2000-2010 HILLSBOROUGH ROAD

Looking northwest from W. Markham and Ninth, ~1950
(Courtesy Barry Norman)

The West Gulf Sales and Service Station was built in the late 1940s on what had previously been vacant land.


Looking northwest from Hillsborough Road near Ninth, 02.20.51.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

I'm not sure when the service station shut down. It was converted to a photography studio at some point. Since , it has housed the restaurant Vin Rouge.


Vin Rouge, looking northwest from Hillsborough Road, 04.05.09.


Looking northwest from near West Markham and Ninth, 04.05.09.

The site appears to be in the sights for redevelopment by Ninth Street North developer Glenn Dickson, per a site plan filed in September 2008.
Although on that site plan, 2000-2010 Hillsborough was noted at "Future Phase" - occurring, presumably, sometime after long-delayed Phase II of the Ninth St. North development.

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36.010645,-78.922346

772-774 NINTH STREET

772-774 Ninth, 02.20.51
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

A masonry structure was built at 772-774 Ninth Street in the early 1920s, brick-faced with a tile roof, which housed the West Durham Garage. (For whatever reason, this Spanish Revival style was very commonly used for 1920s-1930s auto-related businesses - one remnant of this style in Durham is the former Aldridge Motors building on Morgan St. or the nearby Murdoch building at West Markham and Broad Sts.)

By the mid-1930s, the garage was out of business, and the building was occupied by two tenants - a surprisingly libertine combination for North Carolina. 772 was occupied by ABC Store #3, and 774 by the Atlantic Company, wholesale beer distributors.

It appears that in the early to mid-1940s, the former garage building was torn down and replaced by a new masonry structure (at the same time that its neighbor, 776 Ninth St. was constructed.) The new brick masonry 772-774 Ninth St. was again occupied by the ABC Store (at 772,) but the beer wholesaler had departed. 774 was occupied by the Durham Transportation Company bus service, which also occupied 776.

In 1946, LR Barnes, upon his return from serving in the Army during World War II, opened the Barnes Supply Company at 774 Ninth St. Per a 1951 writeup, the store "handle[d] a complete line of general farm merchandise, featuring feed, seed, hardware, etc." 772 Ninth St. was occupied by Pud's Shoe Shop. By the 1950s, Barnes had expanded to occupy both bays of the building.


Barnes Supply, 1970s
(Courtesy Elmo's Diner)

Barnes Supply remains in business, and is, with the closure of McDonald's drugstore, the oldest business on Ninth Street.


Barnes Supply, 04.05.09

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36.010331,-78.92176

770 NINTH

Looking southeast, 02.20.51
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

The Dennis Service Station was built in the late 1920s. By the late 1940s, it had become the West Russell Amoco Service Station. At some point between the 1940s and 1970s, the building was replaced by a more modern service station building, sans awning.

Between 1970 and 1975, this was renamed the Ninth Street Amoco. Between 1975 and 1980, it became the West Side Game Room, which it remained into the 1990s.

It currently houses Cozy, a women's-clothing-and-other-stuff store.


Looking northeast, 04.05.09


Looking east-northeast, 04.09.09

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36.010199,-78.921781

771 NINTH STREET / 2001 HILLSBOROUGH ROAD

Hillsborough Road and Ninth St., looking west, ~1958
(Courtesy Barry Norman)

The service station at 771 9th St. / 2001 Hillsborough Road was initially the Council Service Station, built during the early 1930s. The building became Moore's Texaco, and, by the late 1950s, the McAfee Service Station. It then had a stint as a drive-in shoe shop, and idea whose time has surely come again.


Corner of Hillsborough Road and Ninth St., looking southwest, 09.27.62
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

I'm not sure when the station was torn down. The land on which it sat became an island with the direct connection of Hilslborough Road to West Markham in the early 1980s. The former corner of Hillsborough and 9th became the corner of Safeway and Ninth. The site hosts the Old West Durham neighborhood sign and grass/landscaping. It seems unfortunate that it managed to lose its sidewalk along with the gas station. Perhaps as people discuss closing Safeway, the former Hillsborough Road, making the crossing of Hillsborough on the north side of Ninth St. a bit less forbidding will be a priority.


Former southwest corner of Hillsborough and Ninth, looking southwest, 08.08.09

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36.010268,-78.922358

13TH, 14TH, AND 15TH STREETS - WEST DURHAM

Part of Mill No. 4, and the mill village stretching westward, 1910s. The somewhat larger red-colored structure in the center of the mill houses was the West Durham Presbyterian Church, the precursor to Blacknall Presbyterian.
(Courtesy John Schelp)

It's hard to know what 'units' to use in describing the portions of the Erwin Mills / West Durham mill village. Mill houses were built contemporaneously with the mill in 1893. 440 houses had been built by 1900; mill housing extended to the west, north, south and, to a small degree, to the east.


