The History of the Triangle

[ctl]

Triangle Business Journal reports (http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2014/04/15/prominent-glenwood-avenue-building-to-be-razed-for.html) that the former site of Raleigh Orthopedics on ITB Glenwood between I-440 and Glen Eden will be torn down. It's one of the Modernist buildings, designed by Milton Small and Jim Brandt, that characterized Raleigh's architecture in the 1950s and 1960s. It opened in 1962 for the Northwestern Mutual Insurance Company.

 

The property owners are within their rights, and it may be that the building cannot readily be repurposed or has structural problems. But I hate to see another piece of Raleigh's Modernist history bite the dust.

 

Update: SP-14-14 goes before the Planning Commission next week. It proposes to demolish this building (3515 Glenwood) and erect a three-story office building with double the square footage. It'll be a financial institution; SP-14-14 includes a drive-through ATM. City staff recommend approval with conditions. 

[Jones_]

So if anyone wants about a 6 foot section of old trolley track, the sewer connection for the new stuff going up in Blount Street Commons pulled it up from Person Street. Its laying in a pile of asphalt facing Murphy School along Polk St. There is also a wooden tie. 

Edited October 24, 2014 by Jones_

[Jones_]

Would just like to point out that Legacy homes demolished this home recently. It faced Glenwood and was one of the original structures in the Glenwood/Brooklyn historic district. Yes it was being used as a church office, but it could have been easily rehabbed. I mean...why the hell demolish what makes an area charming in the first place? Its not like its small....the house replacing it is the same size. This makes me very mad...

[Jones_]

Another original Glenwood neighborhood house bit the dust this morning very much without warning (714 Glenwood). It was just bought by some company based in Henderson on December 17th and within two weeks that had apparently had demo permits?! It had a minor fire (I think just a stove or piece of furniture...I watched the fire fighters go in and put it out)

Again...who in the f&*$ will want to live in a place when the very things that make it charming are systemically destroyed! This is a historic district and the last two houses torn down(see my last post) were contributing properties...surely the City has more more power to stop or delay these...? This was not a small house....2,200 sqft. Pretty soon the City will have to stop touting the Glenwood historic district. 

[DPK]

Another original Glenwood neighborhood house bit the dust this morning very much without warning (714 Glenwood).

 

This cool house?  http://goo.gl/maps/KymYn

 

That's really unfortunate.  It has such unique character and a nice little porch.  I wonder how that got approved.  Maybe the fire did a lot more unseen structural damage?  How sad.

[Jones_]

^ Yep that's it. Based on the fire being put out fast and the quick sale to demolition, I'm guessing someone too the insurance money decided to demo, or sell at a discount to someone who then demo'd. It had a newish tin roof and a nice door, front yard etc....all the trappings of a well cared for house. Nothing put there will improve the neighborhood. 

[Oakie]

Knowing the soft spot most of you have for Raleigh's history and old buildings, please take a quick moment to sign this petition to save the old Carolina Bus Barn along the 1200 block of S. Person/S. Blount. Despite considerable interest from the city and private developers to see it historically rehabilitated and redeveloped into a fabulous mixed-use site, Greyhound is planning to imminently demolish the complex – likely this week. If there’s enough support, we’re hoping they will reconsider and be willing to sell it to a party who appreciate it for the gem that it is!

 

https://www.change.org/p/david-leach-president-and-chief-executive-officer-greyhound-lines-save-the-carolina-bus-barn-raleigh-north-carolina

 

Also, here's a link to an N&O article covering the situation.

 

http://www.newsobserver.com/2015/03/02/4593991_historic-carolina-coach-depot.html?rh=1

[Jones_]

My personal favorite part of the complex is the office building. Also the building at the building at the SW corner of the block looks to be a wee tad older than 1939...perhaps 1905-1915 range (its very similar to the Bodi club building which has a known date of 1905). Guessing Greyhound bought this block because of the existing warehouse being there. 

So who wants to bet money they got a better offer that involves demoing the site as part of currently non disclosed deal?

