FIRE STATION #2 (NINTH STREET)

By the 1950s, the growth of population westward, the envelopment of West Durham into the City of Durham, and the scaling of fire equipment necessitated a new fire station for Company #2, which had been located amongst the Liggett Warehouses on West Main St. since 1906

The Ninth Street property was purchased by the City from the heirs of Mrs. Ida Couch for about $7,000.

The City moved the station further out to get faster response times to fires in the residential areas and nearby schools and hospitals in West Durham. The colonial-designed fire station was built for $165,000 and was described as "one of the most modern fire stations in the South."


During Construction.
(Courtesy Barry Norman)

The station was formally dedicated on September 28, 1950 by Fire Chief Cosmo Cox.


Completed Fire Station #2, 1950.
(Courtesy Barry Norman)


Completed Fire Station #2, 1950.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun)

The station is the oldest fire station still in operation (the oldest fire station in Durham is the former Fire Station #1 at N. Mangum and City Hall Place (Holloway).)


Fire Station #2, 04.12.09

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36.0143,-78.92215

FIDELITY BANK - WEST DURHAM / BRUEGGER'S

(Courtesy Old West Durham Neighborhood Association)

The Fidelity Bank was one of Durham's earliest banks, organized by MA Angier, George Watts, Washington Duke, and Benjamin Duke in 1887. After stints in the Wright Building and Trust Building, the Fidelity became the anchor tenant in the Fred C. Geer Building in 1915, which would house their main offices and main branch. They would eventually own that building and rename it the Fidelity Bank building.

Unlike many other banks, Fidelity did not undertake an aggressive geographic expansion; under the Fidelity name, the bank peaked with 3 branches, all in Durham.

One of those branches, established in the early 1920s , was the West Durham branch. (The others were in East Durham and North Durham.) Designed by Durham architecture firm Rose and Rose, the neoclassical revival structure established an architectural presence on the south side of Perry Street. This corner had high visibility to trolley traffic, as the trolley made its right turn from 9th St. at Perry to get to Broad Street, where it would then turn left to head north towards Watts Hospital.


Fidelity Bank, on the corner of Perry and 9th, ~1950
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun)

Fidelity Bank became a part of Wachovia Bank in 1956. The branch banks became Wachovia branches at the same time. The bank was expanded to the south in the 1950s - I'm unsure when.

This remained a Wachoiva branch bank into the 1980s.


Wachovia branch bank at 9th and Perry, 1980, showing the south side addition.

In the early 1980s, Wachovia built a new branch across the street, at the former location of the Erwin Mills company store/West Durham post office. The building was renovated, with Bruegger's Bagels establishing one of their bagel shops in the original bank building during the early renaissance of 9th Street. The first tenant I remember (from the late 1980s) in the southern addition was Steve's Ice Cream.

Bruegger's remains, 20+ years on. The south addition has turned over multiple times, and is currently Tre Bella. Zola Gallery has an upstairs space on the second floor of the original bank building and south addition, with an entry off Perry St.


Former Fidelity Bank, NE, 04.05.09


Former Fidelity Bank, SE, 04.05.09

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36.007519,-78.922009

WEST DURHAM METHODIST CHURCH / GRANITE SERVICE STATION / BP

Per the Old West Durham website, Reuben Hibberd, a local florist and lay preacher, began holding cottage prayer meetings and "Sunday Sings" in West Durham homes in 1893. Hibberd would often bring a small portable organ with him.

As interest increased in Hibberd's meetings, the Sunday School was moved to a grandstand in the nearby Erwin Ballfield. During an 1894 revival in the grandstand, the West Durham Methodist Church was chartered.

In 1896, Ben Duke donated land to the west of the Erwin Ballfield, at the corner of Main St. and 9th St., across from the Erwin company store. A small wood frame chapel was built on the site, facing 9th Street.


West Durham Methodist chapel, 1896.
(Courtesy Old West Durham)

By 1907, a larger frame church structure had been added to the south of the original chapel.


West Durham Methodist Episcopal Church, looking northwest from West Main St. near the corner of West Main and 9th St., 1907. You can see the company store and Erwin Mill in the background.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

In 1927, the church moved to West Markham Avenue, where it would change its name to Asbury Methodist in 1944.

The original Methodist church was torn down, and the Granite Service Station was built on a small corner of the original church site.


