500-506 MANGUM / MANGUM-WYATT SERVICE STATION / MANGUM 506

Looking northeast, 1948

The northeast corner of North Mangum and Wyatt Streets was residential until ~1930; the last house at 502 N. Mangum was inhabited in 1923 by HD O'Briant. By 1934, a filling/service station had taken its place on the corner, known as the Mangum-Wyatt Service Station. (It is frequently abbreviated "Man-Wy Service Station" in the directories, but I don't know if that is their liberty, or an actual appellation.)

Other than perhaps a brief stint as the North Mangum Service Station, the 'Man-Wy' stayed in business until sometime between 1957 and 1960, at which point it became Jones' Upholstery Shop.


500-502 N Mangum, 1966.

In ~1970, the block of Wyatt Street between North Mangum and Cleveland was eliminated; the roadway alignment was shifted north and angled to create a continuous connection with Seminary to the west, such that Seminary would extend east to Roxboro and align with Elliott. This eliminated the service station.


1959 aerial


Mixed overlay


2010 aerial.

The remaining site was a parking lot until 2008-2009, when architect/developer Scott Harmon purchased the property and proceeded with plans get all "downtown sexy" to develop infill condominiums on the site, which he branded Mangum 506. (And "Downtown Sexy.")


Parking lot site, 07.06.08


Under construction, 02.07.09


Completed construction, 11.07.09

I'm not privy to Scott's proforma, i.e. how this has done from a financial perspective, but I have great admiration for him for making this project happen on multiple levels - 1) creating condominiums downtown that are affordable, in a financing market where "condo" is a four-letter word, 2) creating the rarity of all rarities in Durham - turning a surface parking lot into a building, rather than the converse, 3) building creative infill construction that is good urban design while still meeting the parking needs of customers (i.e. condo buyers.), 4) building east of AmbaccoBrightVillage.

I hope we'll see more of this. The North Mangum corridor between the intersection of East Chapel Hill and Geer is an embarrassment, particularly given that it is the major entry point into downtown from the North. The local government focus has, unfortunately, been on tearing down structures at Little Five Points, i.e., the corner of Corporation and Mangum. That isn't the problem - it's the amount of underutilized land in the corridor - both north and south of Little Five Points. Creating more empty land isn't the solution - more infill on more vacant lots and less large parking lots/single story warehouse buildings is - and doing so with good, urban design, as Scott as done, and others haven't. A moratorium on discussing or acting on demolition in this corridor would be great until a few more people fill up the already available/fallow land. Kudos to Scott for doing just that.


Mangum 506, 10.27.10

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35.998214,-78.897804

420 NORTH MANGUM

~1952, looking southeast from the corner of N. Mangum and Wyatt Sts.
(Courtesy Duke RBMC - Wyatt Dixon Collection)

The early history of 420 N. Mangum is a bit sketchy, as the deeds are complicated by the mess of the Redevelopment Commission combining parcels, and its address doesn't appear on the early Sanborn maps. I can understand the source of their confusion to some degree, as one of the things that made 420 N. Mangum interesting was that it faced the corner of N. Mangum and Wyatt Streets on a diagonal; I'm not aware of another residential property in Durham that was or is like this. A tall house, it sat on a promontory, thus towering over its neighbors.


1948 aerial of the intersection of N. Mangum and Wyatt streets. As it sits in the shadows, I didn't notice 420 N. Mangum when I first looked at this picture, but when I suddenly noticed it, I was amazed that I had missed it, given how big it is in relation to its neighbors.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

City directories show Ludelia Whitehead as the occupant in 1919, and the directories seem to indicate that she was running a boarding house; she was running a different boarding house in 1915. HW Knight is listed at the house in 1928, Henry C. Jenkins in 1934, James Massey in 1939, and Nannie Breedlove in 1944.

By 1952, the house was demolished - in progress in the top photo. It was replaced by a single story commercial structure - the M&G Finance Corporation.

During the early 1970s, this land was taken by urban renewal, and Wyatt Street was realigned to connect Seminary and Elliott. The land was sold by the Redevelopment Commission to Yorkshire properties; since 1994 it has been owned by the County. It is currently the parking lot for the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau.


