Happy Holidays

(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection - Wyatt Dixon Collection)

KING'S DAUGHTERS HOME / INN

"Old Ladies' Home", ~1910, looking northeast from Gloria Ave.
(From "Images of America: Durham" by Stephen Massengill

The International Order of the King's Daughters and Sons, per the organization's website, was founded January 13, 1886, as "an organization of Christian men and women dedicated to service in Christ's name [and] the development of spiritual life and the stimulation of Christian activities." A chapter was first organized in Durham in 1890; early efforts (beginning in 1892) included advocacy for the establishment of a hospital for Durham, which would be realized with the construction of Watts Hospital in 1895.

Smoky Hollow - the neighborhood heir of Prattsburg, located in the low ground east of present-day Elizabeth/Holloway St. - had been a source of public hand-wringing for the Durham establishment, particularly from the women of Durham's prominent churches . Much of the concern seemed to focus on delivering the "soiled doves" (i.e. women engaging in prostitution) of Smoky Hollow from their unfortunate fall from grace.

A new chapter (called a "circle") of the King's Daughters was established on January 3, 1903 in the "home of Mrs. MB Wyatt" of Cleveland St.; it would be known as the Sheltering Home Circle. It was comprised of 16 women (two from each of eight churches.) Their immediate concern was to establish a home for the "unprotected girls" of Smoky Hollow. (Which I find interesting and curious, as Smoky Hollow-as-place was obliterated by Julian Carr in 1900-1902 with the construction of Golden Belt and the Durham Hosiery Mill No. 1.) They also established a campaign on July 4, 1903 to provide "ice for the suffering poor" by placing collection boxes in local retail establishments - the first time this later-ubiquitous collection method had been done in Durham. They also established an "Exchange" - wherein the Circle established a shop/store where handicrafts and baked goods could be sold to raise money for the organization.

Not long after the campaign to save the women of Smoky Hollow began, the Sheltering Home Circle changed their plan. Whether they were unable to raise sufficient money for the chosen cause, the problem of Smoky Hollow seemed 'solved', or, as Jean Anderson states - "wiser heads persuaded them that they were not suited for this endeavor" - is unclear. Having changed their choice of charitable aim to the provision of a home for elderly women of meager resources, they found a new patron: Brodie Duke.

The catch-all destination for the impoverished, mentally or physically disabled, or criminal at the turn of the century was the Durham County Poor house. While the aim of the King's Daughters was to provide charity to all of the "unfortunates" of Durham, one can imagine that their sympathies would be particularly triggered by the notion of an elderly "worthy" (to use their term) widow who, due to certain circumstances would find her lot cast with the other residents of the Poor House, who perhaps, in the view of the King's Daughters, did not possess an equivalent moral rectitude.

Brodie Duke, who owned most of the land that would become Trinity Park, found his sympathies so triggered. He donated a 178 x 150 foot piece of land on Guess Road (later Buchanan Blvd.,) facing the Trinity College campus, as well as $500. The frame structure, sketched on a piece of paper by Lucy Lathrop Morehead, transformed into architectural drawings by Durham architect Hill C. Linthicum, and built by contractor John T. Salmon, was completed in 1911 at a cost of $8500; it could accommodate 16 residents. Immediately after opening, it housed 5 residents, a cook, and a "matron." It was, in the bluntly descriptive style of the time, referred to as "The Old Ladies' Home."

The cost to residents was $15 for a single room or $10 for a double room. Board, personal care, and laundry service were included. The matron was paid $10 a month; the cook was paid $2 a week. The home cost $26 to run in its first month in operation. Although the home was certainly a charitable endeavor, with the King's Daughters ongoing fund-raising efforts supporting much of the operational cost of the home, it was not charity without expectation; women were (variably) evicted for their inability to pay rent due. However, the King's Daughters lavished what funds they could raise upon the home; in 1913, they purchased a $100 piano for the home - the same amount they spent on all other charitable endeavors that year.

Duke purportedly called the intersecting street at the corner "Gloria" because of the "glory at aiding such a worthy cause." The cause that had been deemed not-as-glorious, shelter for women engaged in prostitution, was taken up by the Salvation Army, who provided such shelter at their building on Morris Street near Five Points.

The home was soon at capacity, and demand for additional rooms was such that the King's Daughters commenced fund-raising activities to build a larger home in 1922. They held an annual bazaar to raise funds; Brodie Duke had died in 1919, but his brothers Ben and Buck gave $35,000 to the building committee. Another $20,000 was raised from other sources.