Granite Service Station, with St. Joseph's in the background, likely 1940s.
(Courtesy John Schelp)


Bird's Eye view of the Granite Service Station, looking east, ~1950 with St. Joseph's and the Erwin Ballfield in the background.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

In the mid-1950s, the original service station was torn down and replaced by a 'modern' service station, which I believe was a Gulf station. An additional commercial structure (now a Kinko's) was built to the north of the gas station, on the remainder of the former church site around 1959; it originally was a Glidden Paint Company store.


Kinko's, 04.05.09.

Several years ago, the gas station became a Family Fare BP/Amoco/whatever - part of the MM Fowler Family Fare Durham gas empire, which owns three of my favorite neglected historic structures: Catsburg, the Old Gulf Station at Geer and Foster, and the fantastic old service station at Angier and Guthrie. It's something I certainly think about when running low on gas.


Family Fare BP Station, 04.05.09

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36.006762,-78.92195

ERWIN BALLFIELD / A&P / PHILLIPS 66 / WHOLE FOODS / MAD HATTER / ETC.

Bird's Eye view looking west the Erwin Field at Broad and West Main Streets, ~1940.
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

One of the early community assets created by the Erwin Cotton Mills and its principal, William Erwin, was the Erwin field, which hosted the Erwin Auditorium baseball team.


Looking east from 8th (Iredell) and West Main Sts., May 1938, showing a partial view of the batting cage.
(Courtesy Duke Forest Collection)


Looking northeast from 8th (Iredell) and West Main Sts., May 1938, showing a view of the batting cage.
(Courtesy Duke Forest Collection)

Below, images of the baseball team from the mid 20th century at the field.


(Courtesy Old West Durham Neighborhood Assoc.)


(Courtesy Old West Durham Neighborhood Assoc.)

In 1953, Erwin Mills converted the former Monkey Bottom lowlands to the south into a new Erwin Field; the field at West Main and Broad Streets was soon converted into a commercial development - a new A&P supermarket set back from Broad Street with what was, at the time, a massive surface parking lot in front, and a Phillips 66 gas station at the corner of Broad and West Main Sts.

Tops Drive-In was added to the south end of the A&P sometime in the 1950s. Per information sent to me by Bob Chapman:

"Tops was [one branch of] an 18 restaurant chain with all other branches in northern Va and the DC area including one on Wisconsin Av. in Bethesda. Their signature sandwiches were the Sir Loiner, the Jim Dandy, the Maverick and a tasty 'Hawaiian' ham sandwich with pineapple and secret sauce. Great onion rings and hot fudge sundaes. Juke box. In the early 70s the chain merged into Gino's (named after Gino Marchetti of the Baltimore Colts) They sold inedible hamburgers and KFC until they went under, then the location morphed again into a KFC store."


Tops Menu.
(Courtesy Sherry Handfinger)

He notes that there was an establishment in the basement below Tops, named the "Student Prince Hofbrau Haus."


Looking southwest from Perry and Broad Sts., 08.27.58
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


Looking south on Broad Street from near Perry St., 08.27.58. The gas station is visible in the background.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

In the 1950s and 1960s, high school and college students would make a drive-in circuit that, in this little area, included Top's and the Blue Light.

The character of this corner changed considerably with the connection of Broad Street and Swift Avenue in 1964; neither crossed the tracks prior to that point, and Swift Avenue met the tracks at a point farther east than where Broad St. did


Looking south on Broad Street near its intersection with West Main St., 02.12.64.


Looking northwest from where Swift Avenue met West Pettigrew St., 02.12.64.

Below, the Phillips 66 station and "Ginos" looking west, after the connection of Broad and Swift, 03.10.70



By the time I got to Durham in 1988, I remember the gas station, which I believe was closed, the KFC, and the Hofbrau - although I never went in the latter. The A&P had one of those 1970s-era A&P signs on the facade, and it was definitely on the decline. By 1993, it had become a Sav-A-Center.

Sometime in the mid-90s, when I left Durham, before I came back in 1997, Wellspring grocery moved from their location at 9th and Hillsborough (which was later, until recently, George's Garage) to the Sav-A-Center, which involved a significant renovation of the entire building. It appears that the strip was expanded at that time as well.


Former A&P/Sav-A-Center under renovation, mid-1990s.

