People & Places

Not really the original Patterson Mill or general store, but a well-preserved early 20th century farmhouse nonetheless.

1973 Durham High School Yearbook (thanks to Steve Bowen for calling my attention to this.) (Northern High School Yearbook)

This one-story, hip-roofed Minimal Traditional house is three bays wide and triple-pile with a gabled projection on the west elevation, flush with the façade, and a gabled rear ell with a shed-roofed screened porch beyond the ell. County tax records date the building to 1941; the earliest known occupant is McKinley Barton (factory worker) in 1945. According to a neighbor, his wife worked at the laundry at Duke University.

1937 City Directory: Thomas H. and Nellie W. McCauley. Thomas is listed as a carpenter.

John M. Avery House, 1922. From Milestones Along the Color Line This was the home of John M. Avery and his wife; Avery is listed in the 1923 city directory as "pres Acme Regalia Co. Vice-pres-sec North Carolina Mutual Co. and treas Bankers Fire Insurance." In 1938, the Harriet Tubman YWCA occupied the house. By 1955, the home was torn down, and the...

(County Tax Record photo) Segregated from facilities serving Durham's white community, the Harriet Tubman YWCA was a major site of organizing for civil and women's rights activism. Built alongside the John M. Avery House, which it had used since relocating from its first address on Fayetteville Street in 1937, the Tubman Y's new building opened...