The History of the Triangle

[ChiefJoJo]

I just came across this WRAL story on the Ligon House in SE Raleigh. Ligon Middle School (proud graduate here) was named after him. Jones, any background (since you are the board historian )?

[Jones_]

I just came across this WRAL story on the Ligon House in SE Raleigh. Ligon Middle School (proud graduate here) was named after him. Jones, any background (since you are the board historian )?

Have to check a reference on this one too....more to come...

[ncwebguy]

Someone from Ligon Magnet school up the street created this web page with a little history of the place and a picture. They also have a page about John William Ligon himself. In the later days of Chavis Heights, the neighborhood is nothing like how that page says he kept it.

The Wake County real estate page for the site shows the property as being transferred to the current owners (with NJ mailing address) in late 2003. Taxes were paid late last year and have yet to be paid this year. The school page lists the house as being built in 1914, but the county site lists 1923.

There has been some emails going aroud about saving it, but it will cost more than what the current owners wants to put into it.

[Jones_]

Someone from Ligon Magnet school up the street created this web page with a little history of the place and a picture. They also have a page about John William Ligon himself. In the later days of Chavis Heights, the neighborhood is nothing like how that page says he kept it.

The Wake County real estate page for the site shows the property as being transferred to the current owners (with NJ mailing address) in late 2003. Taxes were paid late last year and have yet to be paid this year. The school page lists the house as being built in 1914, but the county site lists 1923.

There has been some emails going aroud about saving it, but it will cost more than what the current owners wants to put into it.

Man...I like the brick store better than the house, but is was torn down in 2005 according to the notes. I rarely have confindence in teh Wake COunty tax site for construction dates...they have stuff I know was built in the 1800's listed as 1910, whatever...seem to be alot of place holders when info is missing on the deed or the original deed is not available. This house is alot like stuff in Boylan Heights, Brooklyn and Vanguard near 5-points.....probably weren't 50 like it in the city...Hayes Barton Baptist tore one down a couple years ago for parking that was circa 1914....there are lots like it up north, but it is large, made of good materials and imo anything pre WWII is worth saving.

[ncwebguy]

That stretch of Lenior has two other corner stores in place after that one was torn down. They sell little more than alcohol, which the community does not need. A similar store near my house was converted by the city into a house currently rented by the Raleigh Housing Authority. The condidtion of that space may not have been conductive to a similar rennovation. Though razing the store may have been more of a symbolic gesture toward cleaning up the area.

[Jones_]

While driving around last weekend, my fiancee was curious about the history of the house behind what used to be Raleigh Community Hospital on Wake Forest Road in Mordecai. It has a gazebo near the north end of the property. Was it part of the hospital? Does anyone live there? It seemed like it could use some upkeep from the parking lot and side street, but was quite interesting.

The Wake county website has the property listed as being owern occupied and built in 1889, with rennovations in 1970. But there's nothing about the history of the 4,200+ square foot house.

This house is known as Norburn Terrace. It was completed in 1899 according to my source. It was described as being way out in the country with its only neighbors being the Mordecais and the Sassers (this house I am unable to locate exactly, though I know of Sasser Street). The architects name was Bauer and he also worked on the Executive Mansion and both of the now demolished Female Baptist Seminary and Raleigh High School, and I think the Capeheart House too (Jojo, I believe you mentioned this house as a fave of yours, tan brick with a turret on Blount c. 1899 also). I am reaching here, but I think Bauer ultimately committed suicide and was something of an enigma most of his life.

The house was featured in magazines of its time as a quintessential southern house. The gardens surrounding it and the house itself are of course excellant examples of late Victorian design.

Edited February 12, 2007 by Jones133

[ncwebguy]

Thanks! I have forwarded it on to the fiancee.

I think the Capeheart house used to serve as the "lieutenant govenor's house/office"? Though I've never seen anyone go in or out...

Haven't heard anything about the Ligon house other than what has been reported in the news -- the city won't demo it.

