Telephone Exchange

Looking north-northeast, 1905. (Courtesy Durham County Library) The building on the northeast corner of East Main St. and Church St. was built between 1898 and 1905. While it isn't clear if the building was built to house the local telephone exchange, by 1905, it contained the Herndon drugstore on the ground floor and the telephone exchange on the...

Looking west on East Main St. from Church St., 1895. (Courtesy Duke Archives) The building on the southwest corner of Church St. and East Main was Johnson's drugstore; the building immediately to its east was another commercial building, although I don't know what type of business was located there. Upstairs from Johnson's drugstore was the site of...

The fourth and last of the main telephone exchange buildings established downtown, and the only one dedicated to the purpose, was the building at 104 Holloway St. The telephone exchange had begun on the southwest corner of Church and East Main Sts. in 1895, then moved to the First National Bank Building, then in 1904 to the northeast corner of N...