Looking south towards East Pettigrew and Fayetteville Streets, 1940s. Speight's service station is to the left. (Courtesy State of North Carolina Archives)
Theodore Speight came to Durham from Snow Camp, NC in 1932 with 82 cents in his pocket. He began working at a service station upon his arrival, and soon owned the station, a Pure Oil Station located at the southwest corner of East Pettigrew and Fayetteville Streets. Like other Pure Oil Stations I've profiled, Speight's station had the 'cottage style' pitched roof.
Below, a very brief snippet of film showing a drive by Speight's in 1947.
Below, Speight's from "Negro Durham Marches On" in 1949.
In the 1950s, the station was remodeled to resemble the more modern stations being constructed at that time.
Looking west from Fayetteville and East Pettigrew, 1959. (Courtesy Wayne Henderson)
Speight's appears to have been torn down around 1970. With the shift of Fayetteville St. to the west (so that it could align with a new connector to Elizabeth St.), the site of Speight's became the middle of the new intersection of Fayetteville and East Pettigrew.
Looking west at the former site of Speight's Service Station, 11.24.07
I was going to use the county's impending demolition of the 500 block of East Main Street as an illustrative example of how we continue to undermine the economic future of Durham, but 2312 Angier Avenue will serve just as well. Doesn't anyone in the city or the county understand that tearing down historic commercial structures is THROWING AWAY MONEY FROM THE FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS. Does this seem like a good idea when construction financing has become a scarcity? Why doesn't the failure of destroying historic structures to generate a single positive outcome, ever, in this city not fire up at least one questioning neuron in the brains of our local government? Why do so many people who trot out the destruction of Hayti as travesty repeat the same mistake?
East Durham over the past 5 years has been in the exact same situation that Hayti was in circa 1962. Our reaction? Exactly the same: Physical blight is a contagion that must be destroyed. We've destroyed large swaths of East Durham in the name of such misguided purification, with the utterly unfounded belief that clearing away old structures will bring economic development.
Repeat after me:
Demolition does not produce economic development. Historic structures are worth more economically than new construction due to tax credits. By destroying historic structures, you are creating a larger economic hurdle for a neighborhood to overcome than it faced previously.
and
Demolition does not stop criminal activity. While I agree that demolition of a historic structure tears away at the soul, criminals do not get saved when a vacant structure is torn down.
East-of-Downtown Durham has been a diamond in the rough for many years, at best unloved and at worst abused by a lack of economic investment. Over the past 5 years, the city has been determined to pay attention to what they term "NorthEastCentral Durham", and I'm not sure the cure isn't worse than the disease. This isn't horribly unusual, unfortunately, as it is the rare local government that doesn't come into a 'troubled' area swinging a sledgehammer rather than leveraging the considerable assets of that area to create real opportunities for economic development. Demolition and the persistence of the Mayor&Pals in seeking 'solutions' like the widening of Alston Avenue are destroying the assets of East Durham that might attract the economic investment that the area needs. At the same time, the seeds of that investment have been growing - not on the newly vacant land, but in the still-extant historic structures. But, by all means, we wouldn't want that trend to continue. People might actually open functioning businesses in those buildings, or we might create homeownership.
It's tiring to say the same things over and over again, but this website has two main purposes: 1) a historical architectural record for researching Durham's past and 2) a warning for those who believe that demolishing historic structures has ever benefited Durham. I hope I've achieved some measure of success at #1, because I'm not sure that #2 will serve as anything than an incredibly unhelpful, unproductive "I told you so."
Block of East Pettigrew between Henry Alley (intersecting street on the right) and Cozart St. (intersecting street next to Speight's service station, on the left) - ~1940s. 544 East Pettigrew is the two-story structure to the right of Cozart Street.
544 East Pettigrew St., located on the southwest corner of East Pettigrew St. and Cozart Alley/Street was built in the 1930s and housed Levy's Grocery until ~1957. By 1959, it housed Steele Beauty Salon, which had become Thorpe's Barber Shop by 1961.
544 East Pettigrew, the leftmost building. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
The structure was torn down ~1969-1970.
Looking west, 544 East Pettigrew has been demolished. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
The land has been vacant since that time.
Site of 544 East Pettigrew, 09.04.08.
An overlay map showing the streets of Hayti overlaid on 2007 satellite imagery.
