlotte City Council, the Big Rock will be the first of more than 300 historic landmarks in Mecklenburg County associated with Native Americans. It also will be the first created by natural forces rather than by human hands.
Also, plans are under way by the Park and Recreation Department to make the county-owned rock and its site on Elmstone Drive a nature preserve.
In a business-intense community focused on the immediate, the Big Rock can function as a kind of time machine, connecting to a barely acknowledged past and a different way of life.
"There are not too many places I go that I get goose bumps," said Dan Morrill, consulting director of the landmarks commission as he stood next to the Big Rock, "but I get goose bumps here."
Gathering place
Until recently, the Big Rock was isolated, known mostly to people in the Providence community around Rea Road.But it's been overtaken by growth.
The Thornhill development, built in 1989 off Elm Lane, borders it. Stonecrest shopping center and Interstate 485 are nearby.
Yet the site itself is largely unchanged. Visitors can still see why the this place was important to Native Americans.
There's water, a spring and a branch of Four Mile Creek. The Big Rock stands on the top of a hill. Anyone who climbed it could see for long distances, particularly when the area was treeless. And the Big Rock has cracked, its fissures creating two large spaces where people could get out of the wind and build a fire.
In his survey report, Morrill concludes the Big Rock was used by ancient Native Americans. Archaeological remains puts people there continuously from about 7,000 years ago.
The Big Rock was not a permanent settlement. The Native Americans who came there were nomadic and would stop to hunt, gather food and move on.
History is layered at the Big Rock.
A 1987 archaeological survey found bits of pottery, sharp-edged waste material, stone and bone tools, animal bones, shells, plant remains and a musket ball.
The Big Rock also has more recent artifacts -- fast food wrappers, beer cans, broken glass. Since the area has been developed, the rounded gray rocks have been defaced with spray-painted graffiti.
There's "Jenny & Mike," "Bat Cave" and renderings of skyscrapers, an airplane and a robot. County workers use white paint to cover the graffiti, giving the Big Rock a spotted look.
Michael Stitt, past president of the Thornhill Homeowners Association, said teenagers outside the neighborhood come to the Big Rock. Apparently kids hanging out at Stonecrest walk over.
With attention, the condition of the place should change.
"There's no question that now it's going to be administered more carefully than it has been," said Morrill.
Michael Kirschman of park and recreation said if the site is approved as a nature preserve, and money becomes available, eroded trails will be repaired, benches and trash cans added and signage installed so people know what they're looking at.
He also mentioned adding parking spaces.
Stitt, speaking for himself, said he didn't think the neighborhood wanted parking or a shelter. He said neighbors recognize the value of the Big Rock and want to see it protected, the reason the association pushed historic designation.
He added, "I'm not real keen on having lots of traffic in my neighborhood, like most people in Charlotte."
Morrill said how the county handles the site will be key.
The City Council vote on designating the Big Rock likely will come in May and if approved, the landmarks commission will have design review over the park department's plans.
Morrill said the Big Rock can help educate people about a culture long vanished. But, he added, the rock and the site have great power as it is.
"It transports you," he said, "out of the envelope of the time you're living in."
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