1913 Sanborn map, showing the neat arrangement of similar, evenly-spaced small houses that is/was typical of mill communities.
(Copyright Sanborn)

After the establishment of Blacknall Presbyterian, the West Durham Presbyterian Church was torn down and replaced with a house.

During the 1940s, Erwin Mills began to sell the houses to workers; the houses thus gradually came under private ownership.


The western portion of the mill village, bird's eye view looking east from ~ above 15th street, ~1950.
(Courtesy the Herald-Sun)


1959 aerial shot of the houses, with streets labelled.

The attrition of houses in this area has continued steadily since the 1970s. The connection of 15th Street with Anderson St. (15th did not previously cross the railroad tracks) and widening of the that street, as well as the typically rapacious appetite of churches for land (Greystone) has left little evidence of housing along 15th Street. 15th and 14th (now Rutherford) have also seen ongoing demolitions - much of which has been driven by parking for Duke and Erwin Square. 13th St., now Bolton, had been emptied out fairly well by Erwin Square, and now one side of the street is entirely taken up by the Station 9 residential development.


2007 aerial - the attrition of houses is evident.


15th Street, looking southwest, 06.13.09 - one house remains amidst the Greystone lands.


Empty parking lots dominate the east side of 15th street - one house remains on this side as well, 06.13.09


Rutherford (14th) - several houses remain on the east side of the street, but only one remains on the west side.
06.13.09


Bolton (13th) - Station 9 dominates the street, but there are several houses left standing on the west side. To the left is the approximate location of the West Durham Presbyterian Church - 06.13.09

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36.009234,-78.92783

2600-2604 1/2 HILLSBOROUGH RD.

1959 Aerial of 15th Street and Hillsborough Road.

The four-bay commercial structure at the intersection of 15th St. and Hillsborough Rd. appears to have been built in 1958-59, replacing an earlier frame structure - a converted dwelling that had housed several businesses.

John Schelp was able to provide me pictures of one of the interior tenants - the Vogue Beauty Shoppe, which occupied the easternmost bay.


Vogue Beauty Shoppe Interior
(Courtesy John Schelp)


Vogue Beauty Shoppe Interior
(Courtesy John Schelp)


Vogue Beauty Shoppe Interior
(Courtesy John Schelp)

While that space is now probably better known as purveyor-of-fine-popsicles Locopops, other longstanding tenants, such as Don Hill's Lock and Safe have helped to provide the longevity of character that a establishes a building as an integral part of a neighborhood, and of Durham.


2600-2604 1/2 Hillsborough, 04.05.09

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36.010959,-78.928797

WEST DURHAM BAPTIST / GREY STONE BAPTIST CHURCH

West Durham Baptist / Grey Stone Baptist, 1935.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

The West Durham Baptist Church located after 1897 on Alexander Avenue had seen its congregation grow to more than 800 by 1927. Rather than expand at the Alexander site, the church purchased a site at the corner of Hillsborough Rd. and 15th Street in 1933. The plan for a new gothic church, built of the same stone used to construct Duke's West Campus, was executed by Durham architectural firm Atwood and Weeks. Although construction began soon after purchase of the site, it was halted for lack of funds for a period, but resumed to complete the church by 1936.

In 1949, the church changed its name to Grey Stone Baptist Church to distinguish the church from the African-American West Baptist Church. Several expansions of the church were performed in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including additions to the rear of the 1936 church building as well as parking lots.

The church remains active today.


Grey Stone Baptist, 04.12.09

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36.010512,-78.929217

2603-2609 HILLSBOROUGH

2603 Hillsborough, 1950s.
(Courtesy Old West Durham)

The three-bay commercial structure once located at the corner of 16th St. and Hillsborough Road appears to have been built in the early to mid 1920s, and was first home to the Hillsborough Road Drug Co. Midgett's Barber Shop was added by the late 1920s.

By the late 1930s- early 1940s, it contained Ferrell's Barber Shop, the Delite Beauty Shop, and Johnson's Soda Shop. By the mid-1950s, it contained Ferrell's Barber Shop, Fent's Place Restaurant, and the Petite Beauty Shop.

By the late 1950s, a store across the street (with a fantastic name) moved to 2603 Hillsborough - the Ideal Sundry. I'm not sure if a fourth bay was added to the storefronts at that time, as Ferrell's Barber Shop, Fent's Place, and the Petite Beauty Shop remained in place at 2605-2609 Hillsborough.

