Brick

706 Ninth Street, 12.21.69 (Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper) 706 Ninth Street was built in ~1936; it initially housed the Andrews Furniture Company, followed by the West Durham Furniture Company. By the early 1960s, the building appears to have been vacant, but was soon reoccupied by Custom Interiors and the Neil Upholstery Co. In 1971, Godwin Dance School became a tenant

700-702 Ninth Street was among the earliest commercial masonry structures built in West Durham, located at the corner of Hillsboro (later Perry) and Ninth, where the streetcar turned from Ninth Street towards Broad. It was built between 1907 and 1913. In 1926, it housed Brewers Drug Store in 700 and the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (the A...

Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian, 1924 The Blacknall family, both Richard, Jr., who, with his father, Dr. Richard Blacknall, had organized Blacknall's Drugstore and his brother James, who was the first sheriff of Durham County, started the Presbyterian congregation in West Durham in 1892 as a mission, based from First Presbyterian downtown. The...

---- (Courtesy Herald-Sun) Bird's Eye view looking west the Erwin Field at Broad and West Main Streets, ~1940. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection) One of the early community assets created by the Erwin Cotton Mills and its principal, William Erwin, was the Erwin field, which hosted the Erwin Auditorium baseball team...

Looking southeast from Erwin Road at Forlines Grocery, 1980 Per the Durham Architectural Inventory, a store occupied the southwest corner of Erwin Road and Blacknall St. (later Alexander Ave.) It appears that the masonry structure above had been constructed by 1910. The store was run by AL Bowen during the 1910s, and by 1924, Forline's Grocery -...

1913 Map showing the Company Store (next to the reservoir and denoted by the "S") with the small post office located to the north of the building. (Copyright Sanborn Map Company) The Erwin Mills Company Store was constructed contemporaneously with the mill in 1892. As the name implies, the store provided a place where employees could purchase...

Erwin Mill No. 1 and office building, early 20th century (Courtesy John Schelp) Julian Carr's success with Durham's first textile manufacturing plant, the Durham Cotton Manufacturing Company, which returned 20-30% net profit in its first 6 years, showed the viability of the industry in Durham and, more broadly, the south. The Dukes, who had...

Erwin Auditorium, 1920s. (Courtesy Durham County Library - North Carolina Collection) Built in 1922 by Erwin Cotton Mills, the Renaissance Revival, 2 1/2 story Erwin Auditorium was designed by Hill C. Linthicum to provide all-purpose recreational space for the community. The construction was not entirely benevolent, as William Erwin used money that would have otherwise been distributed to workers as bonuses to construct the building.

(Courtesy Old West Durham) Per the Old West Durham website a Pentecostal mission was established in West Durham in 1911. The group met in the home of CE Cates, located on Gin St. For the next nine years, the group used the SW Avery home on 15th St., "a hall" on 9th St., and AW Utley's home on 13th (Bolton) St. In 1920, a location at Oakland and...

West Durham Church of God, looking northwest from Hillsborough Road, mid-1950s (Courtesy John Schelp) The West Durham Church of God was organized in 1937 and initially located in a small frame structure on Case Street.