In 1925, the organization commissioned a masonry Colonial Revival structure, designed by prominent architectural firm Milburn and Heister, which replaced the older structure. (The younger Milburn, Yancey, likely had a stronger hand in the design and execution than his father Frank, as he had taken residence in Durham during M&H's most prolific years of Durham design.) The old structure was "sold at auction." (I don't know if it was dismantled or moved.) During construction, the home used a "large house at the corner of Duke and Markham" as a temporary home. The new structure, designed to house 36 women and staff, built by CH Shipp's Consolidated Construction Company, opened on January 1, 1926, and had 35 bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, pantry, and an infirmary.


Second King's Daughters Home, soon after construction (mid-1920s)
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Chamber of Commerce Collection)

The King's Daughters in Durham remained an active organization throughout the early 20th century, partnering with other organizations such as the Salvation Army, Associated Charities, the Elks, and particularly with the Children's Home Society of Greensboro to provide charity. They adopted a practice of so-called "friendly visiting among the poor" to determine if families with particular needs were "worthy" of assistance. (Worthiness seems to have been judged by whether 'moral transgressions' had contributed to the family's situation.) These visits were often made to the mill communities: West Durham, Edgemont, Commonwealth, and Pearl Mill. The King's Daughters would sometimes, with the help of the Children's Home Society, attempt to remove children from what they felt were unfit and unsafe circumstances for the children, to place them with “good Christian homes.” They also worked with unmarried pregnant women, often very young women, to find homes for them to stay in when they had been rejected from their own. They also took on the difficult task of trying to punish, or at least hold responsible, the men involved; they had worked in the 1890s, successfully, to raise a girl's age of consent from 10 years of age to 14; in 1910, they worked to raise the age of consent to 16, unsuccessfully, and sought to have the county enforce so-called "bastardy laws."

(As a bit of an aside, a second King's Daughter's circle was formed in Durham in 1948, known as the Sara Barker Circle.)

Broadly, the state of social welfare began to change (for the better) over the course of the mid-20th century, with a very gradual destigmatization of many of the circumstances that would have left a woman or a child deemed "unworthy" decades before, and the growth of a more robust county, state, and Federal-provided social service system. The King's Daughters' attention focused more squarely on the operation of the home on Buchanan Blvd.


King's Daughter's Home, 05.01.46
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


King's Daughter's Home, 05.01.46
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


King's Daughter's Home, 05.01.46
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


King's Daughter's Home, 05.01.46
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Use of the home continued to grow over the early to mid 20th century, prompting interest in expanding the facility by the 1950s.


King's Daughter's Home, 1950s
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


King's Daughter's Home, 1950s
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

In 1955, the Circle built an annex on the north side of the building, designed by architect George Hackney, which provided 12 additional bedrooms, an elevator, and an auditorium. At its peak, the home accommodated 34 women and 9 live-in staff.


King's Daughters Home, 1980

Over the latter half of the 20th century, patterns of care for the elderly changed, though, and, by 2006, only 3 women (and nine staff) remained. The Board made the decision to close the home and decided to sell the property.

It was purchased by Colin and Deanna Crossman in 2007. They began a full renovation of the property, transforming it into "a boutique Bed and Breakfast intended to serve Duke University and the surrounding communities," including, per the Herald-Sun:

[t]he restoration of wood details and windows, plumbing electrical updates, removing layers of Astroturf and other nonhistoric materials. The most dramatic transformation occurred in the front-entry, where a decades-old, two-story firewall was removed and the stairwell restored to its original configuration, based on an early photo and physical evidence. Public spaces were painstakingly preserved, while generally, pairs of rooms were combined to make a single suite with a private bath. To preserve the rhythm of the hallway openings, extra doors were sealed rather than removed. Transoms were fixed to meet code, but hardware was left in place for aesthetic and historic reasons.

In the large unfinished attic, Deanna Colin envisioned a loftlike living space for themselves that celebrated the riveted steel structure of the building. Bedrooms and bathrooms were constructed at each end of the space and an interior stair was extended to provide access to their new living quarters.

As a celebration of the building's history, each suite is named for a former resident or major supporter. Further, a mural was painted along the walls in the 1955 addition as a tribute to the King's Daughters. Thankfully, some furnishings from the original parlor, that had been sold when the residents moved out, were returned after the renovation was complete.

