OWDNA-Durham History

Old West Durham
The Durham Flyer, February 2008

One of the first thoughts that come to mind when many people think of Durham is Duke University, and then, Ninth Street. These are the images we have of Durham. What we're picturing is Old West Durham, possibly the defining neighborhood of our city.

There were settlers here as early as 1850, but Old West Durham as we know it really started in 1893 when Benjamin Duke and William Erwin opened their cotton mill on Ninth Street. As the land was cleared of trees to build the mill, the trees were used to build homes for the new members of the community. More than 1,000 workers moved into the surrounding area spanning 15 blocks, and encompassing 440 houses. Most of the homes had running water and electricity, but many did not have bathtubs or toilets.

Intermixed with the modest mill houses were mansions built by the textile company owners. Several impressive churches also mark the neighborhood, along with a neoclassical styled bank building (now Bruegger's Bagels) and E.K. Powe Elementary school (named for the first general manager of Erwin Mills).

Not long after the construction and success of Erwin Mills, Duke University (then Trinity College) built its West Campus [near] Old West Durham. Where Wallace Wade Stadium stands now, was once a ravine where pigs were kept, and adjacent to the football stadium parking lot, is the Rigsbee family grave yard, the final resting place of the original owners of the farmland that is now Old West Durham.

The neighborhood now is defined by Broad Street west to Hillandale Road and from Englewood Avenue south to the Durham Freeway. Today, Old West Durham has one of the most involved neighborhood associations in the city. Their neighborhood sign says it all: Diversity, Harmony, Community. The members of the association host annual events including picnics, holiday celebrations and walking tours.

They have been actively involved in development decision-making, including offering input on plans for the development Ninth Street North and now Ninth Street North Phase II. The group has helped to increase the number of streetlights and sidewalks in their neighborhood, and is always working to assure public safety with their neighborhood watch program "Partners Against Crime."

Old West Durham has one of the most impressive Web pages of any Durham neighborhood association at www.owdna.org. An amazing amount of Durham history is beautifully archived in an easy to navigate Web site. The Web site has been recognized by the American Association for State and Local History and honored at a banquet in Rhode Island.

One of its best features is the description of a self-guided walking tour around Duke University's east campus. The tour takes you to 18 stops from Broad Street and Perry Street at the break in the East Campus wall (you'll find out why there's a break in that wall), around to Ninth Street and Perry Street where you'll learn that Ninth Street was once a part of Highway 10, the first roadway to cross the state all the way from Tennessee to the Atlantic coast.

The Old West Durham Neighborhood Association has been honored with national, state and local recognition, including being designated a Local Legacy by the U.S. Library of Congress in 2000. In 1986, the area surrounding Erwin Mills, Ninth Street and the old mill village was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Next time you visit Ninth Street, or Duke University, think about the history of the little West Durham Mill Village that once stood here, and you'll have a greater sense of the history that surrounds you.

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1892: Blue Denim & Blue Devils

The year that brought the mill and Trinity College forever changed 'Pin Hook' and Durham
Herald-Sun, 28 April 2007

Before there was Durham, there was Pin Hook.

Pin Hook was located on the ridge between the Neuse and Cape Fear basins in what's now called Old West Durham (100 yards southwest of the former Erwin Mills area off Ninth Street). It served as a traveler's rest between Hillsborough and Raleigh.

According to historical lore, Pin Hook attracted the shiftless of society, addicted to all sorts of vices and attracting others of their ilk. The settlement included a lodging house, camping grove, brothels, and grog shops for travelers.

One hundred years ago, W.S. Lockhart wrote that Pin Hook was, "known as a place of brawls and rough-and-tumble fights, drinking, gambling and other forms of amusement, where the natives and visitors met to have a rough, roaring, and to them, glorious time."

Then came 1892 -- the most important date in the history of West Durham. It marked the twin arrivals of Erwin Cotton Mills and Trinity College.

Pin Hook, and Durham, would be forever changed.

Up on Mill Hill, the steady noise of the cotton looms hummed throughout the tidy mill village. Making denim and sheets, the mills discharged its hot, soapy water into the creek, leaving the entire neighborhood smelling like a Laundromat. When the noise stopped on Sundays, West Durham seem unnaturally still.

