CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – Since the Declaration of Independence was signed nearly 250 years ago, maps have played an important role in the development of our country, including here in North Carolina.

But interestingly enough, some of the most important maps in North Carolina weren’t about roads or how to get around.

If you were to visit Chuck Ketchie’s home in Charlotte, you would find it filled with maps…thousands of them.

When asked why he was so fascinated with maps, he said he had to credit his father, who loved history.

Ketchie’s collection includes maps of North Carolina, maps of grist mills, terrain, cities, and towns. He has original maps of just about everything in North Carolina dating back to the 1600s.

“And what they do is they pinpoint the exact location of all the place names in the history of North Carolina,” said Ketchie. “The towns, the communities, post office, churches, cemeteries, mountains, streams, all the place names that have ever been on a map throughout North Carolina history, going back 17 hundred years, are now put on a scaled county map.”

Maps have changed considerably over time. They’re much more detailed now thanks to technology and updated mapping systems. Compare that to the 1700s when the Battle of Kings Mountain was fought. The battle helped turn the tide of the Revolutionary War.

But the map that was used by both sides in the conflict was not as detailed as you might expect, according to Ketchie.

“So what they were looking for with those were, I think, from my military friend, Tom, Waypoints, where the creek, where the fords were, I mean, that was the most important things for those maps, where they could cross the major rivers at, or were strategic locations looking for mills, that early map that I said had 30 mills on it,” Ketchie said. “So they would notice that, and that would be a strategic item possibly, you know, during that war for both sides.”

Maps played an important role in the early development of North Carolina, but not necessarily because of the routes and roadways they showed.

“Those would be county soil maps that were done between 1900 and 1920 by the state of North Carolina to promote our agriculture,” Ketchie said.

In order to attract more people and business to North Carolina, the state used maps to show potential farmers what good soil was available and where.

These older maps are a wonderful window into the history and growth in the state.

“So for historians doing research on their family and they can’t find the town that their grandfather or grandma was born in, it might have changed names or it might have gone away,” Ketchie said. “A lot of towns have gone away. When the post office went through their cleaning period, 1903 was one, a lot of communities disappeared because that was their only mark on the map was a post office, basically.”

When you look at early maps of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, it makes you appreciate just how much the city and county have grown over the years.

“The earliest map from the Spratt collection is 1872,” Ketchie said. “And that’s the William Springs property that went from Providence, Providence Road to Providence, Sharon Amity.”

And a fun fact, Ketchie said most of these early maps were drawn by members of one family.

“Now the Spratts were the official county surveyors in Mecklenburg County from around 1920 up until 1970 when they got rid of the position of official county surveyor,” Ketchie said.

One other aspect beyond what the maps show, and they certainly show a lot, is simply the fact that they are works of art.

“The ones in the 20s, or I mean, they were done on a starched linen paper, which is a unique paper. And these things are 100 years old,” Ketchie said. “It looks like they were done yesterday. So the craftsmanship, you know, some of them have a million lines meeting, and there’s not one. These are hand-drawn maps.”

Ketchie is now in the process of digitizing all those maps and indexing each little nook and cranny on them.

It’s a huge project, but a labor of love for Ketchie, who majored in geography in college.

He’s a printer by trade, and all this map stuff is actually a hobby for him.

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