As an aside, if you google map your way around to the SE corner of the block, some nice lady just minding her own business is getting a good talking to by some police officers...

[Jones_]

In my opinion, more important than losing the 1940's era Flying Saucer building to what I hear is likely going to be a condo proposal, is the potential/probable loss of the 1912 William Henry Hicks mansion. Often overshadowed by Dodd-Hinsdale across the St, and invisible due to it being "renovated" as an office including elimination of the yard, it is one of the very last mansions left on Hillsborough. Personally I'm fed up as hell with all the talk of how grand Hillsborough St used to be, and so little effort to preserve any of it. Well that foes for the City as a whole. These are buildings that make you feel good...like you are home, when you walk into them. No postcard money shot is worth the continual loss of these buildings. If anyone has ideas for who could possibly take this house and move it, and even more important, where, feel free to post them here or message me. I have been contacted by a member of the RHDC to help try and brainstorm 11th hour ideas. The younger Meeker, Goodnight and BSC are all in the mixing pot of brainstormed possible interested parties. I am sure PNC is on it too. 

[JeffC]

Would just like to point out that Legacy homes demolished this home recently. It faced Glenwood and was one of the original structures in the Glenwood/Brooklyn historic district. Yes it was being used as a church office, but it could have been easily rehabbed. I mean...why the hell demolish what makes an area charming in the first place? Its not like its small....the house replacing it is the same size. This makes me very mad...

I used to attend meetings at this church (St. Johns), and they told us the house was basically off limits because it was in such poor shape.  The church basically let it deteriorate to the point where it could not be saved.

[JeffC]

In honor of today being the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Raleigh to Sherman, I post this article that (for some reason) has been posted on the website for the Town of Clinton:

 

http://www.clintonnc.com/news/news/3650306/Raleigh-surrenders-to-General-Sherman   (Part 1)

http://clintonnc.com/news/news/3650343/Raleigh-surrenders-to-General-Sherman   (Part 2)

 

Jones, we've all seen the historical marker in Mordecai on Wake Forest road about the fortifications north of the city...but where were those fortifications on Old Garner Road guarding the Southern approaches to the city that the article references?  I'd bet money they were along the banks of Walnut Creek, but I've never seen any traces of them down there.

 

Here is another story on General Logan saving Raleigh from being torched by standing down his own men at the bottom of Lake Wheeler Road, where it crosses Rocky Branch...

 

http://wkrn.membercenter.worldnow.com/story/28783611/surrender-of-raleigh-saw-a-rebel-hanged-union-general-save-the-city

Edited April 14, 2015 by JeffC

[JeffC]

I've never seen the full plan. Interesting to see what actually got built and what didn't. 

http://www.historicoakwood.org/pdf/NCStateCapitalPlan1965.pdf

How ironic is it that the area they designated as "Heritage Square" (two blocks bounded by Edenton, Jones, Wilmington and Person) they systematically bought, tore down everything, and those two blocks are parking lots to this day (except for Haywood House, whose owner told the State basically to shove it), and the recently completed State Bar building.

[Jones_]

In honor of today being the 150th anniversary of the surrender of Raleigh to Sherman, I post this article that (for some reason) has been posted on the website for the Town of Clinton:

 

http://www.clintonnc.com/news/news/3650306/Raleigh-surrenders-to-General-Sherman   (Part 1)

http://clintonnc.com/news/news/3650343/Raleigh-surrenders-to-General-Sherman   (Part 2)

 

Jones, we've all seen the historical marker in Mordecai on Wake Forest road about the fortifications north of the city...but where were those fortifications on Old Garner Road guarding the Southern approaches to the city that the article references?  I'd bet money they were along the banks of Walnut Creek, but I've never seen any traces of them down there.

