1433-1435 Camden Avenue

36.014242, -78.876469

1433-1435
Durham
NC
Year built
1930s
Construction type
Neighborhood
Building Type
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1433-35 Camden Avenue, 02.07.11

I assume that this pair of ~1930s buildings, which currently house the Muirhead Construction Company and Phillips Truck Center, were the original buildings of the Muirhead Construction Company, which was started in 1924 by William Muirhead - "specializing in textile plants and tobacco warehouses." William Muirhead's 1951 bio notes that his company built Camp Butner during WWII and Glen Lennox in Chapel Hill.

Comments

The number below the Philips sign board seems familiar to me. Maybe its only in Asia.

I love that building...

Does anyone know why Muirhead Construction Company downsized from its 1970s/1980s role as a major construction company? It used to have significant projects in Durham -- at Duke (Divinity School addition, summer dorm renovations, etc.), at UNC-CH (student union, bookstore, the Pit, etc.), downtown Durham. What happened? Muirhead employed a lot of Durham folks.

I got a summer job correcting a big mistake that Muirhead made building the Duke Divinity School Addition. The crew pouring the concrete for the basement floor did it before the shower and toilet drains were installed. A bunch of us were hired to break up the concrete with jackhammers and haul it out in wheelbarrows. This was done at night in secret.

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