Mecklenburg County was formed from Anson County in 1763 for the hometown of Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in Germany who became the bride of England's King George III in 1762. When a town was established within the county in 1768, founders named it "Charlotte Town" for Queen Charlotte.

Historians report that the county settlement by immigrants began in the early 1700's primarily from the North along the "Trading Path", an old Indian Trail, and from the South along the rivers from Charleston. Immigrants were predominately Scotch-Irish and were not threatened by the native residents, the Catawba Indians. By 1775, many settlements and churches had been established by families such as Alexander, Polk, Latta, Selwyn, Davidson, Harris, Graham, and Torance, to name a few. Early churches included Hopewell, Rocky River, Sugaw Creek, Steele Creek, and Providence, all established in the 1750's and '60's.

Fiercely independent and wanting to remain that way, the leading citizens of Mecklenburg County drafted the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence in 1775.

Gold was discovered around 1800 and Mecklenburg soon became the location for the Charlotte Mint and so it is only fitting that it is today the home of two of the top ten banks in the United States.

In Charlotte, the 1920s was a time of development as new industries flocked to the city. By 1930, Charlotte became city in the Carolinas.

After World War II, a new era in Mecklenburg County history began to unfold. By 1948 a new ring of suburbs sprang up around the early twentieth century neighborhoods of Charlotte. Accommodations for the automobile also began to have greater impact with the widening of roads, such as Independence Boulevard in the 1940s and the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s. With better roads, stores began to migrate from the center city to suburban shopping centers. These new developments meant that rural Mecklenburg County would see rapid growth.