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Steele Creek Township Shrinks, and Shrinks Some More (December 21, 2010) Steel Creek Township was established under the North Carolina Constitution of 1868. The spelling of the community name apparently changed from Steel Creek to Steele Creek some time during the early 1900's. As the City of Charlotte has annexed, area from Steele Creek Township has been transferred to Charlotte Township, which is coextensive with the city. As a result, Steele Creek Township has become smaller and smaller. Recently, Mecklenburg County NCGenWeb requested a map of Mecklenburg County townships from Karen Isley of Mecklenburg County Geospatial Information Services. (See Mecklenburg Township Map.) She used historic property maps to determine precise locations of the county's township boundaries and produce the map. During this project, Ms. Isely discovered that the township boundaries shown on Census Bureau maps did not match those she determined from her research. She reported the corrections to the Census Bureau in 2009. As a result, the northern boundary of Steele Creek Township on current census maps is approximately 1000 feet south of where it was on 2000 census maps. Thus, in addition to shrinking from Charlotte annexations, Steele Creek Township has shrunk some more due to this boundary correction.
Steele Creek Township appears to have lost about 60 houses, plus the Steele Creek American Legion building. If it had not already been annexed by Charlotte, the Steele Creek Presbyterian Church also would have moved out of the township. Is it possible that this historic church, which was the inspiration for the name Steele Creek being applied to the entire southwest corner of Mecklenburg County, was actually outside the original township boundary? Geographic boundaries from the 2010 census were released today. Census population counts and other data for small geographic areas will be released in February or March. Once that data is available, this web site will present a new Steele Creek community map and updated census counts. So stay tuned. To see a map showing historic boundaries of Steele Creek Township (pre-correction), see Steele Creek Township Shrinks as Charlotte Annexes. To comment on this story, please visit the Steele Creek Residents Association Message Board. |