There is a plaque near the federal courthouse that talks about a school that used to exist in that area, but I'm not sure if that was Raleigh High school or something else. I heard Burning Coal Theater is getting the auditorium of the senior center/first desegrated school on Person. I don't think that was Raleigh High School either though.

[Jones_]

I have read some bits about Raleigh High School...I want to say it was where the City Parking Deck on Morgan St is but am not sure. I know immediately before the Parking deck the Union Bus Station was located there approximately in the 1940's and 50's(facing the back of Hillsborough Place). Hugh Morson High School was on the block formerly created by Morgan/Hargett/Bloodworth/Person (warehouse portion). The federal complex now takes up two former city blocks. Morson HS is often wrongly attributed to being on the site of the current post office. It operated from 1925 to 1955 as a high school and then a middle school before being sold to the feds in 1965. Raleigh High School would have had to have been built when Bauer was working so 1880's to about 1900 is the time frame.

I still know very little about Ligon the man. The school gets mentioned as the 'other' city high school alongside Broughton and Morson.

[RaleighRob]

Hugh Morson High School was on the block formerly created by Morgan/Hargett/Bloodworth/Person (warehouse portion). The federal complex now takes up two former city blocks. Morson HS is often wrongly attributed to being on the site of the current post office. It operated from 1925 to 1955 as a high school and then a middle school before being sold to the feds in 1965.

Is that the one that has the historic plaque about it on that brick wall where New Bern Place dead-ends?

[Jones_]

Is that the one that has the historic plaque about it on that brick wall where New Bern Place dead-ends?

Yeah, that gargoyle was on Morsons facade.

[ChiefJoJo]

I thought these were cool...

Mule teams pulling cotton down Hillsborough Street, 1921 (probably from opposite Gardner or Pogue St near the library)

Crossing the finish line of the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts annual cross country run in 1910. The start and finish were located on Hillsborough Street.

NCSU circa 1925

[Jones_]

I love pics of NC State....the first one shows Winston and Tompkins on the right....Tompkins was/is a mill structure like the Cotton Mill by Peace and Caraleigh Mills which I live in, so it has the distinctive train tower sticking up....it burned later and I believe the tower was shortened from five to two stories then. The houses on the left are sitting between where Logan and Chamberlin will go shortly.....I believe one of them stood until the early nineties and its foundation still exists as Sylvias Pizza foundation. Are those Trolley tracks I see between the north sidewalk and the road? Since I am on a roll, this is also the exact spot where one of three engagements were fought on April 13 1865 between the retreating Confederate army (Gen Wheeler) and the advancing Union army (Gen Kilpatrick)...the final big battle was in Morrisville with about 4000 troops on each side actually fighting (Calvary served as rear guard and advance forces)...unexploded shells have been found along Crabtree Creek by the Morrisville soccer fields as recently as the late 1990's.

[DPK]

Was just googling around and ran across this old Observer article on accident archived on railfan.net. Might go out sometime soon and try and get some pictures.

Antique Turntable Still Used To Swivel Rail Cars

By VICKI HYMAN, Staff Writer

RALEIGH -- At the end of a rail spur high on a berm above Capital Boulevard,

there is a weed-choked concrete basin more than 100 feet in diameter. A

bridge with a half-moon-shaped base hugs the hollow, and a spindly trestle

rises above it like a flimsy crown.

It looks like a curious relic, an abandoned piece of 19th-century American

railroading, fit for a museum, perhaps, but not for service.

It is fit for both. Railroad buffs would know the contraption immediately as

a turntable. Often enclosed in a roundhouse, a turntable was used to turn

engines around, sliding them into bays for repairs.

The Raleigh turntable, nearly a century old, is owned and still used

occasionally by freight hauler CSX at its downtown Raleigh rail yard, to

turn engines or, more often, errant rail cars that can only be unloaded from

one side.

"You're looking at one of the wisest investments," said Jonathan Peery , a

CSX support clerk looking on as the turntable's motor rattled to life,

sounding like a thousand beer bottles clanking against each other. "This

thing has been paid for for a hundred years."

The company that built it has been out of business for 60 .

Once diesel engines eclipsed steam locomotives for freight hauling,

manufacturers stopped making turntables, and railroads started ripping them

out in the 1950s.

