Dilworth was the first suburb of Charlotte and the brainchild of Edward Dilworth Latta, a native of Pendleton, SC and a graduate of Princeton. Latta came to Charlotte in 1876 to open a men's clothing store and in July of 1890, founded the Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company, or "Four C's", which purchased 422 acres of farm land southeast of Center City. Latta hired the Edison Electric Company to install the trolley system that made Dilworth possible. The first trolley run from the Square to Dilworth occurred on May 18, 1891 and Charlotte would never be the same.

Latta Park was the last stop on the trolley line and those 90 acres are still intact and remain a popular gathering place. D.A. Tompkins, a New South industrialist and founder of the Charlotte Observer, opened the Atherton Cotton Mill in April of 1893. Remnants of the mill village are still present in Dilworth, counterbalanced by much larger and grander homes such as the Villalonga-Alexander House, designed by Charles Christian Hook circa 1901, on Park Avenue and the Edward Dilworth Latta House, circa 1902, on East Boulevard where the Greek Orthodox Cathedral now stands.

In 1911, Dilworth Road East and Dilworth Road West were designed by the Olmsted Bros., the most prestigious landscape architects in the country, at the request of the Four C's.