Block of East Pettigrew between Henry Alley (intersecting street on the right) and Cozart St. (intersecting street next to Speight's service station, on the left) - ~1940s.
542-542 1/2 East Pettigrew was built in the 1930s, but was vacant by the late 1930s. By 1941, 542 housed Burma's Beauty Salon and 542 1/2 housed Charles Dennis' fish market. In 1953, Azona Allen opened The Green Candle restaurant at 542 E. Pettigrew, and by 1954, 542 1/2 housed the Orchid Beauty Shop. By 1957, this had become Rose's Beauty Salon. The beauty salon had closed by 1968.
Per a 1995 Herald-Sun article, Ms. Allen reminisced about serving Duke Ellington and Ike and Tina Turner at The Green Candle.
The building was destroyed before 1972. The land has remained vacant since that time.
Site of 542 - 542 1/2 East Pettigrew, 09.04.08
The Green Candle was one of the few businesses from the East Pettigrew St. business district to continue on after urban renewal. Ms. Allen eventually moved her business to the Phoenix Square shopping center on Fayetteville St. I'm not sure when it closed.
Block of East Pettigrew between Henry Alley (intersecting street on the right) and Cozart St. (intersecting street next to Speight's service station, on the left) - ~1940s. 538-540 is the mid-block two-story structure and the adjoining brick-storefront-in-front-of-a-wood-frame-house.
538-540 was created from an earlier vintage house (at 540) which was linked by a single story storefront with an adjoining two story commercial structure.
540 East Pettigrew housed the Baldwin Furniture Exchange from 1929 onward. The business was started by David and Ellen Baldwin, and initially located at 516 East Pettigrew Street (from 1927 to 1929.) In 1951, the store was noted to "have a large warehouse, fully stocked with the latest in furniture." Mr. Baldwin and his wife lived on a 159 acre farm on Old Oxford Highway, and are featured in "Negro Durham Marches On" riding horses.
538, built in 1938, housed the Royal Dry Cleaners. These businesses remained stable at these locations until 1968, when the Royal Cleaners closed, and appears to have been replaced briefly by the Boston Beanery restaurant.
(Courtesy State Archives) Looking south towards the block of East Pettigrew between Henry Alley (intersecting street on the right) and Cozart St. (intersecting street next to Speight's service station, on the left) - ~1940s.
534-536 East Pettigrew appears to have been built in ~1940. 536 initially housed Green Inn Fruit and Produce, followed by McNeill Produce in 1947. By 1950, Pettiford Grocery had opened in 534, and the Royal Sport Shop in 536. 536 became McClain's Seafood and Poultry Market by 1954, which closed by 1961. It remained vacant from that point forward.
534 East Pettigrew, Pettiford Market, ~1970. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
A long shot looking west down the block, ~1970 - 534-536 is being demolished. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
Above, looking south at the block of East Pettigrew between Henry Alley (intersecting street on the right) and Cozart St. (intersecting street next to Speight's service station, on the left) - circa ~1940s. 526-532 is the two-story structure next to Henry Alley.
526-532 East Pettigrew St. was one of the earlier commercial buildings constructed on East Pettigrew. It appears to have been constructed in the 1910s. In 1919, it housed the Hayti Barber Shop at 526 and Pettigrew Barber at 528. By 1922, 526 also housed the Wayside Ice Cream Parlor.
By 1930, 526 housed the Economy Meat Market, 528 the Hayti Barber Shop, 530 Royal Tailoring, and 532 the Star Cafe. By 1935, 526 housed Samuel Fagan Meats, and the Star Cafe has closed.
By 1938, it housed the New Deal Barber Shop and Royal Tailoring Company. In 1941, the Shepard Grocery (526), New Deal Barber Shop (528), a billiards parlor (530), the Upchurch Temple (530 1/2), and the Old Star Cafe (532).
By 1948, the billiards parlor, Old Star Cafe and temple had departed. Acme Shoe Repair had opened at 532. By 1950, 526 had become Isler's Hotel and Grill, 528 Beatty's Barber and Beauty Shop, 530 1/2 part of Isler's hotel, and 532 Shelley's Shoe Sch - ?(school)?.
