Ditching checks, gas shortages, and familiar growth: This week in Charlotte news history

Take a look through this week’s history in Charlotte news, and you may get the sense that some stories have remained the same for decades.

1976 - Leaving the checkbook behind

Way before Zelle, Venmo or CashApp, banks were imagining a world without checks.

“Very soon, it may be possible to go through an entire lifetime and not write another check,” Channel 9 reported at the time.

It was the first week of a new banking technology that’s ubiquitous today: direct deposit.

1979 - Gas prices skyrocket

How would you like to pay a dollar per gallon of gasoline again? Sounds nice, but back in 1979 that was a big spike in price due to a nationwide gas shortage.

“Better to pay a dollar a gallon than pay nothing and run out of gas, I guess. I live in Mint Hill and it’s real hard to get gas there,” one driver told Channel 9.

1979 - No gas required

But for some drivers in Charlotte, they paid no mind to the high gas prices.

In 1979, teens in new models of soapbox derby race cars took to the downhill track. This was the first year the cars didn’t have to be made from an actual soap box.

1983 - Widening Independence

Charlotte’s growth was the focus in the summer of 1983. The city was searching for a new site for the Coliseum “that will serve as a source of pride of the community.”

There were also plans to widen Independence Boulevard, though it would be quite a few more years before it evolved into the highway we know today.

1987 - Getting her start

Sue Myrick announced she was running for mayor, and her election as Charlotte’s first woman mayor was the beginning of her lengthy political career.

Myrick would later become North Carolina’s first Republican woman representative and served in Congress from 1995 to 2013.

>>In the video at the top of the page, see when Jimmy Buffett and Amy Grant played at Carowinds, and when Live Aid played for the whole world.

(VIDEO: New runway, truckers on strike, and the scoop on boiled peanuts: This week in Charlotte news history)