Rigsbee Avenue

Loaded Text

June 1989 (Courtesy Milo Pyne / George Pyne Collection) Per Julie Thomson, " Loaded Text was created in June 1989 by artists Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler in downtown Durham as part of a national conference on public art co-sponsored by the NC Arts Council and the Durham Arts Council." June 1989 (Courtesy Milo Pyne / George Pyne Collection) June...

Royal Crown Cola / Seven-up Bottling Co. / Fullsteam Brewery / The Pit Barbecue

Looking southeast, 1953. (Courtesy Keith Phillips) Lloyd Brown started his bottling company on Morgan Street in March 1925, but in 1934 moved to a building on North Church St. when he outgrew this structure. This space soon proved too small as well, and he constructed a new, 'modern' bottling plant at 321 West Geer St., which opened June 1, 1939...

201-205 Morgan St.

Several attractive storefronts lined the south side of Morgan St. between Holland St. on the west side and Rigsbee Ave. on the east. The Piedmont Furniture Co. was located on the southeast corner of Holland and Morgan (at 219-223 Morgan St.) The businesses in the 200 block of Morgan St. directly faced the Big 4 warehouse and the Star Brick...

Big 4 Warehouse - Morgan And Rigsbee

Looking northwest from Rigsbee Ave. and Morgan. (Courtesy Library of Congress) The north side of Morgan St. east of Foster St. was the southern extent of the early 20th century tobacco warehouse district, which extended northward along Rigsbee Ave. Above, looking north-northwest, 1924. Rigsbee and East Chapel Hill St. are in the foreground, and...

U.S. Post Office (1934)

View of the U.S. Post Office, Atwood and Weeks, ~1934 (Courtesy Milo Pyne) The block of East Chapel Hill St. between Holland St. and Rigsbee Ave. was the site of the William Mangum homestead and farm, which stretched west to present-day Morris St, and the AM Rigsbee house - Rigsbee's farm extended east across present-day Rigsbsee Avenue. These...

307 North Mangum Street

Looking north at the intersection of N. Mangum St. and Rigsbee Ave. and SE Rochelle's motorcycle club, ~1910. (Courtesy Durham County Library) The northeast portion of what we now consider 'downtown' was a primarily residential area well into the early 20th century, gradually supplanted by commercial structures during the 1920s and onward. Above...

213-215 North Mangum Street

213-215 N. Mangum, December 1963 (Courtesy Duke Archives) The First Baptist Church was the first church in Durham. The congregation formed in 1845 as the Rose of Sharon Baptist church, according to Boyd's history of Durham, "in the Piney Grove schoolhouse, 1 mile south of West Durham." In 1850, with population growing near "Durhamville" and...

Se Corner Of Rigsbee & W. Corporation

Sold May 2014 for a whopping $1,150,000. 1.02 acres. This is the vacant, fenced lot across from Liberty Warehouse.

711 Rigsbee Ave.

From the National Register in italics below: The 1959 Durham City Directory lists the “GMAC Insurance Corporation” at 711 Rigsbee Avenue. The one-story, flat-roof brick office building of modest mid-century modern design is likely this office. The building is now adaptively reused as a bar known as "the bar." Red brick laid in running bond covers...

U.S. Post Office Garage / Masengill's

In italics from the National Register listing: The large one-story brick flat-roofed building, set at right angles to the street, was constructed in 1963 as a post office garage with service bays for repairing postal trucks. The building is not listed in the 1962 city directory and is under construction in 1963. In the 1964 directory it is the “U.S...