In 1954, 528 had become the New Deal Barber Shop again, 530 Abraham Shaw's Valet shop, and 532 Dee's Sewing Shop. In 1957, 532 was the Guess Shoe Shop and 530 was vacant, but would become Trixie's Pool Room in 1959, and the Midway Sport Shop in 1961.
526 East Pettigrew and the corner of East Pettigrew and Henry Alley, 1970. Note the complete clearance south of the E. Pettigrew business strip. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
526 East Pettigrew, ~1970, looking more southeasterly. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
(My apologies on the following pictures. In my window of opportunity to scan these color negatives, I scanned them as positives, and was obliged to then try to invert them, which I have found to be a truly arduous endeavor. I've done my best.)
528 East Pettigrew, ~1970.
528-520 East Pettigrew, 1970.
528-520 East Pettigrew, 1970.
This building was torn down prior to 1972. The land remains vacant.
522 East Pettigrew was originally the site of the Rex Theater, built in the late 1910s; 524 East Pettigrew appears to have been added a few years later (early-to-mid 1920s) as Albert Rosenberg's grocery, on the southwest corner of Henry Alley and East Pettigrew St. At the same time, 522 East Pettigrew became the Scarborough and Hargett funeral home. While Scarborough and Hargett would remain in 522 until the demise of the building, 524 changed hands several times. by 1941, it was Royal Music Vending Machines, by 1948, Safeway Market. A "522 1/2" pops up during this time as well, presumably upstairs offices in the 522 building. It appears to have hosted several lodges (Doric Masonic, Pride of Durham), chiropractors, and dressmakers.
These buildings appear to have been demolished around 1970.
Demolition of 524 East Pettigrew, looking west ~1970. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
Scarborough and Hargett moved up to East Dillard and South Roxboro St., where their building will soon be demolished for the new Hall of Justice. 522-524 East Pettigrew remains vacant land.
Built in the late 1920s, 518-522 East Pettigrew housed a variety of businesses, beginning with the New York Cafe at 518, the Pullman Co. at 518 1/2, and the City Electric Shoe Shop at 520.
1935, 518 housed Flossie Townsend's Barber Shop, and 518 1/2 housed a billiards parlor. 1938, 518 housed the People's Cafe, 518 1/2 housed a notions shop, and 520 the Cut Rate Shoe Shop. 1941: 518 housed Beck's Place restaurant, 520 housed Shelley's Shoe Shop, and 520 1/2 housed the Quality Market. 1947: 518 1/2 housed Rose Beauty Salon, and 520 and 520 1/2 were unchanged. 1948: 518 housed the Dixie Grill and Washett Self-Service Laundry, 518 1/2 housed Rose Beauty Salon, and 520 1/2 housed Quality Market. 1950: 518 housed the Carolina Times, 518 1/2 Day's Cafe, 520 Rose Beauty Salon, and 520 1/2 Johnson's Fish Market. 1954: 518 housed the Carolina Times, 518 1/2 Shelley's Shoe Shop, 520 and 520 1/2 unchanged. 1957: 518 housed the Midway Sport Shop, 518 1/2 Pawnbrokers Outlet, 520 Tip-Top Beauty Salon, and 520 1/2 Enterprise Realty. 1959: 518 unchanged, 518 1/2 The Durham Sunday Star, 520 the Tip Top Beauty Shop, 520 1/2 housed Star Radio and TV appliance Service. 1961: 518 and 518 1/2 vacant, 520 the Tip Top Beauty Shop, 520 1/2 the Imperial Barber Shop 1968: 518 housed the Royal Music Company, 518 1/2 vacant, 520 the Tip Top Beauty Shop, 520 1/2 the Imperial Barber Shop
The property appears to have been torn down prior to 1972.
Looking east down the south side of East Pettigrew St., ~1970. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
A set of storefronts were built between 512 and 516 East Pettigrew apparrently in the 1920s. It's not clear to me when these were replaced with the building pictured above, but based on a subtle change in the addresses, it appears to have occurred around 1950. At that point, the multi-tenant building at 512-516 East Pettigrew housed Quality Food Mart, the Dreamland Shoe Shine Parlor, and Kapp's Sport Shop.
By the late 1950s, the tenants were Bull City Watch and Repair, Taste-Rite bakery, the Dreamland shoe shine parlor, and Quality Food Mart. By the early 1960s, Bull City Watch had moved west to 510 East Pettigrew and was replaced by The Bee Hive, a clothes store. It closed by 1968, leaving Quality Food and the Dreamland. The building appears to have been demolished before 1972.
