309 Jackson St.

309 Jackson
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

The 200 block and 300 block of Jackson St. were essentially a single block, the numbering change occurring where Ashton Place met, but did not cross Jackson at mid-block. It ran from Willard St. on the west side to Warren St. on the east, immediately adjacent to the Morehead School in the next block.

Many of the houses were the original housing built just to the west of Blackwell's Durham Tobacco Factory in the 1870s and 1880s. Though I don't know for certain that these were built by Blackwell, I do know that he built housing adjacent to the factory. Although these often are the classic Triple-A roofline form, they are distinguished from the later mill houses by gable returns on the side gables, frequent corbels along the gables/roofline, and slim, boxed, rather than turned, porch posts.

The residential building at 201 Jackson, the eastern end of the block, was rather unique, though - a four story (the fourth below the grade of Jackson) building with a flat roof and double-front porch.

Looking southwest from downtown - the Morehead School is most prominent, with Jackson running in front of it. 201 Jackson is visible to its right.
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection/Digital Durham)

Another view from a bit further west.
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection/Digital Durham)

These houses survived into the mid 20th century - while the picture below is an aerial looking north, towards the backs of these buildings, it most clearly shows the individual structures along Jackson St. in context. Jackson runs left to right, Ashton Place intersects it to the left, and Warren interects it to the right, alongside the Morehead School.

(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

These houses were destroyed by the city in the urban renewal program.

Looking southeast from NC Mutual, 1967. Almost all of the neighborhood houses are gone, and the demolition of the Morehead school has begun. The 200 and 300 block of Jackson is in the foreground, with Ashton Place joining Jackson to the left.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

Warren St. was closed, Ashton Place turned to a cul-de-sac (now it's closed too) and this became a large parking lot associated with NC Mutual, which built a small office on the corner of Willard and Jackson.

Looking southwest from near the former Warren St. and Jackson, 02.10.08
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Looking southeast from Jackson St., 02.10.08.

I'm going to try out some new tech today, called Zoomify (thanks Nicomachus.) Essentially, it will allow you to see one of the hi-res shots that I started with above (the 1950 shot) and explore it yourself. This uses Flash to break the image down from its original very large size so that it is manageable to explore over the internet; think Google Maps. So - enjoy.