Copied from a post on Lakewood Trolley's Facebook:
"The cars are important, because they provide physical proof of early 20th Century American ingenuity and the development of Charlotte and Charleston as New South cities. While the two cars never ran in Charlotte, they were built in Charleston and ran there until 1938, the same year Charlotte dismantled its original streetcar system. Pappanastos found the cars in 2011 and worked with their owner to have them shipped to Charlotte in 2013. They have been behind closed doors ever since.
The Charleston cars were brought to Charlotte as part of a strategy to connect West End neighborhoods with the vibrancy of uptown and call attention to the amenity of the Stewart Creek Greenway and green spaces of the west side. The Savona Mill, once served by the Piedmont & Northern Railway and Charlotte's streetcar system as a destination between uptown and Lakewood Park, sits in Seversville just a mile from Cedar St. in Third Ward. The tracks that used to carry streetcars to the mill are fully intact."