I've only sort of eyeballed and scaled off certain segments and am fairly certain one part was parallel to and immediately north of Maywood Ave, which is exactly as you suspect, covering that approach along Walnut Creek. It also looks like there was a large redoubt at or near the Maywood/Lake Wheeler intersection (Rhamkatte Road existed then which is now Lake Wheeler). At Maywood/South Saunders the works shot southeast to keep inside them the  plateau that Caraleigh village now exists on (the wedge between Rocky Branch and Walnut). From there it somehow got back up to Battery Drive near Poole Road, though I haven't tried to lay that out yet. Other areas I know fairly certain are that they ran along what is now Cleveland St near Glenwood south and I think I mentioned earlier there was a huge redoubt at Courtland/WakeForest that when those townhouses were just built, a cut in the hill for a foundation revealed an obvious trench that had been dug out and filled back in with its own eroded embankment. This one would have swept the entire plain where Pigeon House empties up into Crabtree. 

As an aside I have a long list of historical items I want to add to city tourism stuff, and one would be a series of better fortification plaques with maps (there are two plaques but they are vague and do not have maps) that make it easy to stand in a spot and see where they were. 

Edited April 14, 2015 by Jones_

[JeffC]

If you look at Google maps, Old Garner Road, which would have been the main road through Garner (did Garner exist in 1865?) and on to Smithfield, where Sherman was advancing from, descends into the Walnut Creek flood plain just south of Peterson Street (the road you turn off of Old Garner to go to Walnut Creek Wetlands Center) .  That lines up well with the plateau between Walnut and Rocky Branch that you mention.  Of course the bridge over Rocky Branch leading to the "Insane Asylum" is where General Logan turned back his own men as they marched on Raleigh to burn it after Lincoln's assassination.  I guess the 150th anniversary of that is later this week, since today (tonight) is anniversary of assassination.  Not sure exactly where that bridge was.

 

" there was a huge redoubt at Courtland/WakeForest that when those townhouses were just built, a cut in the hill for a foundation revealed an obvious trench that had been dug out and filled back in with its own eroded embankment. "

 

Did you take any pictures of the old trench revealed by the excavation?

[ctl]

The North Carolina Railroad opened through what is now Garner in 1855. I'm sure there were people living in the vicinity of Garner all along, and the Wikipedia article for Garner says a station was situated on the railroad. Wikipedia also refers to combat during the Civil War. But a post office in Garner didn't open until 1878. Conclusion: Garner existed in 1865 but it was probably nothing more than a small depot with an outbuilding or two nearby and some homes within a two-mile radius. The town came later. 

Edited April 14, 2015 by ctl

[Jones_]

If you look at Google maps, Old Garner Road, which would have been the main road through Garner (did Garner exist in 1865?) and on to Smithfield, where Sherman was advancing from, descends into the Walnut Creek flood plain just south of Peterson Street (the road you turn off of Old Garner to go to Walnut Creek Wetlands Center) .  That lines up well with the plateau between Walnut and Rocky Branch that you mention.  Of course the bridge over Rocky Branch leading to the "Insane Asylum" is where General Logan turned back his own men as they marched on Raleigh to burn it after Lincoln's assassination.  I guess the 150th anniversary of that is later this week, since today (tonight) is anniversary of assassination.  Not sure exactly where that bridge was.

 

" there was a huge redoubt at Courtland/WakeForest that when those townhouses were just built, a cut in the hill for a foundation revealed an obvious trench that had been dug out and filled back in with its own eroded embankment. "

 

Did you take any pictures of the old trench revealed by the excavation?

Here is a great scan of the map. You can see the redoubt at Courtland as the northern tip of the fortifications. Sadly I didn't get a picture and its hidden behind a block retaining wall now. The Lake Wheeler redoubt is the southwestern most one and the perfect east-west rampart is along Maywood's northern edge. If you zoom in you can see Garner Road clearly (Smithfield Road) shooting due south as it does today. Interestingly there is a detached redan protecting a house to a "Johnson" that is a good ways south of the main trenches. Using either topos or an overlay of like scales, you could pinpoint the exact location of both Garner Road crossings.  I keep meaning to do this and put it on a google map. UNC libraries have historical maps overlaid on modern ones, but I don't have the know how or technology to do that, but that would be the best thing, to overlay this map on a modern one...the quality of this map is likely very high being done by a military engineer as it was...