The renovation evidently also added a 10,000 gallon cistern and a rain garden to collect roof storm water run-off.

The newly-christened King's Daughters Inn opened on April 18, 2009, and by all accounts I've heard, it has been a great success.


King's Daughter's Inn, 10.03.09

Find this spot on a Google Map.


36.003742,-78.91215

ERNIE BARNES HOUSE

Intersection of Willard St. and Johnson St., 1959 - 1013 Willard is marked with the red dot. Note the two round houses on South Duke St. for orientation.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

Ernest Barnes was born July 15, 1938, in 'The Bottoms' section of Durham - an area that sat at the southeastern base of Morehead Hill, along the lowlands of Third Fork Creek. This area, dramatically altered by urban renewal, centered around Willard, Carrington, South, Johnson, and Lakewood - with small alleys and the like extending between the streets. I wrote a bit about this area in a post about Willard St., here.

Barnes' father, Ernest Barnes Sr., worked as a shipping clerk at Liggett Myers Tobacco Company and his mother, Fannie Mae Geer, was employed as a domestic for Frank Fuller Jr. Fuller was a prominent local attorney who lived at 313 East Main St..

Per Mr. Barnes, Fuller took a liking to young Ernest and introduced him to classical art and music - Fuller would talk to him

"about art and life. He would call me into his study and allow me to look through his art books. I enjoyed this room of polished, mahogany walls with leather chairs, shelves of leather-bound books and the sound of classical music. He would tell me about the various schools of art, his favorite painters, the museums he visited and other things my mind couldn't quite comprehend at the age of seven."

Barnes thus had an unusual familiarity with the traditions of European art for a child growing up in the segregated South, in one of the most impoverished parts of Durham. Barnes' mother, though, was determined that her son would have exposure to an array of artistic opportunity. He thrived in the visual arts.

"She tried to get me to do all the things that would make me a culturally enriched person. She pushed me in the direction of art and music. I took lessons in tap dancing, saxophone, trombone, violin and piano. I was never in class. I was always off somewhere decorating stuff."

Per Barnes, he was overweight and extremely introverted making him a target for ridicule from the time he started the first grade through his junior year in high school at Hillside. He kept to himself, and to his sketchbooks.

"They hated me. My mother escorted me to school ten times before I could accept the fact that I had to stay there. I couldn't conform easily to the athletic ideal and was made to feel inadequate. I wasn't able to fight, to run fast, nor was I picked for rough games. I was introverted and shy. If there was a day that I did not come home in tears because of a fight, it could be attributed to sickness, the weekend, or it was rained out. I was beaten so severely, my mother requested that I be allowed to leave school fifteen minutes before the other kids, and permission was granted. When I was at home and drawing, I was happy. My senses addressed themselves naturally to the discovery of what I could make happen on paper. It was so easy. From the shrouded mists of my sensitivity, I made friends with lines, allowing them to flow into things belonging to my immediate environment; the trees, clouds, birds and people. In school, nobody laughed and made fun of me when I was drawing. They just watched in silent awe."



Barnes began to show athletic ability during his senior year at Hillside, and attended North Carolina Central University on a football scholarship, where he excelled at both football and art, his major. He was drafted into the American Football League, and spent the next five years playing for the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos. In 1965, New York Jets owner David (Sonny) Werblin recognized Barnes' artistic potential and replaced his football salary for a year so he could devote himself to painting.

Per Barnes' website:


"Barnes made his professional debut in a solo exhibition at New York's Grand Central Art Galleries. Soon after, Barnes settled in Los Angeles and approached Benjamin Horowitz of the Heritage Gallery but was turned down "because I was doing sports imagery. A major turning point in Barnes' career came in 1971. Following a solo showing at the Agra Gallery in Washington, D.C. -- hosted by Congressmen Jack Kemp and John Conyers -- he moved to an all-Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles known as the Fairfax District. Suddenly steeped in a culture that was rich in its own traditions, along with the humor and wit that had allowed its residents to survive poverty and the horrors of the concentration camps, Barnes learned to appreciate the milieu of his own roots - notably, the Segregated South of his childhood that embraced many of the same beliefs and had developed its own culture of coping with the hopelessness of racial discrimination, lack of education, and economic distress.

