301 East Chapel Hill Street

 

WC Lyon Company, late 1910s-early 1920s

(Courtesy Robby Delius)

Ever wonder why Corcoran St. stopped at East Chapel Hill St. until the 2006-2007 link with Foster St., and you'd have to make a jog around the corner that 301 East Chapel Hill sits on to continue on Foster St.? Because Willie Mangum's farm was in the way when the streets were laid out.

Looking north-northwest from Corcoran St. ~1890s.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

By the early 20th century, Willie's farm had succumbed to development pressure, though.

(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The first three buildings in the 300 block of East Chapel Hill Street remain, outwardly, little changed from when they were first built in the 1910s. Although the shot above is really too blurry to make out much detail of the buildings on the northeast corner of Foster and E. Chapel Hill, this is their appearance in 1924, soon after the Washington Duke broke ground, looking northeast towards the Corcoran/East Chapel Hill/ Foster intersection.

Another partial view from later that year, looking northwest.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

This clearer view of the buildings looking north up Corcoran shows that the easternmost building was, like that profiled yesterday, a Holland Furniture building, built in 1914. The double building just to its west was the Liberty Cafe and the Union Bus Station.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

A not very good shot to get a bit more of a look at the building on the corner, the Lyon Hardware Company, which you can just make out painted on the side of the building.
(Courtesy Duke Archives)

The Lyon Paint Company: 

01.19.55

01.19.55

The buildings in 2007, fairly well preserved, looking north from the former Corcoran St., now a plaza.

301 East Chapel Hill has been home to SpeeDeeQue printing for many years.