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For more information about Preservation Durham,
please contact our office at (919)-682-3036 or
by email
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A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BULL CITY
| DURHAM'S BEGINNINGS |
Washington Duke's original house and factory |
Durham began in 1854, when Dr. Bartlett Durham sold four acres of land to the North Carolina Railroad Company to build a new station between Hillsborough and Raleigh. A small village soon sprang up around the depot. In 1865, huge armies of Union and Confederate forces gathered around Durham's Station as General Joseph E. Johnston negotiated his surrender to General William T. Sherman at Bennett Place, the largest troop surrender at the end of the Civil War. |
| DURHAM AFTER THE CIVIL WAR |
| R. F. Morris had opened the first tobacco factory in 1854, but the industry came into its own after the Civil War as demand for smoking tobacco spread nation-wide with returning veterans. Tobacco manufacture began in earnest and large factories attracted workers from the surrounding farms. Durham's population swelled from about a hundred in 1865 to over 2000 by 1880. Textiles were also an important industry, with mills established near the railroad lines. Banks and insurance companies made Durham an important financial center. When the Trust Building opened on Main Street in 1910, it was the tallest building in North Carolina, with six stories. |
Washington Duke's Victorian style mansion Fairvew, across the street from the W. Duke Sons and Co. Tobacco Factory, 1895 |
| DURHAM GROWS WITH TOBACCO |
Monmouth Street, Trinity Park |
As the city grew, residential neighborhoods spread around the industry at the heart of town including both elaborate mansions for the industrial magnates and rows of shotgun houses for the tobacco workers. Trinity College, later Duke University, moved to Durham in 1892, and the early streetcar suburbs of Trinity Park and Trinity Heights provided housing for the faculty and staff. Streetcars also connected Lakewood, North Durham, and other growing neighborhoods. Hayti became a center of the African American community, and North Carolina College for Negroes, later North Carolina Central University, was established on Fayetteville Street in 1910. Parrish Street downtown was the home of the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company and the Mechanics and Farmers Bank, earning it the name The Black Wall Street. |
| 20TH CENTURY DURHAM |
| Many of Durham's downtown buildings were erected during the public works boom of the 1930s, including the Post Office, the Armory, Durham Athletic Park, the Snow Building and the CCB and Kress buildings. For most of the 20th Century, Durham was an industrial city, manufactuing tobacco and textile products that were known internationally, but as these industries changed and moved out of Durham, the city also changed. By the 1970s, shopping malls and suburbs had drawn people away from downtown. Urban renewal built the Durham Freeway and the Downtown Loop, and many old buildings were demolished, including the Spanish Revival-style Railroad Station and the Washington Duke Hotel. |
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Hill Building, 1937 |
| DURHAM'S REVIVAL |
Brightleaf Square |
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The 1980s saw the beginnings of the revival of Durham's older neighborhoods. The shopping center Brightleaf Square was made out of two abandoned tobacco warehouses and the Carolina Theatre was transformed into a showcase for movies and live performances. City residential neighborhoods also received new attention as young urban pioneers bought old homes in Trinity Park, Old North Durham, Old West Durham and other areas and restored them with tender loving care. The Historic Preservation Society of Durham was founded in 1974, and has been joined by active neighborhood associations to preserve Durham's architectural heritage. |
| DURHAM TODAY |
| At the turn of the new century, Durham is experiencing a new boom in preservation, as developers work to transform now abandoned tobacco buildings into trendy urban lofts, office space, and retail stores. The old American Tobacco Factory and the Liggett and Meyers Factory which once provided the early boom for Durham as an industrial city are providing a second boom as the Bull City enters the 21st Century.
DURHAM'S MOST ENDANGERED PLACES
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West Village Apartments were once tobacco warehouses |
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