"Fairfax enlivened me to everyday life themes," he says, "and forced me to look at my life - the way I had grown up, the customs within my community versus the customs in the Jewish community. Theirs were documented, ours were not. Because we were so clueless that our own culture had value and because of the phrase 'Black is Beautiful' had just come into fashion, Black people were just starting to appreciate themselves as a people. But when it was said, 'I'm Black and I'm Proud,' I said, 'Proud of what?' And that question of 'proud of what' led to a series of paintings that became 'The Beauty of the Ghetto.'"

Barnes' landmark exhibition, "The Beauty of the Ghetto," marked the beginning of his Genre period. In 1972, it debuted at the distinguished Heritage Gallery, before beginning a nationwide tour to museums around the country -- hosted by such dignitaries as Ethel Kennedy, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, and Durham (North Carolina) Mayor James Hawkins.

In 1974, television producer and writer Danny Arnold, who collected Barnes' work, introduced Barnes to renowned television producer Norman Lear, the creator of the hit series, "All in the Family." Lear subsequently commissioned Barnes to paint a series of original pieces for his new television CBS sitcom, "Good Times," loosely modeled the Jimmie Walker character on the artist's life and work, and featured what would become Barnes' most famous work, "Sugar Shack," in the show's opening credits for four years.


The Sugar Shack
(Copyright Ernie Barnes)

Many of Barnes' early paintings are scenes of Durham, although they are not expressly labeled as such - but the houses, the Palace Barber Shop, the Roxboro St. underpass - are all familiar scenes of Durham in the 1960s. With the popularity of Barnes' work, bolstered further by the use of "Sugar Shack" as the cover of Marvin Gaye's 1976 "I Want You" album, there was a surge of interest in commemorating Barnes' work in Durham.


(Copyright Ernie Barnes)


The Roxboro St. underpass at Roxboro and Pettigrew - with the Hillside Band marching past.
(Copyright Ernie Barnes)


The Palace Barber Shop, in the 100 Block of South Mangum St.
(Copyright Ernie Barnes)


(Copyright Ernie Barnes)

The house where Barnes grew up had been taken by Durham as part of the urban renewal program. An article published in the Morning Herald in 1976 proposed saving the house - potentially by moving it to Fayetteville St. to become part of an arts complex with St. Joseph's.

The article, which I've transcribed here, was the unsigned editorial for August 10, 1976 in the Durham Morning Herald.


To Ernie Barnes, whose paintings of life on Durham's Willard Street hang in the homes of many prominent people across the country, his home at 1013 Willard ·Street is a symbol. It is the symbol of the life he knew as a youngster, a life that he has described eloquently: "When I was a child, we never knew the area in which we lived was a ghetto. It was home and there was fun to be had. It was an area which incorporated all of the values basic in humanity, dreams, wit, faith, love and a special chemistry which romanced our athletic prowess, earthy humanisms, rhythmic and colorful life style. All of the hardships and struggles were minimized and shared because people believed in God and therefore cared for each other."

But besides being a personal symbol, Mr. Barnes, the former professional football player whose artistic talents' have brought him fame, thinks his Willard Street home can be "a symbol for young people who need some sparks to ignite a self-awakening." It would be difficult to preserve the Barnes home on its present location. It stands in the middle of an urban renewal area that has been largely cleared and that is eventually to be the site of a new housing development. But why can't the home be moved to another location and preserved as the kind of symbol Mr. Barnes wants it to be and as a showcase for some of his paintings and other works of black art, culture and history? And what better location could there be than a plot adjacent to St. Joseph's A.M.E. Church, a structure that is also located in an urban renewal area but one that is going to be preserved. The church and the Barnes home could even become keystones of a complex devoted to articulating the rich heritage of Durham's black community.

Reached by telephone in Los Angeles last, week, Mr. Barnes expressed keen interest in the idea of moving his Willard Street home to a site near St. Joseph's. He said that if an effort to finance the, moving project were begun in Durham he might be able to obtain additional support from friends in Los Angeles. The project would be handled by the St. Joseph's Foundation or by any formal or informal group in Durham that was interested in contributing to the preservation of Durham's past. The talented Mr. Barnes has preserved his Durham past in paintings that have brought pleasure to many people around the country. The preservation of his Willard Street home would make some of those paintings accessible to the citizens of Durham, and it would serve to keep part of Durham's history alive.

Barnes' house was not saved, unfortunately. The land would be re-graded, and part of the Bottoms would become an apartment complex on the former west side of the former Willard St. Land on the east side would remain vacant or utilized for a parking lot.


Site of 1013 Willard St., 2008.

