People & Places

According to Durham County tax records, this house was built in 1934.

According to county property records, this house was built in 1924.

According to county property records, this house was constructed in 1930.

Find this spot on a Google Map. 35.987505,-78.897475

It's a bit murky as to whether a school existed at Ninth and West Knox (C) Streets prior to 1912. Per Jean Anderson, the West Durham Graded School on Swift Avenue was formed from the consolidation of Northside School and Piney Grove School. Piney Grove was located on Swift Avenue, however, she notes only that Northside was located "north of the railroad tracks."

Edgar Knox Powe built his house at Swift and West Pettigrew Streets in the late 1890s; prior to his arrival in Durham, he had been an executive with the Altamahaw Cotton Mills in Alamance County. He was brought to Durham by William Erwin as general manager of Erwin Cotton Mills. I'm unsure as to whether his marriage to William and Jessie Erwin's sister, Claudia, occurred before or after his arrival in Durham.

---- East Durham Graded School, 1898 (Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection) The earliest schools in East Durham were two one-room schoolhouses - one, called the Cherry Grove School, was located near the present-day intersection of Liberty St. and North Driver St. The second was the Oak Grove School, located south of the railroad tracks...

Durham's first African American owned and operated textile operation, visited and praised by Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois, then home to the Royal Knights of King David fraternal order.

808 Fayetteville St., 1922. (Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection. Scanned by Digital Durham.)