The merchant who energized uptown

Good morning! Today is Saturday, October 10, 2026. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.

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Editor’s note: You see their names on street signs or parks, but who were some of the big-name people from decades ago who shaped Charlotte? They have fascinating stories, and for the next few Saturdays, we’re sharing them with you.

by John Short

If Charlotte were personified, that person would have to be an aggressive commercial innovator, a devoted civic patriarch and a person steeped in uncompromising religious piety.

More than a few characters from Charlotte’s past fit that bill, but Joseph Benjamin (J.B.) Ivey may be the best candidate of the modern era to meet the criteria.

Ivey’s impact in Charlotte is still felt to this day in the city’s built environment, as well as a cultural legacy of New South diligence and prosperity. 

Ivey was born in Shelby in 1864 as the Civil War was winding down. The son of an itinerant preacher, J.B. and his siblings spent their early years in and out of schools around the Carolina Piedmont as his father, Methodist preacher George Washington Ivey, ran the regional ministerial circuit.

The Iveys ultimately settled in Denver, N.C., and J.B. enrolled in Denver Seminary. Deeply pious, Ivey enjoyed teaching Sunday School, a weekly responsibility he’d continue throughout his life.

Because of his poor eyesight, Ivey’s academic pursuits were limited, but at 17, he apprenticed at a family friend’s general store in Belwood, Cleveland County. This entry into the world of retail captivated the young merchant, and he brought a religious zeal to exploring the possibilities of the business.

At the time, trade in rural North Carolina relied primarily on a subjective, opaque barter system or arbitrary haggling for virtually all goods in the store. The young Ivey’s innovation was to implement a fixed “one-price” system popularized up North to ease customer confusion and simplify the buying experience.

In addition to pricing consistency, young J.B. quickly saw the value of marketing and promotion on the customer experience. Recognizing the draw that a spectacle could bring to the shelves and wares of a retail store, Ivey would draw crowds to the store with events featuring hot air balloons and brass bands, major happenings in the rural countryside in the late 19th century.

After stints at a handful of other retail stops in the region, Ivey ultimately landed in Charlotte in 1900, opening a small dry goods shop just off of Trade and Tryon streets in downtown. The first day of the shop’s operations yielded a tidy $33.18.

The early years at the modest dry goods shop honed J.B.’s mercantile instincts, notably being early to anticipate a fashion craze around brass buttons and moving to corner the local market by buying up regional inventory.

In 1903, Ivey would meet his perfect complement in business in David Ovens, who had recently arrived in Charlotte to manage a nearby five-and-dime store. Quickly seeing the promise in a partnership, Ivey brought Ovens on as a junior partner in 1905.

Ovens possessed an aggressive ambition that pushed Ivey to expand the commercial possibilities of the business. Ovens and Ivey would travel to commercial hubs like New York to strike sourcing deals directly from manufacturers and continued their reliance on theatrical retail promotions to draw attention to the store, including tossing unsold end-of-season hats from upper-story windows into throngs of shoppers. The two also pioneered the early use of retail credit, offering revolving credit lines in order to attract an affluent clientele.

Eventually outgrowing the tiny rented space near The Square, J.B. Ivey & Co. moved to a five-story location at 13-15 N. Tryon St. in 1914, where the store was until 1924.

That year, J.B. Ivey & Co. moved into its iconic Tryon Street location on the corner of Fifth Street today. Designed by influential architect William H. Peeps, the building was a retail mecca on the bustling downtown Charlotte streetscape. Its grand display windows, high ceilings and refined architectural accents made the store the major regional retail destination of the Carolina Piedmont.

Despite the street-level glitz of his retail empire, Ivey remained deeply pious, and that devoutness influenced the store’s operations. On Saturday nights, the store would pull heavy drapes down over display windows to prevent the temptation for Sunday family walks down Tryon to turn into worldly shopping excursions. The new Ivey’s downtown store even included a cozy 8-by-9 prayer chapel inside the store for employees or shoppers who sought a quiet prayer.

Additionally, Ivey’s would never advertise in Sunday newspapers, wouldn’t stock playing cards, dice, or goods associated with drinking, and no Ivey’s employees were allowed to make business-related travel on the Sabbath.

J.B. Ivey, however, was not a joyless scold bereft of personal enrichment. As the founding president of the Charlotte Garden Club, he was an avid horticulturist with a fondness for tending his tulips, gladiolus and dahlias at his home in Myers Park (featuring a miniature working Dutch windmill). Ivey’s fondness for all things flowers was featured in the Tryon Street store, where the fourth-floor Tulip Terrace restaurant would serve an “Ivey leaf plate” of chicken salad on leaf-shaped ceramics.

By 1937, the Ivey retail network had expanded to 23 locations across North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. It became a major presence in Charlotte’s uptown culture, especially as the city boomed in the post-World War II era. The store windows drew people every Christmas season.

The retail trends that came with that boom and flight out of downtowns to suburban homes and shopping malls affected all retailers, including other large department stores like Belk and Efird’s, which moved to the suburbs. 

In 1980, J.B. Ivey & Co. was acquired by Marshall Field & Co. A decade later, Ivey's was purchased by Dillard’s, which promptly closed the downtown Charlotte store, ending a nine-decade run of Ivey’s in what was Charlotte’s major retail district in the early 20th century.

A testament to the good living he professed, J.B. lived until the age of 93, passing away in 1958, just two months shy of his 94th birthday. He is buried in uptown’s Historic Elmwood Cemetery.  

There is poetic irony in Charlotte’s current urban retail ambitions. For decades after department stores abandoned downtown for SouthPark and Eastland, uptown’s streetscapes retreated behind corporate towers and climate-controlled skywalks, draining the sidewalk of pedestrian energy. 

Today, city planners and developers have spent millions attempting to re-engineer what J.B. Ivey built organically: an animated, walkable street level anchored by transparent picture windows, human-scale spectacle and sidewalk-level retail. 

Yet the historic 1924 landmark Ivey’s building remains preserved at Fifth and North Tryon as The Ivey's boutique hotel and luxury condominiums, a monument to the merchant who blended innovative business practices with uncompromising personal principles, and left an unmistakable mark on Charlotte’s civic culture.

John Short is a freelance writer, co-host of The Charlotte Podcast and a member of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission who loves digging up Charlotte’s past and pondering its future. Say hey when you see him on the streetcar.

Related Historical Heavyweights profiles:

➡️ You can find links to more than two dozen Historical Heavyweights profiles by John Short at The Ledger’s Historical Heavyweights page.

Today's Charlotte Ledger is sponsored by Carnegie Private Wealth. At Carnegie Private Wealth, we bring clarity to complexity. Through thoughtful planning and personal attention, we help you pursue opportunities and reclaim time for what matters most.

The Charlotte Ledger held its first of four in-person financial panels this week – and there are three more coming up on Wednesdays for the rest of October.

We had a great turnout at the Mint Museum, with lots of thoughtful questions and an engaging discussion about budgeting, building and using credit, investing, student loans and talking with family about money.

It’s part of a free series we’re calling “Facing Your Financial Fears: Smart Money Across Generations,” presented by Dyer & Company. Each week in October, an expert panel discusses money topics aimed at different generations. This week it was Gen Z. Next Wednesday (10/14): millennials. So come get some of your financial anxieties eased. We’ll also have beer, wine, other drinks and light snacks.

➡️ You can register for a future session here (it’s free).

And check out the video of this week’s session:

On Saturdays, The Ledger sifts through the local news of the week and links to the top articles — even if they appeared somewhere else. We’ll help you get caught up. That’s what Saturdays are for.

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