Barnes' popularity in mainstream America would wane after the 1970s - he continued to paint, however. It seemed as if Durham also forgot about Barnes. Personally, I had never heard of Barnes until I ran across the above Herald article ~ 3 years ago. I discussed an effort with several people to bring Barnes' work - particularly his scenes of Durham - back to Durham, to reconnect us, but it never went anywhere.

Barnes died earlier this year, on April 27, 2009. I had planned to write this post for awhile - whenever I got back over to this area of Durham - whenever I finally found a decent photo of his house, etc. His death garnered articles in the N&O and Herald, but I still think few local folks know Barnes and his work. I just read, however, that Barnes donated his work to the North Carolina Central Museum, and that it is on display - at least through the remainder of this week. I haven't been over to see it myself, but I hope that includes his earliest work of Durham. I have always been convinced that the Sugar Shack was somewhere in Durham (with its banners for WSRC and Elivra's.) I would love to know where it was.

Find this spot on a Google Map.


35.988121,-78.9076836

HESTER HOUSE - CHILDREN'S MUSEUM

(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Simeon J. Hester purchased 576.5 acres of land in West Durham from William Willard in the 1870s; whether Hester built the house he would inhabit after his purchase is unknown, but architecturally, the house appears to be an early to mid 19th century structure with late 19th century embellishments/additions.


Durham County Map, 1890, showing Hester's home.
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection - Scanned by Digital Durham)

Hester sold off portions of his land over the subsequent ~30 years to various entities. Much of the land to the south of his property was subdivided and termed "Hester Heights". Mitch Fraas wrote a nice three part series on the development of Hester Heights. The land to the west and north was purchased by John Sprunt Hill and developed as his Hillandale Golf Course.

It's unclear how the house was used after Hester's death in 1915, but by the mid 20th century, the house was somewhat of an 'island' at the end of Georgia Avenue.

In 1946, the Nature Center, which had been located in Northgate Park, moved to the Hester House. At some point around this same time, the center would be renamed the Children's Museum.


Hester House, 11.13.46
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


1959 aerial showing the Hester House at the north end of Georgia Avenue, surrounded by the golf course.

In 1961, the Children's Museum moved north to a new facility on Murray Avenue, where it would be rechristened the Museum of Life and Science. The Hester house, along with the Hillandale Club House to the southwest, was demolished and the land redeveloped as a residential cul-de-sac.


Site of the Hester House, Georgia Ave., 10.12.09

Find this spot on a Google Map.


36.019923,-78.933027

Taking a Break

It's time for a respite for me for a few weeks, after over 3 years of mostly 5-day-a-week-Endangered Durham and ~1000 posts, I need a bit of down time before cranking up with new areas of Durham, including Trinity Park, Old North Durham, East Durham, Northgate, Hope Valley, the southern-eastern-western portions of the county, etc., etc. I know that I'll be unable to completely take a break, and thus I'm going to plan on publishing posts as the mood strikes over the remainder of November and December, and perhaps January, with regular posting to resume, at the latest, in February. I'll update the twitter feed with posts I publish during The Break. As always, I appreciate your readership, and I hope you understand my need for a short hiatus to rejuvenate, research, and do some non-historic-durham-architecture-related-things. (Rumor is that there are some of those things out there.)

Thanks

Gary

SECOND WATTS HOSPITAL / NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND MATH

Note: I've relied heavily on P. Preston Reynolds' excellent history of Watts Hospital - "Watts Hospital: 1895-1976. Keeping the Doors Open." in writing this entry. It's the best place-based book about a structure/set of structures in Durham - I highly recommend it for further reading if you are particularly interested in the hospital/hospital campus.

The original Watts Hospital - Durham's first hospital - had been established by George Watts on February 21, 1895 to provide hospital care to white men and women of Durham. The original hospital was a frame 'cottage' hospital located at the corner of Guess Road and West Main St.

Within 10 years, patient demand had outstripped the capacity of the old hospital. Watts made plans to expand the hospital on site, and engaged the firm which had designed the original hospital - Rand and Taylor of Boston, MA. Taylor, however, came to Watts with a proposal for an entirely new hospital - ambitious in scale and far from the "smoke, noise, and trains" in town. Taylor evidently placed multiple petri dishes around Durham, and chose the site that grew the fewest bugs - a 56 (or 43, or 60, depending on the source) acre tract at the northwest edge of town - outside of city limits, actually, in West Durham. The site was a "splendid grove of oak and hickory."