The former Phillips 66 gas station was also renovated to become a restaurant - Owen's Broad Street Diner, run by the 501 Diner folks in Chapel Hill. Ben and Jerry's took over the southeast corner, around where Top's was, and a pizza place moved in to the west of them - can't remember the name, but they had some insane list of toppings that included rattlesnake, jellybeans - you name it.

Since then, Wellspring has become Whole Foods, the pizza place became Cinelli's, the bike store that is now The Bicycle Chain moved in at the north end of the complex, and a local video store, Avid Video, moved in next to Ben and Jerry's. The Broad Street Diner closed (which depressed me - I always enjoyed it) and was replaced by the Mad Hatter, which moved from its prior location in Erwin Square. (They renovated the station extensively - enclosing the south 'triangle' awning.)

Primarily because of Whole Foods, this 1950s-era shopping center remains very busy, and a hub for commercial activity for a wide geographic area of Durham.


Looking southwest, 04.12.09

The former batting cage and Phillips 66 station, now the Mad Hatter Bake Shop:


Looking north, 07.19.09

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36.006885,-78.920524

ERWIN COTTON MILL COMPANY STORE / WEST DURHAM POST OFFICE

1913 Map showing the Company Store (next to the reservoir and denoted by the "S") with the small post office located to the north of the building.
(Copyright Sanborn Map Company)

The Erwin Mills Company Store was constructed contemporaneously with the mill in 1892. As the name implies, the store provided a place where employees could purchase groceries and other goods. Typically in company stores, although I don't know the specifics regarding the Erwin Mill store, employees could purchase on credit against future earnings. The West Durham Post Office was established in a smaller structure immediately to the north of the store building.

It appears from some oral histories that the generation working in the mills by the 1930s-1950s had no memory of buying at the company store, although their parents had. I suspect that as the commercial district on Ninth Street grew and prospered, the company store became obsolete - perhaps by the 1920s.

During the first decades of the 20th century, the company store building evidently also served as the West Durham trolley stop, per one oral history. (From downtown, the trolley came to West Durham via West Main St., taking a right at Ninth Street, a right at Perry Street, and a left at Broad Street.)


Aerial showing the company store/post office at the corner of West Main and Ninth Street, 1950s.

By mid-century, the post office has taken over the entire building. It appears to have been remodeled for this purpose during the 1920s-1930s. Various groups appear to have rented the 2nd story of the building - by 1959, the Knights of Pythias used it as meeting space.


West Durham Post Office, looking south (with Knights of Pythias lodge on the second floor,) 1959.
(Courtesy Bob Blake)


West Durham Post Office, 1961. The windows/brickwork on the east, south, and west faces appears more typical of 1920s-1930s versus that on the north, which resembles that of the mill.
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection)

A new West Durham post office was constructed in 1961, just to the north of the original. The post office / company store was demolished that same year.


Demolition of the West Durham Post Office.
(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection)

You can see in the background of this picture the then-new, replacement West Durham Post Office, located ~150 feet north of the older building.


New West Durham Post Office, 10.21.61. Note how close the structures on Ninth Street once were to the "Cloth Building."

I'm not sure if anything replaced the old post office / company store on the corner immediately thereafter - my guess is, given the odd grade and small amount of room between the former reservoir and the street, that it remained empty. By the 1980s, the Erwin Square redevelopment had regraded the Mill site, and a Wachovia branch bank was constructed on the old store site (actually a bit to the west and north of the store footprint.)


Site of the original West Durham Post Office and Erwin Mills company store, looking west, 04.04.09

The 'new' West Durham Post Office was, in due time, abandoned as well. I'm not sure when this occurred, but the opening of the can-it-be-any-more-isolated Kangaroo St. branch was likely the cause. It now houses a store that sells Duke-related merchandise, and it has managed to succeed despite Duke forcing them to change their name to "Duck".



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36.00674,-78.922528

ERWIN AUDITORIUM

Erwin Auditorium, 1920s.
(Courtesy Durham County Library - North Carolina Collection)

Built in 1922 by Erwin Cotton Mills, the Renaissance Revival, 2 1/2 story Erwin Auditorium was designed by Hill C. Linthicum to provide all-purpose recreational space for the community. The construction was not entirely benevolent, as William Erwin used money that would have otherwise been distributed to workers as bonuses to construct the building.

