Charlotte Museum of History and the 1774 Alexander Rock House

Charlotte Museum of History

3500 Shamrock Drive, Charlotte, NC 28215 · (704) 568-1774

The Alexander Rock House — the Hezekiah Alexander House — has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 17 April 1970. The Park Service's record puts its period of significance at 1750–1799 and names 1774, 1775 and 1776 as significant years, with politics/government and architecture as its areas of significance.

What is on the campus

Beyond the Rock House, admission includes a springhouse and a kitchen.

The newest arrival is the Siloam School, a historic African American school building that was relocated to the east Charlotte campus in September 2023 and opened to the public in June 2024. That is recent enough that a good many published guides to Charlotte do not mention it.

Indoors there are four galleries with permanent and rotating exhibits covering, in the museum's own words, more than 400 years of the region's history. On the grounds stands the American Freedom Bell, seven feet tall, seven feet wide and weighing seven and a half tons, donated by the Belk Foundation in 2000 and described by the museum as the largest bell of its type in the world.

The museum is a Smithsonian Affiliate.

Practical

Entry to the Rock House itself is by scheduled time slot rather than whenever you like, so check the schedule before you plan around it. The museum offers free parking for cars and buses. It publishes a dedicated accessibility page — worth reading first if you need it, since a half-century-old museum building and a 250-year-old stone house present different problems.

Current hours, ticket prices and Rock House tour times are on the museum's own site.

Nearby

The museum sits in east Charlotte, close to the Reedy Creek Nature Center and Preserve at 2986 Rocky River Road and the Hickory Grove library branch. It is a reasonable pairing with a walk on Irvins Creek or Campbell Creek greenway.

Last checked: 13 September 2026.