Ground was broken in May 1908, and the hospital was dedicated on December 2, 1909. Watts spent $217,000 on the site and construction.


Under construction, looking northwest from Broad St., 1909.
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection - Chamber of Commerce Collection)

The initial complex consisted of 5 buildings: an administration building, operating building, power house, laundry, and one patient pavilion.

Per Reynolds:

".. all the buildings were constructed of fire-proof materials. The front lobby walls were paneled in quarter-sawn oak.... The new features in the administration building included a small isolation ward of two beds and a pathological and bacteriological laboratory, which the architects thought was the first of its kind 'outside of the large cities of the South'. Near the main kitchen was a separate diet kitchen for the nursing students and another eating area for the [B]lack employees. The second floor accommodated private patients and maternity patients who were separated from one another by stairs, a nurse's station, and an elevator. The third floor provided living quarters for the nurses. Not counting infants, this building could hold 45 patients."

"The patient pavilion was two stories high and housed 14 patients on each floor. A dining room for the convalescents, a ward kitchen, elevator, work rooms, solarium, and balcony completed the picture."

"The operating building had an ambulance entrance, rooms for major and minor surgery, and a separate area for the care of accident victims. Builders installed a skylight in the major operating room to provide adequate light. The x-ray room opened to the surgical suites. The walls and floor were of marble, tile, and terrazzo."


Watts Hospital from Broad Street
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection)

The Watts-Hill families completed at least three other structures in a similar style to Watts Hospital: the Hill House, the Temple Building, and the Beverly Apartments. The last of these structures was given to the Board of Trustees of Watts Hospital in 1911 as an additional source of income.

As at the original Watts Hospital, a nurse training program was an essential part of the facility. A nurses' home, named Wyche House after the 6th hospital administrator and nurse supervisor, Mary Wyche, started construction soon after completion of the original facility, and was completed in 1910 for $45,000. A separate patient pavilion for women was completed in 1911, also at a cost of $45,000.


Watts Hospital, 1915. From right to left: Wyche House, the administration building, the men's pavilion, and the women's pavilion.
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection)

George Watts provided additional funds to expand the laboratory and the x-ray department in 1919, as part of his ongoing quest to create facilities at Watts Hospital that were the equal of the northeastern hospitals that the wealthy of Durham had previously traveled to for treatment (particularly Johns Hopkins)


Watts Hospital, Main entry from Broad Street, ~1920.
(From "Watts Hospital: Keeping the Doors Open" by P. Preston Reynolds)


Looking northwest, 1920s.
(Courtesy State Archives of North Carolina)

He began to pull back from active involvement in the hospital as his own health began to fail that same year; John Sprunt Hill, his son-in-law, stepped in to many of Watts' responsibilities that same year. Watts' last living efforts for the hospital were attempts to work with President William Preston Few to establish a medical school for Trinity College, a school which would utilize Watts Hospital as its teaching facility. Watts' death in 1921 stymied this effort.

Watts provided shares in the British-American Tobacco Co. and $200,000 to the hospital in his will. He stipulated that the hospital should construct a new patient wing to honor his first wife, Laura Valinda Beall Watts.

John Sprunt Hill took the mantle of President of the Board of Trustees after Watts' death, and began to champion the cause of a medical school affiliated with Watts Hospital. He devised the "Durham Plan" to establish the North Carolina Medical School in Durham. The state legislature would issue $4 million in bonds, $4 million would be collected from private sources, and Watts Hospital would provide $1.5 million. However, Hill suddenly dropped the campaign - at about the same time that James B. Duke asked Hill to help him craft the charter to establish the Duke Endowment.

A third generation of Watts-Hill joined the stewardship of Watts Hospital in 1925 when George Watts Hill became chairman of the building committee. Soon after, the hospital board began the work to expand the hospital with the new patient pavillion; they hired Taylor (by then Taylor and Kendall) to design the patient pavilion provided for by George Watts' will. The Valinda Beall Watts Pavilion was completed in 1927; it served urology and pediatrics, and had 50 private rooms, along with a kitchen serving the private patients. A radiology suite was constructed in 1934.

Per the Durham Centennial Edition in 1953 "two additions" to Watts Hospital were built by contractor George W. Kane, but I'm not sure which two.

