Masonry

613 West Chapel Hill St. - Pure Oil / Phillips 66

A rather elaborate Pure Oil, cottage style station stood at the southeast corner of Vickers Ave. and West Chapel Hill until the 1960s; between 1960 and 1969, the Pure Oil station was torn down and replaced by another mid-century modern classic - the Phillips 66 station with the large triangular awnings.

Downtown A&p - Morgan And East Chapel Hill

Looking northeast from North Magnum, 1950s (Courtesy Herald-Sun) A residential neighborhood during the 1890s-1910s, the intersection of North Mangum and East Chapel Hill was, by the 1920s, the 'border' between the growing downtown commercial area and the residential neighborhood. Looking northeast, with East Chapel Hill St. on the right and North...

601 Ramseur Street (1954 -)

The original path of Elizabeth St. still persists south of East Main, roughly equidistant between Dillard and Fayetteville St., which is now where N. Elizabeth deposits its southbound traffic. The old route was a smaller, winding street that traveled north of E. Main through the current Liberty St. Apartments housing project, connecting with the...

Weeks Motor Company / Hutchins Auto Supply

Looking northwest from West Geer St., 1953. (Courtesy Keith Phillips) One of my favorite mid-century modern buildings in Durham is the former Weeks Motor Company / Hutchins Auto Supply building. Built in 1948, Weeks was started by Albert Weeks, who ran a service station at North Durham Five Points (Little Five Points) in the 1930s and 1940s. The...

326 W Geer St.

326 West Geer, soon after construction in October 1949 326 West Geer housed Paschall Brothers Plumbing Company until the 1970s, when it housed Acme Plumbing Company. As of 2008, it houses Common Ground, a "Green Building Center". Looking northwest from West Geer, 07.12.08 (Photo by Gary Kueber) From the NR listing in italics below: The one-story...

320-324 W Geer

View looking north on Madison Street towards 316-320 West Geer, 11.25.49. (Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper) The buildings at 320-324 West Geer Street were constructed in 1949, likely intended as multi-tenant rental space from the outset. By 1955, the tenants were: 320: NC State Auto Association, CT Wilson Construction Co., Garrard Realty, and...

Southside School

Southside School, undated (William Franklin Warren Collection, Durham County LIbrary) Southside School was built in 1921, replacing an earlier "West Durham School" that had been located at Swift Ave. and Thaxton Sts. Plan of Southside School (Courtesy Old West Durham) I don't have much information about what the school was like, students'...

402 Morgan Street

1940s (William Franklin Warren Collection, Durham County Library) The north side of the 400 block of Morgan (between Morris and Roney) and the north side of the 300 block of Morgan (between Roney and Foster) contained primarily small, commercial structures. Morgan St., even more so than Chapel Hill St., contained fewer retail establishments and...

King's Daughters Home

Second King's Daughters Home, soon after construction (mid-1920s) --- "Old Ladies' Home", ~1910, looking northeast from Gloria Ave. (From "Images of America: Durham" by Stephen Massengill The International Order of the King's Daughters and Sons, per the organization's website, was founded January 13, 1886, as "an organization of Christian men and...

Lyon Park School

Lyon Park School, likely 1930s (William Franklin Warren Collection, Durham County Library) Lyon Park School, 1950s (Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper) 04.03.11 (G. Kueber)