Mill managers, like William Erwin and E.K. Powe, walked through the mill village and stopped to talk to the workers in their yards and on their front porches.

Folks were invited to band concerts in Erwin Park.

Workers were given rose bushes to plant in their yards, and many still bloom in Old West Durham.

Neighbors watched the mills baseball team beat its cross-town rivals at the old ball field at West Main and Broad (where Mad Hatter's is today). Then they'd sit on the porch until it was cool enough to retire.

In the distance, you could hear the train whistle.

Times were booming.

Meanwhile, Trinity College president Braxton Craven was arguing strenuously for moving his struggling school from Randolph County to an urban center.

He acknowledged the presence of "bawdy houses in the city" but said it was worse back in the village of Randolph County. Craven appealed to the Methodist Conference to "deliver Trinity College, this child of Providence, from the bondage of its birthplace and thus lead it out into the open world of grander opportunity."

According to William K. Boyd, Duke professor of history, the "college was in bad financial condition, and there was talk of closing its doors" in the late 1800s.

By 1892, Trinity's new president John Crowell shared the belief that if the school were to survive the rapidly changing conditions of the new South, it had to move from its old campus -- which was at least five miles from the nearest railroad, telegraph, and telephone.

Durham resident Julian Shakespeare Carr was one of those who "came to the rescue." Carr was perhaps the most important person in the early history of the college. In fact, Carr, along with two men from Winston, "assumed entire financial responsibility for the institution."

"In such a way," wrote Professor Boyd, "the institution was saved from complete collapse."

In 1892, Carr donated his racetrack and park for what is now East Campus. Durham resident Washington Duke donated money.

Thus, Trinity College arrived in Durham in a railroad car carrying the old college bell, clock, office safe, and several books. A handful of students and faculty also made the trip. The college’s cow arrived later (on foot).

Had the little school remained in Randolph County, it would likely not have survived the unexpected national economic depression of 1893. With a "newer outlook" and the generosity of Durham residents, the college grew. Its monetary value easily increased over ten times after its relocation.

After the move to Durham, the editor of the Trinity Archive wrote of the college's "incomparably greater advantage to all concerned than ever before."

Indeed, the faculty and student body expanded. As the college grew, Durham citizens took up a collection to pay for Southgate dorm, in memory of the Durham businessman.

Then, in 1924, another Durham citizen, James 'Buck' Duke, gave the college $40 million. The college changed its name to Duke University, bought the Rigsbee family farm (south of the Erwin Mill village), and started building West Campus.

Many of the Italian stonecutters who built Duke Chapel lived in West Durham. And the ravine where the Rigsbee's kept their pigs is now Duke's football stadium -- site of the 1942 Rose Bowl.

Near the college was the African American settlement of Brookstown, with some residents working in the tobacco factory and Erwin Mills while others worked at the Fitzgerald family brickyards – one of Durham's largest Black-owned businesses. Many of Durham's factories and mills were built using Fitzgerald bricks.

Thirty years ago, the mill village that surrounded Erwin Mills in Old West Durham began to fall on hard times.

In the 1970s, a number of businesses in the shopping district closed. The new expressway and Duke's new Central Campus destroyed 450 mill houses and the neighborhood's two parks. In 1986, Erwin Mills, the economic engine of the community, shut its doors. The neighborhood had hit rock bottom.

But today, Old West Durham is enjoying a steadfast renaissance that still respects its history. Ninth Street is now home to an eclectic assortment of local shops and restaurants.

Neighbors are getting sidewalks, street lights and traffic circles built, saving old mill houses from being torn down, and working closely with developers on quality in-fill projects that don't undermine the community.

There have been several clean-ups at the old mill cemetery where white and African American workers are buried side-by-side -- and where three children, who died when Duke Chapel was being built, are buried under markers made of Duke stone.

Old West Durham, once known as Pin Hook, is a place where you actually know your neighbors -- and where you can stroll out your door for a cup of coffee and bump into Doug Marlette, Michael Jordan, or Madonna.

With its colorful past, it's still a place where the front porch is used for visiting with neighbors, where you can still hear a train whistle -- and Blue Devil football games -- and where the roses still bloom.

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Notes: The Boyd quotes are from his book, 'The Story of Durham' (Duke Press). The Trinity Archive quote is from 'Trinity College' (Duke Press).

Two articles from the local press