Web Site Guide | News | About OWDNA | Neighborhood Info | Photographs of OWD | Media Spotlight | Citizen Resources | Home Historic Preservation Society of Durham Moves Blackman House to OWD The house makes it way down Hillsborough Road. According to long-time West Durham resident Duncan Fisher, the historic house recently moved to Lawndale Avenue by the Historic Preservation Society of Durham was originally built by the Blackman family on Erwin Road (where the new Duke Eye Hospital now stands). The Blackman House was built 'out in the country' (sometime between 1910 and 1920). The one-story frame had a white rail fence and stood across Erwin Road from the Fisher Riding Academy (no relation). In the early 1960s, the Blackman House was moved to LaSalle Street (alongside two other Fisher family homes). Fisher remembers when LaSalle was called Holman Road. Much of the property along Holman Road was owned by the Holman sisters. In the early years, Holman Road was really just a set of wagon tracks which ran south from Hillsboro Road, across the rail road tracks, ending at the Blackman House (you couldn't get through to Erwin Road). In the 1950s, Holman was renamed LaSalle because there was another Holman in East Durham (where the Morven Cotton Mills once operated). *** In the early morning hours of Saturday, September 14, 2002, the historic, one-story frame house was moved from LaSalle Street (near the post office) to its new home at 2810 Lawndale Avenue. With the strong backing of the Historic Preservation Society of Durham and the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association, the Board of County Commissioners recently voted to allow the old house to be moved to a vacant County lot on Lawndale. As a focal point at the western gateway to Old West Durham, the house will help stop commercial creep from extending into the residential area behind the Sock Shop. Residential use also would produce less traffic than a commercial building at a dangerous intersection that has a significant blind spot. The lot at 2810 Lawndale, on the corner of Hillsborough, before the arrival of the house. Below is another view of the lot as workers prepare to assist the driver's navigation onto the property. John Compton (L), of the Historic Preservation Society of Durham chats with OWDNA President John Schelp as they watch the new addition to the neighborhood pull into its location. Below: The house will sit on the corner lot of Lawndale and Hillsborough. The house moving is part of an effort to revitalize the western side of one of the Bull City's oldest neighborhoods. The Old West Durham Neighborhood Association recently had the City install a "traffic island" at the mouth of Lawndale (to slow cars coming off Hillsborough Rd) and is working with a local artist to paint a community mural on the Sock Shop --depicting: 1) the community's diverse, mill village history, 2) Italian families who helped build Duke's West Campus and lived in the neighborhood, and 3) Hall of Fame composer, John D. Loudermilk, who wrote the song "Tobacco Road" and grew up down the street. Following is a sequence of shots as the house is placed in its temporary location on the land until a proper foundation is built for it. Photos and more history of the area can be found at... http://www.owdna.org/snaps7.htm Historic Preservation Society of Durham One week later, a Duke sorority points to its volunteers efforts to clean out this old house.