Site of 420 N. Mangum, 10.27.10

I'll take the opportunity to note that, although I'm a fan of all the folks at DCVB, I really do not like this building for them. Architecturally, it reminds me of a welcome center at a state line rest stop - not the kind of architecture that gets you excited about the special character of a place. It's compounded by the Loop and the silliness of Rotary Park, of course - the building feels much farther away from East Chapel Hill St. than it should. Regardless, I hope someday to find the DCVB (or the DCVB finds themselves) in a more urban piece of architecture

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DURHAM FEMALE INSTITUTE / BAPTIST FEMALE SEMINARY / 425 NORTH MANGUM

1898 Sanborn Map

The seminary that gave Seminary Street its name was located on the southwest corner of Seminary St. and North Mangum St. The school - known alternately, it seems, as the Baptist Female Seminary, the Durham Female Institute, or the Durham Baptist Seminary was established and built in 1881 by Atlas Rigsbee and was affiliated with the First Baptist Church.

Hiram Paul gives the school far less attention than the Methodist Female Seminary, located on Church St., but states the following:

THE DURHAM FEMALE SEMINARY.

This valuable addition to the educational facilities of
Durham was established in January, 1882, and Mrs. M. E.
Mahoney, an accomplished educator, chosen Principal. The
building, located on Mangum street, was erected by Mr. A.
M. Rigsbee. The school is one of high standing, and is in
a flourishing condition. It is one of the attractive and fixed
institutions of Durham, which is remarked with unfeigned
pride and pleasure.

The charges per term of twenty weeks are as follows :

Primary English

Preparatory English .

Collegiate English

Latin

[each $10]

Music on Piano 20 00

Music on Organ $20.00

Music on Guitar $15.00

Use of Instrument $5.00

Vocalization (Voice Training) , $10.00

Incidentals, $1.00

Board per Month, including Fuel and Lights... $12.00
Vocal Music, Calisthenics and Free Hand Writing, Free.

The next session begins Monday, September 3d. Parents
are advised to board their daughters in the Seminary.
Regular hours of study, recreation, retiring and rising, are
observed. Oversight and direciion of the studies in prep-
aration are given. Special care is taken to guard the morals
and improve the manners of those who board in the
Seminary.

Other history regarding the Seminary is scant, but it appears to have not survived the growth of public schools in the 1890s; by 1902, the building was being used as a hotel, called the Roanoke Inn.

Prior to 1913, Charles Haywood - local pharmacist and part-owner of the Haywood-King, later Haywood-Boone, drugstore, located on the northwest corner of West Main St. and North Mangum St., and his wife Zoa Haywood built a large house for their family on the former seminary site.


About the best photo view of the Haywood House, unfortunately - the large house with two chimneys to the left of the Pure Oil gas station in the foreground.


Painting of the house.
(Courtesy Margaret Haywood)

It appears that Zoa Haywood was the daughter of Atlas Rigsbee and inherited the land / acquired control of the land after her father's death in 1903. It also appears they owned the land on which the First Baptist Church was originally located, later the site of the Haywood-Boone drugstore.

After Charles Haywood's death in the 1940s, Zoa Haywood continued to live in the house.


I believe this is Zoa Haywood in front of a massive mantel in the house
(Courtesy Margaret Haywood)

By 1957, Walker S. Brooks, a building contractor, was living in the house, as he was in 1960.


A partial view of the facade, February 1966


A partial view of the rear, January 1966

The building appears to have been torn down by the early 1970s. The site became a parking lot for the Durham Merchant's Association / Credit Bureau Systems building, now the Latino Community Credit Union


10.22.10

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35.998247,-78.898454

808-812 WASHINGTON STREET

808-812 Washington St., 1949
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

By 1949, 808-812 Washington was the home of branch of the Model Cleaners, which had its beginnings on West Main Street prior to a move to 209 Foster St. by the 1920s.

By the 1990s, these buildings were abandoned.