Unlike steam locomotives, diesel locomotives can easily reverse, so

engineers didn't need turntables, opting instead to turn them around in a

"wye," a Y-shaped track layout.

At one time, there were at least four turntables in Raleigh, with many more

scattered throughout the state.

Now the downtown Raleigh turntable is the only one in active freight use in

the state, although visitors to the N.C. Transportation Museum in Spencer

can ride on another -- very, very slowly, according to Larry Neal, manager

of visitor services. "You can walk faster," he said.

Here it is on google maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&...mp;t=h&om=1

[Jones_]

But the CN Drie. map of Raleigh from 1872 clearly shows the roundhouse south of Johnson St, not North of it. The fact that the one Vicki Hyman wrote about is a reinforced concrete structure tells me it is not the one in Dries map....my guess is that there were two, which I will try to verify on a future trip to archives.

Edited March 27, 2007 by Jones133

[Subway Scoundrel]

I have walked up there and seen this. It was several years ago. Amazing how much space there is up there and as it works it way down to the ad company's space and the very old strip center on Capital. Someone could really come in there make something of the place, but would have limted parking. That is why it would be great with a TTA stop across the street.

[Jones_]

But the CN Drie. map of Raleigh from 1872 clearly shows the roundhouse south of Johnson St, not North of it. The fact that the one Vicki Hyman wrote about is a reinforced concrete structure tells me it is not the one in Dries map....my guess is that there were two, which I will try to verify on a future trip to archives.

I found out on a Sanborn Insurance map that the current roundhouse footprint is not the original one. The old one was definitely south of Johnson St.

[Jones_]

A note on lost streets downtown, I know most old street alignments but this one was a surprise.......I first found a Sanborn map from 1914 showing Lenoir St curling up from Boylan Heights, connecting Montford Ave and crossing the RR tracks to align with Snow...Snow is the little street that separates the two western portions of Hargett St. So went to investigate, and sure enough, Lenoir in Boylan Heights extends 50-100 feet past the current paved portion, looks like the new prison site changes took the rest out, but through an old parking lot where Mountford descends to the prison you can see some old curbing that heads towards the tracks from the south and then I checked out Snow, and adjacent to the tracks is a small ravine and a concrete support is still in place that would have supported Snow as it headed south for an at-grade crossing and joining back up with Lenoir...I thought it was cool anyway trying to imagine Model T's bumping over the rails there a long time ago....

[Atlside]

Downtown Durham 1933

Northwest corner of Main & Corcoran, with the original Post Office, the Fidelity Bank and office building next door, the Washington Duke Hotel (twin towers) in back, and the Geer Building across the street on the right.

Durham 1925

Edited April 7, 2007 by Atlside

[Jones_]

I sometimes think of Durham as having alot of historic buildings, but its relative loss of historic resources may outweigh Raleigh....Durham's are all present in a small area but wow there is a lot gone. I have seen a picture of the area north of Morgan along Foster, Morris and Rigsbee and it was a Victorian neighborhood that would rival Oakwood in Raleigh and there are what like 2 houses left up there? What a shame. Thanks for the pics.

[JeffC]

A note on lost streets downtown, I know most old street alignments but this one was a surprise.......I first found a Sanborn map from 1914 showing Lenoir St curling up from Boylan Heights, connecting Montford Ave and crossing the RR tracks to align with Snow...Snow is the little street that separates the two western portions of Hargett St. So went to investigate, and sure enough, Lenoir in Boylan Heights extends 50-100 feet past the current paved portion, looks like the new prison site changes took the rest out, but through an old parking lot where Mountford descends to the prison you can see some old curbing that heads towards the tracks from the south and then I checked out Snow, and adjacent to the tracks is a small ravine and a concrete support is still in place that would have supported Snow as it headed south for an at-grade crossing and joining back up with Lenoir...I thought it was cool anyway trying to imagine Model T's bumping over the rails there a long time ago....

