East Main Street

In 1924, the site at the corner of Main and Roxboro Streets was selected by the Masons for their lodge; funds were raised and the three-story building built. In 1938, the building was lost/forfeited by the Masons to the mortgage holder (an insurance company); the property was then purchased by the county for use as its health department. In 1992, the Health Dept. moved down the block, leaving the building vacant.

Durham Sun building, 1926 The JR Day house was built during the 1880s, and took up about half the block between Queen and Roxboro Sts. The above is a sketch from 1895 of this large, elaborate house. I haven't located a photograph of the front of the house, but I noticed that a picture that purports to show something else entirely - the explosion of...

An Episcopal mission was organized in Durham in 1878 when a minister named Joseph Blount Cheshire was ordained and appointed rector of the Chapel Hill church, and Bishop Atkinson (who had preached the first Episcopal service in Durham) suggested that he should also devote time to the newly organizing Durham congregation if warranted. Cheshire...

Looking north, 1910s. (Courtesy Durham County Library) The last of the 'original' fire stations downtown, fire station no. 3 was constructed in 1911, housing a steamer engine and a hose wagon. The 500 block of East Main St. (between Dillard and Elizabeth streets) was constructed as a wide, divided street with a median - but only for one block. The...

Electric streetcars did not have an auspicious beginning in Durham. Mule- and horse-pulled streetcars had been part of the Durham transportation scene since 1885, but utilizing electricity was quite a new endeavor when the Durham Traction Company purchased the streetcar franchise from the Durham Street Railway Co. in 1901.

The Sneed-Thomas building was constructed on the southeast corner of East Main St. and South Mangum St. in the 1890s. It housed the Sneed and Thomas drugstore, operated by Paul C. Sneed and Allen S. Thomas. Their building was described in the "Handbook of Durham" as "a large three-story pressed brick building with marble trimmings."