~Early 1990s

In November 2006, they were sold to an LLC which began redevelopment of one of the the buildings, and construction of an additional building to create Sound Pure Studios, a purveyor of high end recording equipment.


12.09.07


06.07.08

Per their website:

"Rather than operate the three separate businesses (the guitar sales boutique, the proaudio/recording sales group, and the recording studios) as three independent arms, they have taken a unique, holistic approach. Sound Pure’s new facility incorporates the three typically separate businesses in a unique way ... The Sound Pure team built, wired, and upfit the entire studio infrastructure themselves, utilizing what they feel are modern-day best-practices ...The facility includes lounges, offices, warehouses, 2 kitchens- most rooms are also wired with built-in microphone wall boxes. Even the all-masonry, untreated studio lobby featuring 750 square feet of an outrageously live ”wet” sound, and the entryway with near 30ft ceilings are both wired with microphone inputs."

I'm always happy that a building gets preserved rather than torn down, and I'm a big fan of infill construction; this is certainly the kind of business I'd love to see establish offices and studios in this area. I can't say I'm a fan of the renovation/design, some of which looks like it was driven by creating solid walls for recording studio space along the street frontage. But happy to see preservation and infill, nonetheless.

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36.005009,-78.902175

DEPOSITORS NATIONAL BANK DRIVE-IN

Depositors Bank branch, 05.28.57
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

It's the kind of mid-century commercial history that is hard to nail down, but I think the Depositors National Bank Drive-thru at Foster and Seminary Streets may have been the first bank with a drive-thru in Durham. The Depositors National Bank was the 1933 successor of the First National Bank at Corcoran and West Main.


Depositors Bank branch looking west towards Foster St., 05.28.57
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)


Depositors Bank branch, 05.28.57
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

It's the kind of mid-century commercial history that is hard to nail down, but I think the Depositors National Bank Drive-thru at Foster and Seminary Streets may have been the first bank with a drive-thru in Durham. The Depositors National Bank was the 1933 successor of the First National Bank at Corcoran and West Main.




"Heavy Rains Cause Cave-In at Depositors Drive-In Bank" - 06.05.57
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)


"Heavy Rains Cause Cave-In at Depositors Drive-In Bank" - 06.05.57
[Was this really the support system for this parking lot?]
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)

The bank building was still around in the 1980s. I'm not sure if this became an NCNB branch when Depositors became NCNB in 1960, and when it stopped being a bank branch.


1980s aerial from the CCB building.

I presume the building was torn down for the construction of the YMCA, but I'm not sure about that either. Its location is currently the Y parking lot.


Looking southeast, 10.22.10

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35.999081,-78.901374

Endangered ? - Mystery Photo 6

Endangered Elsewhere - Mystery Photo 5

Endangered Elsewhere - Mystery Photo 4

1937 (from the movie poster) and likely an FK Watkins-owned theater.

Endangered Else... um - Durham - Mystery Photo 3

Kimbrell's, 03.16.61
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Likely Triangle area, since it's from the Morning Herald, and the truck says "Comfort Engineers" on the side (no phone or address.)

Endangered Elsewhere - Mystery Photo 2

Found in a box of Baldwin's photos from ~1960, and clearly not Durham. Any ideas?

Endangered Elsewhere - Mystery Photo 1

As I continue to work on gathering information in preparation for a few months of East Durham, I'm looking for a few low-work posts to put up. This week - photos that tried to pass as Durham, but aren't.

These are generally photos I've found in collections of otherwise Durham photos, but I feel fairly confident are not Durham. In a new test of your Mystery Photo prowess, I'm going to see if you can ID photos from probably-elsewhere.

Note that I'm happy to be proven wrong and have someone ID them as Durham - but you need to make a pretty strong case. I've covered a lot of territory in Durham, and they aren't somewhere easy or obvious.

First up, a photo from the Alford family of East Durham. For someone familiar with the name on the sign - "Esteps Cafe" from some other locale, this may be an easy one - but I don't know it:

353 WEST MAIN STREET

The site of 353 West Main St. was (along with the entire south 'side' of Five Points) part of Seeman's Carriage Works through the 1890s-1910s. Per the 1895 Handbook of Durham:

"This business is conducted by Mr. Jno. F. Seeman, and is not incorporated. The output of this enterprise consists of hand-made vehicles of every description, of which an attractive supply is constantly on display in their showroom at 'Five Points' on Main Street."

