Your Story Is Part of Durham History.

This resource - an online community archive of Durham people and places - is built by and for the community. A project of the local non-profit Preservation Durham, it helps trace the evolution of our city block-by-block, building-by-building, story-by-story. Your experiences and recollections, your words and images not only matter, they are crucial to documenting and sharing this rich legacy. Browse what others have already contributed, and create an account to add your voice!

Recent Finds

Photo by Pam Lappegard circa 2024

The Arthur W. and Dorothy A. Knight House

Photo by Pam Lappegard circa 2024 Shortly after moving into the house at 2211 Arrington Street, the owner’s husband, a zoology professor at Duke, found a perfect arrowhead in the large backyard. The artifact remains prominently displayed in the study, the professor’s favorite room in the house. Perhaps the arrowhead had once belonged to the...

Photo by Pam Lappegard circa 2024

Julia and Robert W. “Judge” Carr House

Photo by Pam Lappegard circa 2024 Durham architect Robert Winston “Judge” Carr Sr., AIA, designed the 1953 Contemporary Ranch house at 73 Beverly Drive for his family that included wife, Julia Toms Carr, and their four children. The younger son of Amy Winston Carr and George Watts Carr Sr., Robert Carr was called “Judge” for most of his life after...

3120 Devon Road

Nicholson-Kinney House

Photo by Pam Lappegard circa 2024 It was spring 1947. Lieutenant Sterling Nicholson, Jr. was grateful to be home in Durham, reunited with his wife, and starting a family. Two years prior, he had lain dying on a battlefield in Germany, his plane brought down by enemy fire. Saved by the kind German girl who found him and the pastor and doctor who...

Recent Tours

Designed by Pam Lappegard

2024 Annual Home Tour: The Rambling Ranch

Cover designed by Pam Lappegard By the early decades of the twentieth Century, the tide of western expansion in the United States had reached its limit in California. Soon, a backwash of ideas began to sweep eastward. New ideas about society, art, urban planning, and architecture, warmed under a California sun and carried by a host of new media -...

Discover Durham Walking Tour

Recent Comments

Helen93 commented on 410 Watts Street / Trinity Park

I played in that empty lot as a child in the early '70s and now bring my daughter there . The

Julianne Patterson commented on 406 Ramsey Street

1920 City Directory shows: *Green, Coleman W (Barber) as a business at alley on 406 Ramsey

caas_ATKINS48 commented on 4400 Hope Valley Road

These Atkins were my family’s relatives.

caldwell-burner commented on The Blue Light / Sam's Quik Shop

Actually, the new apartment complex that was built on the site was named "The Blue Light Living" so