506 North Hyde Park Avenue

(Below in italics is from the 2004 East Durham National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

Ira Page House. 1-story side-gabled Minimal Traditional-style house with a gabled entrance porch with boxed posts. Alterations include all-over vinyl and replacement vinyl sash windows. 1940-1945 CDs: Ira Page owner/occupant (Page Oil Co.). 

According to tax records, this home was built in 1925, although I don't see any other record of it in City Directories until 1938. The owner that year was listed as Offie Thompson. In 1941 local businessman Ira Page moved into the home. He owned Page Oil Co at 2200 Angier Avenue.  His gas station would've been in direct competition with this beauty of a gas station at 2201 Angier Avenue.

During the 1930s Page had lived at a few different homes within a block of #506 before it was built, at both 504 and 600 North Hyde Park Avenue.  In the 1920s, Page owned a grocery store at 1125 North Roxboro, which is right next door to Mc Kissick's "Freedom House", although Page was long out of the grocery business by the time the McKissicks moved in. And prior to that, he also owned another grocery store at 921 North Mangum. 

As I work my way up Hyde Park Avenue in my posts, this makes the 3rd house in a row owned by grocers.  One has to wonder what the awkward small talk is like among neighbors who were each others competition. 

After 3 failed businesses in 5 years, Page disappeared from the CDs for the end of the 1920s and beginning of the 1930s, only to re-emerge as owner of Page's Restaurant at 211 North Mangum, which again, was closed within a year. You have got to give the guy credit-persistence paid off. By the time he lived in this house he owned 2 gas stations, the one on Angier, and another at 1216 South Duke Street by 1943. Ira and his wife Mildred moved from this home in 1947 but continued to run the gas station on Angier into the 1950s.