West Peabody Street

South Gregson Rr Bridge - "11foot8 Bridge"

Will you be its next victim?

"pandora's Box" / Hotel Claiborn

The corner of Ramseur St. and Corcoran St. is a historically significant corner - can't you tell? (Workers are installing new sidewalk around city-owned parking lot) On the property between Main St. and the railroad tracks, east of Corcoran St., stood Dr. Bartlett Durham's house, "Pandora's Box", a two-story frame structure in which Dr. Durham...

Duke Factory (old Cigarette Factory)

The Duke Cigarette Factory was built in 1884 to replace the wooden structure that Washington Duke constructed just to the west of the site in 1874. The original wood frame tobacco factory. Taken from approximately present-day West Chapel Hill Street (west of the railroad tracks) looking north. Washington Duke's original house is on the left. (From...

Rinaldi's - 1117 W. Main St.

09.11.59 (Courtesy Herald-Sun) 1117 West Main, 1950s. (Courtesy Herald-Sun) I don't know a lot about Rinaldi's restaurant - except for a few lines I've found how Duke students and others used to go to Rinaldi's for the burgers in the 1950s. The yearbooks from the 1940s and 1950s are replete with references to Rinaldi's as a student hangout. I've...

Rbt. Morris Tobacco Co / Sal Freight Dep.

RF Morris Tobacco Factory at the NC railroad tracks ~300 feet west of present-day Corcoran St., 1890 (Courtesy Digital Durham. The history of Robert Morris and his endeavors in the tobacco trade are an interesting, if patchwork, story about the earliest days of Durham. Per Jean Anderson: "Morris first appeared on Orange County scene .... in...

122 South Mangum Street - Carrington's Bar

Durham's often-noted rough-around-the-edges reputation is nothing new - in the mid-to-late 19th century, the town was well known for its multiple saloons - the place where students from the University of North Carolina would come for some less-than-genteel entertainment (many of them would disembark from the train in Durham and head onward to Chapel Hill by other means.)

(marvin Carr) Silk Hosiery Mill

Part of the Durham Hosiery Mills Co. evolution away from cotton hosiery, the silk hosiery mill was built on the former site of the Hotel Carrolina and Pandora's Box, and remained viable throughout mid-century - unlike the cotton mills. The silk hosiery mill shut down by the 1960s, and, most unfortunately, it was demolished. It would be an extraordinary addition to the adaptive reuse landscape of downtown Durham today.

Hotel Claiborn

The corner of Ramseur St. and Corcoran St. is a historically significant corner - can't you tell? (Workers are installing new sidewalk around city-owned parking lot) On the property between Main St. and the railroad tracks, east of Corcoran St., stood Dr. Bartlett Durham's house, "Pandora's Box", a two-story frame structure in which Dr. Durham...

"fairview" (washington Duke House)

The site just to the west of the first Duke Factory was Washington Duke's first in-town home. (Durham Historic Inventory) In 1884, Duke built a new brick factory, just to the east of his house and original factory. In 1888, he built a new house, which he called Fairview. Looking west, with the old factory building to the right. The steeple of Main...

Hotel Carrolina

The corner of Ramseur St. and Corcoran St. is a historically significant corner - can't you tell? (Workers are installing new sidewalk around city-owned parking lot) On the property between Main St. and the railroad tracks, east of Corcoran St., stood Dr. Bartlett Durham's house, "Pandora's Box", a two-story frame structure in which Dr. Durham...