Aerial view of Watts Hospital looking northwest, including the newly completed Valinda Beall Watts pavilion, late 1920s.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun)


Valinda Beall Watts pavilion, 1930s
(Courtesy Durham County Library - North Carolina Collection)


West entrance to Watts Hospital, late 1920s.
(Courtesy Durham County Library - North Carolina Collection)

New competition was afoot for Watts Hospital; James B. Duke's endowment of Trinity College to become Duke University provided for the establishment of a medical school and hospital with the new university campus. Watts Hospital had no explicit role in the new medical school when Duke Hospital opened in July 1930. But the attraction of new medical professionals to Durham, particularly specialists, proved somewhat of a boon initially for Watts as the new staff often practiced at Watts as well. Soon, however, competition was acute, as Duke and Watts both opened outpatient clinics in 1931. Duke clearly did not mean to steer clear of the role of community hospital.

Interestingly, Durham had always provided minimal support for the hospital, which George Watts had stipulated should provide care to the community regardless of a patient's ability to pay. City and County donations to the hospital to offset charity care covered ~ 1/3 of the costs in the early 1930s. As the cost of medical care continued to grow, ironically, with the successful treatment of acute disease and rise in preventive care, hospitals nationwide, including Watts, would grapple with how to procure sufficient funding.

Watts Hospital was in somewhat of a unique position because of its First Family, the Watts-Hills, and their explicit involvement in the formation modern health insurance. I've written a bit about this on my post about the George Watts house (Harwood Hall), which would become the site of the Hospital Care Association building by the 1960s. This organization would later become Blue Cross-Blue Shield of North Carolina.

Watts would also play a role in training nurses during World War II - a significant mobilization of Federal funds into health care and medical training. In 1945, the Hill House - a dormitory and classroom building for the nursing school - was built to the west of the earlier Wyche House, funded primarily by Federal funds. The passage of the Hill-Burton Act in 1942 would provide for Federal funding to support construction of hospital facilities nationwide.


1938 view of West Club Blvd, with the hospital grounds to the left.
(Courtesy Duke Forest Collection)


1945 aerial, looking west-northwest, showing the new Hill House to the north of the original hospital wings.
(From "Watts Hospital: Keeping the Doors Open" by P. Preston Reynolds)


Old Administration Building, 1950s
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun)

In 1953, a George Watts Carr designed addition, which included a new emergency room entrance, main entrance, modern delivery/operating rooms, new xray, lab, and kitchen facilities, as well as 100 new beds was constructed west of the Valinda Beall Watts Pavilion. The addition cost $2,577,000 to build, and opened on December 20, 1953.


(Courtesy John Schelp)


(Courtesy The Herald-Sun)


Construction of new emergency entrance, 08.29.56
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun)

The increasing reliance on Federal and state funding to support capital and operating costs at Watts would also, eventually, lead to the ultimate demise of Watts hospital, as Federal legislation - including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the enactment of Medicare in 1965 - would demand that hospitals be racially integrated.

Like most institutions in Durham, the hospital system was racially segregated - Watts had, until the 1960s, always served only white patients. One of the more unique things about Durham has always been the strength of the African-American community during the segregation era; when Watts had originally proposed adding a wing to Watts Hospital to treat African-American patients in 1900, he was persuaded by the African-American community that this was not in their best interest. The better solution would be to construct a hospital where African-Americans could both be seen as patients and be medical providers. The result was the construction of the original Lincoln Hospital in 1901. Lincoln grew and prospered as an institution and moved to new, larger quarters on Fayetteville St. in 1925.

This led to interesting motivations in the move towards desegregation in the 1960s. By that time, despite large additions to both Lincoln and Watts Hospitals in the 1950, the two were providing hospital facilities to Durham that would be difficult to retrofit for evolving patient needs/desires.

As the larger of the two institutions, with greater room to expand, Watts was seen by the white community as the natural location for an expanded, consolidated hospital for Durham. A Hospital Study Committee also found that the patient census at Lincoln was low. Duke Hospital had always treated both whites and African-Americans, although it was internally segregated. But Duke had fully integrated its patient services in the 1950s.

Like many of the segregated institutions of the African-American community, Lincoln was no longer exclusively, or even widely patronized by the 1960s. The migration of the African-American consumer to new choices meant the demise of many retail establishments, as well as institutions such as Lincoln. Like much of Hayti, though, community leaders attached an understandably fierce pride to Lincoln, and the symbolism attached to its proposed closing was powerful. Fear regarding the adherence of Watts to a true integration of patient services, with equal care provided to African-Americans and whites was quite real.