By 1915, the business appears to have gone under. Between 1928 and 1934, the present 353 West Main Building was constructed, initially housing the Umstead Hardware Store. By 1939, however, Purity Stores (a grocer) had moved offices and a retail outlet to the building.


(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Purity Stores remained the occupant of the building through at least the 1960s. Of late, it has been occupied by a series of different businesses, including New Synergy Architects, the Empowerment Center, and, most recently, the Republic - a bar/club.


9.12.10

It's somewhat of an odd building, architecturally, with fine details around the windows, but a very flat, un-corniced facade otherwise - except on the first floor, where there is a frieze and quoins on the corners. With replacement of the windows with flat, detail-less dark glass/mullions, the 'blankness' element of the facade is emphasized, while the first floor elements are accentuated by the addition of the two columns. It doesn't really work for me, but I'm happy the building is still here, contributing to the uninterrupted facade that stretches east.

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35.996835,-78.904301

STONE BROTHERS AND BYRD

In 1919, it appears that the Byrd Brothers (Hubert R. h - 317 E Chapel Hill, and William E. - h 831 N. Mangum) were part of the Byrd and Bryan grocers, located at 119 West Parrish Street, along with Kenney U. Bryan (h 833 N. Mangum.)

By 1940, the Byrd Brothers had gone out on their own and teamed up with a Pickett - becoming Byrd Bros. and Pickett - "Field Garden and Lawn Seed" - located at 211-213 Morgan Street.

Remembering the old days, at the age of 83 Mr. H. R. Byrd in 1977 said, "We sold wagons and buggies, harness, mowing machines, churns, stoves, harrows and a lot of supplies for the garden and farm. We would swap merchandise for corn, wheat and chickens. We handled a world of country meat, wheat, oats and eggs."

The evolution from Byrd Bros. and Pickett to Stone Bros. and Byrd isn't clear to me, but by 1963, Stone Bros. and Byrd was operating in the same location on Morgan St. With the impending loss of their buildings to urban renewal, the principals - Robert M. Bullard, C. Hamilton Jones, and RL Garrard - acting for Stone Bros. and Byrd, acquired the land on which their current building sits in 1967 from Louise Montgomery. Prior to 1950, this parcel contained two small houses, likely rental housing.

Per the Stone Bros. and Byrd website:

By the late 1960's, a modern facility was built to accommodate the expanding needs of customers and offered drive-through service, which allowed farmers to pull their trucks into a loading area. Every aspect of the buying experience was thought about by the astute observers of retailing science when planning the new location, from chairs being provided for customers in the sales room for resting and conversing, to accomodating the changing demographic of shoppers. "A thing we kept in mind when planning our location is that women are doing more and more of the shopping in our line of merchandise, and we wanted our place to be attractive and convenient for them to come in and shop," said Mr. Robert Bullard in March of 1969 as quoted in Feedstuffs, a weekly newspaper for agribusiness.

The reins of Stone Bros. & Byrd were transferred in 1976 to George Davis, a consummate "gentleman farmer" with a strong knowledge of horticulture and an uncanny ability to connect with customers. "George Davis posts himself at the threshold of Stone Bros. & Byrd, his old-fashioned lawn-and-garden center near downtown, eager to meet the "dirt people." That's what he calls his loyal customers, the ones who come into the 85-year-old store and are greeted by name. He seems to know their lawns even better," sa[id] Kaitlin Gurney in The News & Observer in November of 1999, after George and Stone Bros. & Byrd earned the Outstanding Downtown Merchant of the Year award for Durham, NC. "It's his combination of service, knowledge and ingenuity that earned Davis..the award. He knows his customers by name and identifies market niches" the article states. "Country hams and sausages hang from the ceiling next to jars of old-time candy sticks and barrels of homemade molasses. Large wooden bins full of vegetable seeds line the walls. In the spring, seeds are sold just as they were when the feed store opened 85 years ago. But in the adjoining room, exotic hothouse plants are nurtured next to build-it-yourself pond kits and the latest in fertilizer technology," says Gurney.