Nonetheless, it quickly became a beloved hub of social activity for West Durham, open from 8:30am to 10:30pm daily, except for Sundays. A 1000-person capacity two-story auditorium (in the rear of the building) hosted concerts, meetings, lectures, shows, plays, and twice-weekly movies. When the chairs were removed, it also served as a gymnasium where basketball games and other athletic activities were held. A swimming pool was located in the basement. The front of the building contained a library, a cafeteria, a baby clinic, a game room, a bowling alley, and a soda fountain. Classes were offered in the building as well, including crafts/arts/sewing/cooking classes as well as night school trade/professional classes that had been offered by Erwin Mills for a number of years. Community groups, such as scouts, would utilize the auditorium for meetings as well. Outdoors in the adjacent park, (extending to the east) there were tennis courts, playgrounds, and a zoo (which had, at least, a bear, an eagle, monkeys, goldfish, and squirrels.) Showers and changing rooms were located on the south side of Erwin Road (where Sam's Blue Light would later be located.)

CB West was the director of Erwin Auditorium and Rosa Warren supervised 'women's programs'.

Movies were a significant attraction at the Auditorium. Many residents saw their first 'talkies' at the Auditorium - children were admitted for 5 cents, and adults for 10. Zeb Stone noted in a 1975 oral history that movies would be originally be shown on Tuesday and Saturday, and that Thursday nights were later added to the schedule as well (other sources note that the third day added was Friday.) The fourth of July was evidently a major event for the community, celebrated in the Park and auditorium.

Residents of West Durham recalled in the same oral history the sense that what they had at the auditorium was a significant cut above what was available / provided by the city in other parts of Durham.

It appears that any program sponsored by the mill was likely to utilize the auditorium. Below, employees of Erwin Mills receive blankets from the company at Christmastime.


Looking northwest from the upper floors of the Erwin Auditorium towards Mill No. 4, 12.22.49. Employees are lined up from the entrance back to the railroad tracks (West Pettigrew was apparently closed between Oregon and Alexander when the Auditorium was built.)
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


Employees receiving free blankets, 12.22.49
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Even as control / ownership of Erwin Mills shifted in the 1950s, the auditorium remained a hub for social activity, classes and the like.


Erwin Auditorium, looking southwest from Mulberry St., 1950s.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


Erwin Auditorium, looking northwest from Erwin Road and Oregon St., 1950s.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


Erwin Auditorium in the background, looking south from Mulberry St. during the 1951 Erwin Mills Strike, 1951.
(Courtesy the Herald-Sun)


Aerial shot looking southeast over the Erwin Mill with the Erwin Auditorium in the right background.
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


Looking northwest towards Erwin Auditorium, 1950s
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


Two women taking ceramics classes at Erwin Auditorium, 04.17.58
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

After 1956, the Auditorium was jointly owned by Erwin Mills and the City of Durham, and from 1966-1976, it was a city recreation center.


Erwin Auditorium, August 1975
(Courtesy Old West Durham Neighborhood Association)

Jean Anderson tells the story of Erwin Auditorium's connection to the eventual arrival of the American Dance Festival in Durham; when a group of local dance enthusiasts sponsored "A Day for Dancing" at Erwin Auditorium in the early 1970s, they expected 50-75 participants - they got 600. The level of support gave them a substantive base to build upon, establishing summer programs that eventually led to ADF's migration from Connecticut. Similarly, the Durham Symphony was formed after a group met at the Auditorium after recruitment by Vincent Simonetti, the eventual first conductor for the Symphony.

In 1976, the Edison Johnson Rec Center opened, and Erwin Auditorium was closed. The city continued to use the building for storage for another 3 years before it was abandoned.


Erwin Auditorium Pool during abandonment.
(Courtesy Old West Durham Neighborhood Association)

In 1984, the Erwin Auditorium was torn down in advance of the extension of the Durham Freeway from Erwin Road to 15-501.


Erwin Auditorium demolition, 02.16.84
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


Erwin Auditorium demolition, 02.16.84
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)


Erwin Auditorium demolition, 02.16.84
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Some of the site of the auditorium still exists as woods, sandwiched between the RR tracks and the Freeway, but the building footprint hovers above you as you travel westbound on 147.




Site of Erwin Auditorium from West Main Street, 04.12.09


Former Air Raid siren located at Erwin Auditorium, still sitting in the woods between the tracks and the freeway - 04.12.09

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36.006324,-78.924451