Textile mill

Scanned from 1924 Durham City of Industry book. Another of my favorite buildings in Durham, the John O'Daniel Hosiery Mill building, was built at 801 Gilbert St. in the late 1910s as the Paragon Hosiery Mill. It changed names rather quickly thereafter to become the Bowling-Emory Knitting Mill before being acquired in 1919 by Julian S. Carr as a...

The Durham Hosiery Company had its beginnings in 1894, when it was organized by George Graham, and began operations in a building on Church St., and subsequently, Morris St. Later that same year, Julian Carr and John W. Smith organized the Golden Belt Hosiery Company (a different entity than the Golden Belt Manufacturing Co.) and located the new company at Five Points, at "the southward intersection of Main and Chapel Hill Sts." Given that the current buildings at that location were built during the 1920s, this building is likely gone.

Looking west from near present-day Washington St., 1890s (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection) The Pearl Cotton mill was established by Brodie Duke in 1892, named after his daughter Pearl. After Brodie Duke suffered significant financial reversal in the 'Panic of 1893', Washington Duke and his two half-brothers helped him re...