508-510 East Pettigrew, looking southeast, July 1965. The railroad siding in the foreground ran down Branch Place alongside the Durham Hosiery Mill No. 2. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
The building at 506-510 E. Pettigrew was built in the early 1930s, initially housing Israel Gordon's Fish Market on the corner (506), Walter Page's shoe shine shop at 508, and John Solice's watchmaker shop at 510
506 and 508 appear to have been consolidated as Albert Rosenberg's meat market by 1941. 510 housed Progressive Stores, a grocer. In 1947, Progressive was replaced by the Grace 5 and 10 cents store. In 1958, Rosenberg's became the Riteway food center, Midway Dressmakers/Durham Laundry in 1959, and in 1961, Bull City Watch. 510 briefly held American Photographic Services in 1968, and then remained vacant. Bull City Watch remained in 508 until the building was demolished in 1977.
Ray Gronberg has an update today in the H-S (their article links are too impermanent for me to type the HTML) on Alston Avenue, and it ain't pretty. Evidently the final meeting between city traffic engineers and NCDOT resulted in no further concessions by NCDOT, leaving dedicated right turn lanes (in addition to dedicated left lanes and two through lanes) at both East Main and Angier Avenue. NCDOT also refused to stripe bike lanes, labeling such striping as 'unsafe'. Evidently some elements of the new de facto streetscape design in Durham will be incorporated, although it isn't clear what that is.
My heartfelt disappointment goes to Ken Spaulding, our representative on the transportation board, for siding with the NCDOT engineers. It's clear that NCDOT has no business designing roads in the inner city - a place where roads have to serve a multitude of purposes (and play nice with land uses) rather than simply serve as the fastest route for motor vehicles to move from A to B that NCDOT builds so well (hmm) out in the hinterland.
But some people did a masterful job of convincing some stakeholders that this swath of asphalt is the answer to wealth creation in East Durham (because that's worked so, so well before) and because that group includes the mayor and his pals, it was a struggle to get any traction to build the road that Durham, particularly the people who actually live near the road, deserve.
My thanks for everyone who fought to try to improve this project - perhaps a few of the concessions won will make a difference.
Carolina Furniture Company on East Pettigrew St., 1902. (Copyright Sanborn Map Company)
The block of East Pettigrew Street between Ramsey St. and Branch Place was the site of the wood-frame Carolina Furniture Company building. The Carolina Furniture Co. building had been constructed in the 1880s as the "Wortham Wooden Mills." This venture became the Carolina Furniture Co. in the 1890s. The buildings were purchased in 1903 by the Durham Hosiery Mill Company and Julian Carr and converted to the first branch of the Durham Hosiery Mill Company, Durham Hosiery Mill No. 2. The Durham Hosiery Mill had constructed their No. 1 mill a few blocks to the northeast in Edgemont in 1900.
One piece of particular uniqueness surrounding Durham Hosiery Mill No. 2 is the fact that Carr hired African-American workers to operate the machinery of the mill, and an African-American, John O'Daniel, to manage the mill. Sources documenting the mill state that, prior to that point, African-Americans has not been hired to run the machinery, based on the offensive belief, per Jean Anderson, that the "sound of the machinery would lull [them] to sleep" - and, likely, a host of other excuses. African-American workers had typically been hired by manufacturing plants only in more menial positions. Carr is quoted in 1919 regarding the 'experiment':
"Negroes had never before been employed in knitting mills; their work had been 'stemming' in the tobacco factories - pulling the leaves from the stems; they had never been used around machinery or in competition with white people.... There was a distinct shortage of white workers, and we could not have manned the mill with trained hands. when we announced the plan, the opposition was instant."
(Note: this is not the mill mentioned by both Booker T. Washington and WEB DuBois in 1911-12. That mill was located on Fayetteville St., and will profiled soon.)
Carr is an interesting fellow - both an innovator/philanthropist and a decidedly paternalistic old south Democrat who was likely looking for the cheapest labor he could find. I like anyone who, in my mind, so resists classification.
The historic inventory states that the old mill building was demolished in 1913, and a replacement mill constructed on the same site. I'm not sure that I believe that to be true, and I don't know their source. The Sanborn maps appear to show a faithful adherence to the original outline of the main building between the 1907, 1913, and 1937 maps.