Stone Bros. and Byrd is one of the few 'old-line' businesses continuing to operate in the same 0.5 mile downtown Durham radius in which they originated, and retain a loyal following of long-timers and newcomers alike.

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36.003954,-78.90275

ERWIN OIL COMPANY

(Courtesy Bob Blake)

An American Oil Company (AMOCO) Bulk Oil and gasoline wholesale plant / warehouse was established between the Norfolk and Western railroad spur and Washington St. prior to 1937. In 1945, operation of the plant was taken over by the Erwin Oil Company, which continues to operate it today.


06.06.08


04.01.10

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36.003696,-78.90364

421-423 WEST MAIN STREET

Five Points looking west, 1905

Between 1898 and 1902, the Durham Marble Works was built on land at Five Points that would become 421-423 West Main St.

Per the 1895 Handbook of Durham:

"Durham Marble Works: This business is conducted by Mr. Robert I Rogers, a gentlemen [sic] who has for a number of years successfully operated in Durham, Oxford, and Henderson, a business of large proportions in the making of monuments and tombstones, also brownstone and granite trimmings, curbings, &c. Besides his occupation in this line, he has for a long time been actively engaged in real estate transactions, as much for the material advancement of Durham as for personal gain. Being secretary and treasurer of the Durham Land and Security Company, he is in a position to give reliable information regarding the real estate interest in Durham."


1913 Sanborn Map showing the Durham Marble Works


Looking south from West Main St., ~1910. The Durham Marble Works building is partly visible immediately to the left at 423 West Main, and the TO Sharp Monument Company, another marble and monument retailer, is in the background.
(Courtesy Durham County Library)

By the late 1910s, the Durham Marble Company had been replaced by two structures - a one-story garage at 417-419 (later 421) West Main, and a building at 423 West Main that was two stories on the West Main St. side and one story on the West Chapel Hill St. side.

In 1920:

417 Paschall Brothers
419 Motor Sales Company
423 Durham Ice Cream Company

1923:

417 Paschall Bros
419 Carolina Battery and Electric
423 Durham Ice Cream Co

112-114 East Chapel Hill: Carolina Battery and Electric
116 East Chapel Hill: Durham Ice Cream Co.


Looking west, 1920s.


Looking west down West Main St., 1920s - the curved parapet of the garage is visible on the left.


The East Chapel Hill St. side, looking north, 1925 - Hinnant's grocery and the Carolina Battery and Electric Company are visible.


Looking East-Northeast down East Chapel Hill St.


Looking west-northwest down East Chapel Hill St.

After the Five Points Drug Company building burned in the late 1920s, the garage structure at 421 West Main was replaced/remodeled with/as Tucker's Sinclair gas station. 423 West Main became Capitol Furniture.


Looking west, 1947.


By 1953, the gas station had become Matthew's Five Points Amoco.


1950s Bird's Eye view.


By 1957, First Federal Bank had purchased and remodeled the gas station as a bank.


By the early 1960s, they purchased 423 West Main and either dismantled it or modified it significantly, extending the dimensions of the former gas station building to the west.


Looking west, 1960s.



After First Federal moved to their splendid new building across West Main St. in 1974, a group redeveloped 421-425 West Main St. as the Five Points Restaurant.


Looking west, 1978

Unfortunately, it lacked longevity. The story goes that a homeless man, seeking shelter in the empty structure, died of exposure one winter, and the city demolished the structure soon thereafter.

The parcels have been empty since that time. Thank goodness there were no buildings for people to freeze to death in after that point - much safer with the emptiness and all.


9.12.10


9.12.10

Anna Ho Whalen owns this tragically vacant piece of property. I can't say I understand owning a vacant piece of land in downtown for 30 years - not if you feel invested in the place you live, anyway. Seems like it's just waiting for the hard work of others to pay off for you.

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35.997098,-78.904771