Edited April 14, 2015 by Jones_

[JeffC]

The sites of Reynolds Tower and the Lafeyette will eventually have something on them, IMO. I doubt the "ell" ever gets built, and twenty years from now will be a trivia question..."Why is that parking deck look finished on two sides, and ugly on the other two?" And all of us will know and remember...

I believe the entire concept of the "ell" building was marginal from the start at this stage of downtown density (and is exhibit A as to the mania of the recent and now deflated real estate lending bubble). Look at the deck at the corner of Cabarrus and wilmington...they reserved space on street level there for commercial development, and nothing has happened there in over 10 years...Given the glut of street level commercial space that is unused or underused, it will be decades before the demand reaches a level that street level retail in and around parking decks becomes financially viable to develop.

looking back through the thread today, and, boy, am I glad I was wrong about the Ell building.  I think they've actually done a pretty good job on it.

[JeffC]

Here is a great scan of the map. You can see the redoubt at Courtland as the northern tip of the fortifications. Sadly I didn't get a picture and its hidden behind a block retaining wall now. The Lake Wheeler redoubt is the southwestern most one and the perfect east-west rampart is along Maywood's northern edge. If you zoom in you can see Garner Road clearly (Smithfield Road) shooting due south as it does today. Interestingly there is a detached redan protecting a house to a "Johnson" that is a good ways south of the main trenches. Using either topos or an overlay of like scales, you could pinpoint the exact location of both Garner Road crossings.  I keep meaning to do this and put it on a google map. UNC libraries have historical maps overlaid on modern ones, but I don't have the know how or technology to do that, but that would be the best thing, to overlay this map on a modern one...the quality of this map is likely very high being done by a military engineer as it was...

Jones, if you overlay google maps, you can see that the redoubt, based on the lay of the creek, railroad, and the Mordecai House, was at the southern end of Courtland, where it merges with Mordecai drive.  The condos at the North end of Courtland appear to be beyond the fortifications, as laid out on that map.  BTW, I have a friend and Civil War Buff who lives in that neighborhood, and he said folks have told him that there is some sort of remnant of fortifications behind that adult book store on Capital Blvd...But that is way off the north end of the fortification map...

[Jones_]

Jones, if you overlay google maps, you can see that the redoubt, based on the lay of the creek, railroad, and the Mordecai House, was at the southern end of Courtland, where it merges with Mordecai drive.  The condos at the North end of Courtland appear to be beyond the fortifications, as laid out on that map.  BTW, I have a friend and Civil War Buff who lives in that neighborhood, and he said folks have told him that there is some sort of remnant of fortifications behind that adult book store on Capital Blvd...But that is way off the north end of the fortification map...

Well crap. You're right. I am just an amateur obviously, and I did my first takeoff using the Elizabeth Reid Murray book map inset which is tiny. Blowing up this digitized one makes it obvious...I see Mordecai Spring to the left there...so the redoubt was immediately south of Poplar St and the hillside going down to the spring is essentially the grading of the fortification...I've walked that whole creek and it seemed to stand out to me, and now I see why....thanks for the help. 

So to try and save myself on the excavation at the north end of Courtland, there WAS a parabolic discoloration in the hill right before it dropped off into the "S" curve of Pigeon House. Either I saw nothing related to a man made disturbance, it was man made, but at a different time, or the siting of the fortifications was changed/tightened up. 

I'd not heard of anything behind the bookstore...I did notice some quarrying activity behind the sporting goods/gun store near there though. Not sure if any of this is related to the two Taylor residences located nearby. I'll have to go combing back in there without raising suspicions...as an aside one of those Taylor mansions survived into the 1970's and was called Lotus Villa. I have a paper copy of a printed picture of it. 

Aside number two, Camp Holmes would have been about where Georgetown Road is now....always wanted to comb back in there and see what I can find...mostly people's yards now, but like Dix, there should be plenty of artifacts around there. 

