2005 Preservation Durham Old Durham Tour

RECENTLY RENOVATED DOWNTOWN SPACES

In the guidebook for HPSD's 2001 tour, "Living it Up Downtown," Tom Miller wrote, "It is not premature to declare that downtown Durham has been saved." That year, the Baldwin building was an empty shell - today, it is filled with a dozen loft apartments. The previous year, the HPSD tour had explored Durham's Tobacco Heritage. Tour-goers were led through the deserted courtyard at American Tobacco, surrounded by dilapidated buildings with broken windows and sagging roofs. Today, the American Tobacco Historic District is home to a growing list of tenants whose modern, high-tech offices overlook a lush green lawn where cracked pavement used to be. It seems Tom was right! Our tour this year features these sites and many more that prove the new vitality of Downtown Durham.

O'brien Building

O'Brien Building, 1910. Looking northeast from Duke and Main Sts., 1890s. The tower of the Fire Station #2 is visible along West Main St. On either side, the stepped, projecting vent chimneys of Cobb and O'Brien are visible. (Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection) Cobb on the left and O'Brien on the right, with the original Fire Station...

The Imperial Tobacco Company

The Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland was established by 18 individual British tobacco manufacturers who wanted to counter JB Duke's expansion of the American Tobacco Company into Europe. After Duke purchased a British tobacco factory and began undercutting the British manufacturers, the Imperial Tobacco Company announced plans...

204-212 Rigsbee Ave.

(Courtesy Durham County Library) The once-residential area on Rigsbee developed from the tobacco warehouses south and from Mangum north during the 1920s. The house in the middle, now 204-208 Rigsbee, was demolished for parking (yep, even back in the 1920s.) The above photo shows the lot to the left of 216 Rigsbee from the construction site of the...

209 North Church St.

--- (Courtesy Duke Archives) The buildings along the west side of the 200 block of North Church St. are a very-well preserved block of early 20th century structures. The Hicks building, on the northwest corner of North Church and East Parrish, and its immediate 3 neighbors to the north were constructed around 1910. 209-211 North Church, at the...

107-109 West Main Street / Baldwin's

Just to the left of the structure at 115 West Main was the very similar 109-111 West Main, a Queen Anne structure built in 1893. Looking east-southeast from Main St. ~ 1913 (From "Images of America: Durham" by Stephen Massengill) And a view west from Mangum St., 1905, doesn't show much of the building, but the small tower is clearly visible....

118 W. Parrish St. / Christian-Harward

118 West Parrish St. is the oldest building remaining on the north side of the 100 block of Parrish St. It was built sometime before 1905 as a 2-story structure. Looking east-northeast, 1905. Parrish St. is to the left, and 118 West Parrish is the rightmost structure in the row, with 3 sets of 3 windows. To its right is a large frame warehouse...

First National Bank / Main And Corcoran - Se

------ (Courtesy Duke Archives) First National Bank and its decendents were the longtime occupants of the southeast corner of Main and Corcoran Streets. This was the second First National Bank building, constructed in 1887 by Julian Carr, who was one of the most prominent figures in early Durham history (and three of my previous posts have featured...

Temple Building

(Courtesy Duke Archives) The Temple building was constructed in 1909 by John Sprunt Hill out of materials left over from the construction of Watts Hospital on Club Blvd. (His uncle, George W. Watts, was the primary benefactor of the hospital.)

339-341 West Main Street

339-341 W. Main was built in the 1920s as part of a row of structures replacing earlier frame establishments and industrial uses, such as Seeman's Carriage Works. The area between Corcoran and L & M rapidly took on a retail focus during this era, as the 'core' of downtown to the east focused more on the office and government sectors. (Courtesy Duke...

Blackwell's Durham Tobacco / American Tobacco Co.

The birth of the tobacco industry in Durham started with a handful of people -none of whom were named Blackwell, Watts, Duke, or Carr - who saw the new 'town' of Durham Station as a place of opportunity. The first entrepreneur to see Durham Station as a central transportation hub that could pull tobacco from the counties around it for manufacture...

Franklin House - 507 Yancey Street

Built as a rental house ~1901, this house was owner-occupied by the Franklin family for 50 years.

Stanislaus Jourdan House / 514 S. Duke St.

Dozens of houses once lined South Duke St., north of Morehead Avenue. Early 20th century commercial expansion took over the area immediately surrounding West Main Street, but the stretch of S. Duke Street south of West Chapel Hill remained residential through the 1950s. However, the triumvurate of car-centered commercialization, urban renewal, and...

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