There is little history available regarding the actual operation of the mill, other than that the intent was to produce marketable socks using cotton that mills typically discarded; O'Daniel died in 1917. Carr, upon purchasing the former Paragon Hosiery Mill on Gilbert Street, renamed the mill in O'Daniel's honor.
Hosiery Mill No. 2 appears to have gone out of business in 1930, and thereafter was leased by Liggett and Myers for warehouse space until the late 1940s.
Former Durham Hosiery Mill No. 2 in the background from the railroad tracks east of Dillard St., late 1930s to mid-1940s.
By 1947, the former mill had been converted to retail bays. Tenants would come to include some of the most important businesses in the Hayti community, such as the Service Printing Company and the Carolina Times newspaper.
The Service Printing Company began as a part of the Times. In 1932, Mr. and Mrs. TD Parham purchased the Times' printing operation and moved it to 608 Fayetteville Street, renaming it the Service Printing Company. In 1939, Day F. Reed, Walter G. Swann, George D. White, Jr. and Nathaniel B. White took over management of the company and purchased it outright in 1941. In 1947, the company moved to the hosiery mill building - into the 504 East Pettigrew bay. The printing company was, until its demise, the oldest African-American owned printing company in the United States. It primarily served the African-American community, printing forms for varied businesses - menus for the Donut Shop, stationery for the Biltmore, programs for White Rock Baptist, the school paper for Hillside High School, etc.
Interior of the Service Printing Company. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
Other businesses included Faison's Market (later Johnson's Fish Market) in the 426 bay, Midway Sport Shop (later the Art Neon Sign Company) in the 428 bay, EN Toole's Electrical Contracting business in the 432 bay, Turner's Beauty Shop in the 438 bay, Elivra's Blue Dine-Et in the 440 bay, Southern Cleaners in the 442 bay, and Pee Wee's Shoe Shop in the 502 bay. Around 1949, approximately 1/4 of the warehouse was torn down - oddly, not an end of the warehouse, but, if one were to move from west to east, the '2nd 1/4' - and replaced with the Booker T movie theater. The pictures below are from 1965s, after the Booker T had closed (it closed by 1954) and been replaced by the "Church of the Lord Jesus Christ Apostolic."
Edward N. Toole came to Durham in 1926 from Chester, SC, where he had been an electrician. He was the first licensed African-American electrician in Durham. Per Dorothy Phelps, he was still a licensed and practicing electrician in 1993, at the age of 95.
436 East Pettigrew - The Carolina Times, and 438 East Pettigrew, housing Turner's Beauty Supply. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
440 East Pettigrew - Elvira's Blue Dine-Et. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
Rear of the Service Printing Company, from Branch Place, looking northwest, July 1965. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
By the late 1960s, the western bays (426-428 East Pettigrew) had been abandoned. On October 25, 1969, they were converted to a 'breakaway' university called "Malcolm X Liberation University". The school was an outgrowth out of the Allen Building (administration building) protests at Duke University in February of 1969.
The opening was evidently a festive affair, with bands, food, dancers and singers. Current city councilman Howard Clement, then a community activist, addressed the crowd with these remarks: "It has become evident that the existing educational system does not respond to the needs of the Black community. It does not provide an ideological or practical method for physical, social, psychological, economic, and cultural needs of all Black people."
The school was spearheaded by local activist Howard Fuller, who had come to Durham to work with Operation Breakthrough, along with a group of Duke students. The group received initial funding from the local Foundation for Community Development. By the Spring of 1969, the group was holding classes at the Your Own Thing (one-time Regal) Theatre.
In September 1969, the group obtained the use of the 426-428 section of the old hosiery mill (west of the Booker T theater) for the school. The exterior of the structure was painted red, green, and black to reflect the commitment of the school's founders to Pan-Africanism. Due to fundraising by Fuller and a grant from the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina of $45,000, the school was able to open its doors.