In October 1964, the Watts Hospital Board of Trustees voted 7-4 to integrate Watts Hospital.

A $15 million bond was proposed to enact a plan proposed by the Health Planning Council, a group comprised of leaders from both Watts and Lincoln Hospitals as well as others. The plan would involve the expansion of a now-integrated Watts Hospital to become the primary hospital for the community. Lincoln would have reduced services, but continue to exist with some upgraded facilities. From the start, the bond issue struggled. Durham has had multiple instances, to this day, where the African-American community and the conservative white community find their interests aligned. This was one of those instances - the conservative white community (represented by the "White Citizens Council") objected to a single primary hospital for both the white and African-American community, as they favored segregation. The African-American community (represented by the then-"Durham Committee on Negro Affairs") also objected - because of the reduced role for Lincoln.

The bond issue was soundly defeated in November 1966.

A multi-racial Hospital Study Committee was set up, which recommended the construction of a new hospital, and the conversion of Lincoln and Watts into extended-care facilities. This initially also met with opposition, but eventually all parties agreed to the need for a new facility, after assurances that it would provide equal integrated facilities for African-American patients and medical staff. The $20 million bond measure passed by a 2-1 margin on November 4, 1968. This would lead to the construction of Durham County General Hospital on the former County Home site on N. Roxboro Road. Seemingly, the only way to move past the old divide between Watts and Lincoln was to start anew. This facility would be renamed Durham Regional Hospital in the 1990s.

(Reynolds does a wonderful job breaking down the political motivations and perverse incentives at play during the push to both grow Durham's hospital facilities and integrate them at the same time. )


Main entrance, 07.17.70
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun)

The new hospital was completed and ready for patients in 1976. On October 10th of that year, all patients were transferred from Watts to Durham County General. (Patients at Lincoln had previously been transferred to Watts in September of that year.)

Watts was never transformed into a health facility - administration offices and the nursing school remained on site until the early 1980s. It presented an ideal venue for another institution, however.

The idea of a 'magnet-school-for-North-Carolina' originated with Governor Terry Sanford, and was continued by Jim Hunt. In 1977, the goal of establishing a public, residential high school that would attract talented students from throughout the state was brought before the General Assembly. In June 1978, the GA approved $150,000 in funds to begin a search process for a suitable site and establish the school. In November 1978, Durham was named the host city for the school, which would be known as the North Carolina School of Science and Math.

In September 1980, the school opened its doors with 150 high school students -the first state residential high school of its kind. It currently serves 650 high school Juniors and Seniors from throughout North Carolina with a specialized curriculum in math and science.


Former Watts Hospital Administration Building, 09.12.09


Former Men's Patient Pavilion, 09.12.09


Former Women's Patient Pavilion (left) and X-ray pavilion (right), 09.12.09


Former Wyche House/Nursing Students' Home, 09.12.09


Former Valinda Beall Watts Pavilion, 09.12.09


1953 "Brick Addition" to Watts Hospital, 09.12.09

Below, a drawing that NCSSM handed out during the Watts-Hillandale tour showing the buildings on the campus, dates, and historical uses. The drawing is also in Preston Reynolds' book.




Find this spot on a Google Map.


36.018264,-78.920964

Mystery Photo - 10.29.09

"Mr. Evan Wilkins with butter he is selling which was made on his farm. Durham, North Carolina"
November 1939
(Courtesy Library of Congress)

Solution:

West Trinity and Bay Street - looking east. Thanks to Peter for taking a present-day shot:

1200 BROAD - THE PROFESSIONAL BUILDING

Looking east at the intersection of Broad and West Club, May 1938
(Courtesy Duke Forest Collection)

The northeast corner of Broad and West Club was initially residential in nature; the area to the west of Watts Hospital developed in earnest during the period between 1910 and 1930.

The Professional Building was built in ~1951, primarily as an office building for medical professionals. It is similar in character and function to fellow mid-century modern medical office building The Medical Arts Building on South Gregson St.


Professional Building ~1950s
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


Additional residential teardowns for future development, which would become parking lot for the Professional Building, looking west from Sixth Street, 10.24.53
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

After the departure of Watts Hospital, most of the medical practices left Broad Street and headed northward to office parks past I-85. However, the now-Lane Professional Building still houses dentistry and holistic medicine practices, per a quick googling.


Professional Building, 06.27.09

Find this spot on a Google Map.


36.017318,-78.918794