Per the Old West Durham website, the Ideal Sundry was operated by Mr. A.W. "Bill" Holmes. The site states that "Bill, always with a smile, would welcome his many customers. After school and on weekends, the Ideal Sundry was also a favorite meeting place for teenagers. [Kids] could enjoy a cold soda, select a favorite comic book or buy anything from toys to chips."

The commercial storefronts at 2603-2609 Hillsborough were torn down in the mid-1980s. The site is now a surface parking lot for Greystone Baptist Church.


2603-2609 Hillsborough, 06.06.09

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36.010847,-78.929222

GARRARD'S GROCERY

Built prior to 1913, the commercial structure at 2606-2608 Hillsborough Road was initially divided down the middle, with stores on either side. By the mid-1920s, the 2606 side is listed as occupied by VP Hall, but no notation of what business he/she ran. The 2608 side was occupied by Caleb E Garrard, who ran a grocery, called simply Garrard's Grocery Store. Per the Old West Durham website, "long-time resident Bill Holmes recalls [Garrard]'s mule-drawn wagon that delivered groceries to the nearby homes in the West Durham mill village."

The Hillsborough Road Market occupied the 2606 side of the building by the late 1920s, although Garrard is still listed at 2608. By the mid-1930s, Garrard's Grocery had taken over both sides of the building.

During the 1940s, the Haygood Grocery Store occupied the building. The owners realized that a local ordinance stipulated they were too close to Greystone Baptist to sell alcohol. They evidently re-divided the store down the middle and began to sell alcohol out of the western half, which was just over the line.

Alliance plumbing store took over the space in the 1950s, which was later replaced by a "Chinese Grocery store" per OWD until it closed in 1985.

The store was renovated by Mitch Fisher for his business, Fisher Signs, which is the current occupant of the building.

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36.011069,-78.929042

PUBLIC SERVICE / ICE COMPANY - WEST DURHAM

Looking west from Crabtree St. (later Trent) and Hillsborough Rd., 1920s
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

Many people are probably aware of ice delivery in the days before household refrigeration became commonplace; the term 'icebox' still gets used occasionally, at least in the south - which hearkens back to the days when delivered ice would be inserted into an insulated cabinet and used to refrigerate perishables. Even after mechanical refrigeration was available, it took ~20 years (~1930s-1950s) for such equipment to become predominant in American households.

In Durham, it was the electric company that provided ice service and central refrigeration; the main office was located on Blackwell St., across from American Tobacco. The West Durham 'branch office' was located on Hillsborough Road, at the corner of Crabtree St. (later Trent.)

The company appears to have closed this building, at least, by the mid to late 1930s; however it appears to have reopened as the West Durham Ice Company by the 1950s. By the late 1950s, it was called the West Durham Ice and Produce Company.

I'm not sure when the structure was torn down, but by the 1980s, the site became the parking lot in front of a restaurant - I remember it as China Inn in the 1990s, but I'm not sure if it wasn't something previously. (As an aside, I acquired a since-beloved neologism from the China Inn menu: "flavorite." It was used in this sentence, in 2000: "....flavorite dish of newly-elected president Bill Clinton.")

China Inn closed sometime in the early 2000s, and I believe that the building now houses a nightclub.


Looking west from Trent and Hillsborough, 04.15.09

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36.011759,-78.930631

2803 HILLSBOROUGH ROAD

2803 Hillsborough Road, November 2006

The few remaining former/current residential properties on Hillsborough Road, concentrated in the 2800 block, continue to incrementally decrease. Last known victim: the duplex at 2803 Hillsborough Road, which showed progressive decline over many years before being 'removed' by NIS last April.


2803 Hillsborough, 2007.


Immediately after demolition (sorry for the cell phone pic) - 04.13.08.


2803 Hillsborough, 04.15.09

I'm often asked if I ever find it acceptable to tear down a historic property - which is usually an effort to find out if I am 'reasonable'. You can point to the ongoing deterioration of this property, its location and potential residential undesirability on Hillsborough Road, etc. - all as 'reasonable' justifications for its removal.

The problem in Durham is that every single demolition is deemed reasonable by the powers-that-be.

My return question is generally "what is an adequate number of historic properties for Durham to have?" It's a similarly unanswerable question, and my point is simply this: if you can't determine the answer to this question, how can you ever decide whether or not losing "just this one" is reasonable?

Our record on saving structures from the wrecking ball in Durham is abysmal. We lose the vast, vast majority of fights to save structures from demolition. Given that demolitions and natural attrition aren't going away, how can we afford to 'allow' any historic structures to be demolished without a fight? When does yet another demolition become unreasonable - when there are 500 historic structures left? 200? 50? 5?

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36.013114,-78.932197