A full treatment of the evolution of the Black Power/Pan-Africanism movement in the late 1960s/early 1970s and the difficulty, for the entire community, in understanding how to negotiate a transition from the traditional segregated city to integration is beyond the scope of this site. But, to reduce it immensely - the struggle over identity, and whether racial identity would be subsumed by integration, was, at a minimum, palpable and passionate. The amount of anger, distrust, guilt, racism, pride coursing throughout cities such as Durham ensured that an institution such as MXLU would both be deemed a necessity, and be highly controversial to many members of the community. Per Jean Anderson, Fuller's initial fundraising tactic was to "demand reparations" from all of the 'white churches' in Durham. The grant from the Episcopal diocese generated a furor amongst some Episcopal churches; pledges at St. Philip's (one block north of the building) evidently dropped $13,000 immediately following the grant.
The school struggled in its first year, with few assets available to match spending. The commitment to a Pan-African curriculum and mission strengthened over the initial year, with the school first year dedicated to "reordering of priorities, development of a Pan-Africanist perspectives, and de-colonization of the mind."
After the first year, however, struggles to keep the school afloat figured in a move from Durham to Greensboro, with some small presence still in Durham. The school evidently continued to struggle in Greensboro, and formally closed its doors on June 28, 1973
(Most of this information was obtained from Brent Belvin's excellent thesis on MXLU, available here. I highly recommend it for further reading on the rise and fall of the university and the broader context in Durham.
Looking southwest at the 438-440 section of the warehouse - it appears the Booker T is being torn down - early 1970s.
It seems that the 426-428 section of the building (that had housed MXLU) and the former Booker T theater at 432 were torn down by the early-1970s.
(Courtesy The Herald Sun Newspaper)
The 434-504 section of the building, housing the Service Printing Company, Elivra's, Turner's, the Carolina Times, and EN Toole persisted as the last vestige of Hayti north of the Durham Freeway. A fascinating article from 1979, published in a publication called "Tobacco Road" chronicles these last holdouts. When the author of the article, interviewing the Redevelopment Commission in 1978 (the agency tasked with carrying out Urban Renewal) why, despite 106 businesses having been cleared from Pettigrew and Fayetteville Sts., no redevelopment has occurred, the Redevelopment Commission representative points to this one last building on the map.
"This block of buildings hasn't been cleared yet, and it's holding everything up. There are these businesses at the end - the Service Printing Company, The Carolina Times, and an electrical supply store which haven't been moved."
Author: "Does the Redevelopment Commission own the buildings?"
"Yes, but those people refuse to move. We tried to relocate them, but they refuse to cooperate."
Author: "Why don't you evict them?"
RC: "If we evicted them we'd have a race riot on our hands."
The author notes that one month after the Redevelopment Commission moved their offices downtown at the end of 1978, the building burned in a suspicious fire, destroying the offices of EN Toole and the Carolina Times. Vivian Edmonds, daughter of Louis Austin and longtime editor of the paper was quoted as saying:
"I was in one of the closets, no lights ... and I heard with my ears ... I heard three firemen, who were standing maybe eight feet from where I was. They didn't know I was there- and they were just hanging and carrying on. 'The boys down at the police station gonna be mighty happy now the Carolina Times is out of business.' I came out of there at said 'well at least someone is telling the truth.' And there mouths went together like that. I said, 'You won't even admit now that you said what you said, would you?' Not a word. And they all turned their backs to me."
The Carolina Times moved to 'Tin City' on Old Fayetteville St. (metal buildings put up by the Redevelopment Commission for the purpose of relocating businesses evicted during urban renewal.) They remain in one of these buildings, since remodeled, in the 900 block of 'Old' Fayetteville St. Unfortunately Vivian Edmonds died in May 2008.
In the early 1980s, the single-bay remnant of the Durham Hosiery Mill No. 2, still housing the Service Printing Company, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. By 1985, however, a second fire, also considered suspicious, sent the Service Printing Company out of business. The building remained standing through 1995.
Looking west on East Pettigrew St., 1994, at the remnants of the hosiery mill, mostly destroyed by fire. (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)
1994 aerial showing the small remnant of the Hosiery Mill Building.
After all the land north of the Durham Freeway - site of hundreds of homes and businesses - had sat vacant for 10-20 years, the Hayti Development Corporation brokered a deal with Rick Hendrick Chevrolet to buy the land. The last piece of the hosiery mill was demolished in January 1995 to make way for the dealership, which was completed ~1998. The head of the Hayti Development Corporation said it was "sad, but progress had to come."
Progress, on the site of the Durham Hosiery Mill No. 2, looking southeast, 09.09.08.
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