[JeffC]

Well crap. You're right. I am just an amateur obviously, and I did my first takeoff using the Elizabeth Reid Murray book map inset which is tiny. Blowing up this digitized one makes it obvious...I see Mordecai Spring to the left there...so the redoubt was immediately south of Poplar St and the hillside going down to the spring is essentially the grading of the fortification...I've walked that whole creek and it seemed to stand out to me, and now I see why....thanks for the help. 

So to try and save myself on the excavation at the north end of Courtland, there WAS a parabolic discoloration in the hill right before it dropped off into the "S" curve of Pigeon House. Either I saw nothing related to a man made disturbance, it was man made, but at a different time, or the siting of the fortifications was changed/tightened up. 

I'd not heard of anything behind the bookstore...I did notice some quarrying activity behind the sporting goods/gun store near there though. Not sure if any of this is related to the two Taylor residences located nearby. I'll have to go combing back in there without raising suspicions...as an aside one of those Taylor mansions survived into the 1970's and was called Lotus Villa. I have a paper copy of a printed picture of it. 

Aside number two, Camp Holmes would have been about where Georgetown Road is now....always wanted to comb back in there and see what I can find...mostly people's yards now, but like Dix, there should be plenty of artifacts around there. 

Could that road leading to the Taylor farms and crossing Pigeon House Branch be the original Whitaker Mill Road?  Or are we certain Whitaker Mill was on Crabtree Creek?

[Jones_]

Whitaker Mill was on Crabtree about where Wake Forest Road crosses it (was a little west back then…like 100 feet or so). The Mill went by other names too and I think Noble Road may have been part of the original path up and over to Glenwood and the farms in that area (Fariview, Hinsdale, Devereu). Just conjecture, but that would explain the strange 2 lane to 4 lane change where Noble starts. 

The road you are referring to I think was just a long driveway off of what was then Wake Forest Road or Louisburg Road, from about where Watkins Grill is now, immediately north of the western half of the S curve on Pigeon House. Lotus Villa stood on the Bobby Murray Chevy land based on the address in the book I have. I think it replaced one of the Taylor homes…I have not sifted through all of this write up but here is the link if you would like to check it out. Many things in it check out on the civil war map. Note, Lotus Villa survived another 20 years…the date on this .pdf I think is when she wrote it…give some interesting 1950's insight into the current Capital Blvd layout in this area too. I had no idea the section from Watkins Grill to the current US 1/401 split was so old...

Anyway its good stuff…enjoy. 

[JeffC]

"the old Tarboro Road"= Route of Milburnie Road, at least inside the Beltline.  Right?

[Jones_]

"the old Tarboro Road"= Route of Milburnie Road, at least inside the Beltline.  Right?

Yes that's correct. Picks back up as New Bern Ave at Crabtree Cr, then becomes Raleigh Beach Road, then US 64 all the way to Tarboro. Millburnie takes off to the northeast from the old Milburnie Mill site but no longer is the Tarboro Road from there. 

As an aside, following the oldest segments of 64 all the way to the coast is pretty cool....little twisty two lane parts have super old cemeteries about every mile-ish just sitting in the middle of soybean and cotton fields....each of those represented some grand plantation house (grandness of house usually equal to the grandness of the cemetery) that is no longer there. 

Edited April 15, 2015 by Jones_

[ctl]

And some large homes still stand, seemingly in the middle of nowhere between Rocky Mount and Norfolk surrounded by fallow farmland and apparently destined to collapse in 25-50 years because few people want to live in isolation.

[JeffC]

Hey Jones, re: the location of "Whitaker's Mill".  Either there are two Mills given that name, or the 1878 Fendol Bevers map is wrong.  I was looking at the archaeology report PNC commissioned for the move of the Crabtree Jones house:  

 

https://www.presnc.org/files/2013/12/crabtree_jones_archaeology_report_part1.pdf

 

Look at Figure 3.1, which is a blowup of the part of the Fendol Bevers map showing that house.  Whitaker's Mill on that map is about where Lake Boone was.  The mill that Whitaker Mill Road would have led to is just labeled "powder mill" (the report discusses this mill extensively, and makes no mention of it ever being called Whitaker's Mill).  What gives?