I don't think that track crossing was removed until they expanded the prison in the 1980s(?)...I have a friend who was a taxi driver in Raleigh in the 1970s, and he remembers a grade crossing of the railroad tracks behind the prison...and this must be it...

Here is another historical tidbit...Bland Road, which runs behind the Wendy's and that shabby Food Lion near Wake Forest Road and New Hope Church Road is the original Falls of Neuse, when you had to take a left off of Wake forest Road to get onto FON. I guess Bland/FON hit Wake forest Road somewhere in the parking lot of the shopping center where the Aldi's just opened (Eastgate, I believe...). That is why that Food Lion strip shopping center sits so far off of the new religned FON Road...it is sitting right next to OLD FON...

[Jones_]

I don't think that track crossing was removed until they expanded the prison in the 1980s(?)...I have a friend who was a taxi driver in Raleigh in the 1970s, and he remembers a grade crossing of the railroad tracks behind the prison...and this must be it...

Here is another historical tidbit...Bland Road, which runs behind the Wendy's and that shabby Food Lion near Wake Forest Road and New Hope Church Road is the original Falls of Neuse, when you had to take a left off of Wake forest Road to get onto FON. I guess Bland/FON hit Wake forest Road somewhere in the parking lot of the shopping center where the Aldi's just opened (Eastgate, I believe...). That is why that Food Lion strip shopping center sits so far off of the new religned FON Road...it is sitting right next to OLD FON...

I particularly like the little dirt segment of Bland near where it connects to Pacific....there are the remains of a small dam and tailrace from a small mill next to the cemetary. The road story is even better than just this. I am rusty on the most modern parts of it but have figured out the oldest alignments with old and modern maps and placement of old structures and cemetaries.

Original roads were Wake Forest Road, Falls of Neuse and Louisburg(old names were different). A single road came out of downtown along the current WF road alignment through Mordecai. Louisburg split along what is now St Albans, followed New Hope, to Deana and would have continued on current 401 from Capital Blvd. Falls of Neuse split at Bland and kept straight until near Dunn Road near Falls Lake where it veered east through what is now Wakefield subdivision. Wake Forest Road continued in front of Red Lobster and reappeared near Litchford Road. Part of the 1920's lay is preserved in the concrete roadbed fronting that recently abandonded gold course past Triangle Towne Center. It then followed Thorton Rd and crossed the Neuse River east of the current bridge and ended up on what is now Ligon Mill Road. I have found civil war veteran graves and antebellum houses in several places up here...very well preserved until recently.......

In the 1950's Louisburg Road was given a new connector from in front of Watkins Grill (called old Louisburg now) all the way up to where Captial and 401 meet now. Falls of Neuse was realigned in the mid 80's (I think) to create Bland and Wake Forest was cut up into several pieces to allow the creation of Atlantic Ave. Capital Blvd north of 401, from Mini City to Triangle Towne Center, was added, I think, in early 60's.

[JeffC]

I particularly like the little dirt segment of Bland near where it connects to Pacific....there are the remains of a small dam and tailrace from a small mill next to the cemetary.

do you mean right there where Bland ends in a stop light at FON, continuing as Pacific across FON? I've never noticed...I did notice that the church sitting on Bland looked like a very old country church rather than something built after the area urbanized. East of Falls of the Neuse right before the Raleigh Racquet club (and after Friendship Baptist), if you walk east down the transmission line right of way, and then duck left into the woods, you find the remains of another mill (part of millrace, and dam and spillway) on that creek, which I believe is Marsh Creek.

On a related note, I just moved into the "Fairfax Hills" subdivision north of there (above Millbrook), which was built in the early 1960s (must have been in the middle of nowhere...the houses originally had wells and septic tanks). Our nextdoor neighbor, one of the original residents of the neighborhood, told us that when she moved in (mid 1960s), Falls of Neuse wasn't even paved. I have trouble believing her recollection is correct, given what a major thoroughfare it is now...Do you know if she is right?

A single road came out of downtown along the current WF road alignment through Mordecai. Louisburg split along what is now St Albans, followed New Hope, to Deana and would have continued on current 401 from Capital Blvd.

I have figured that St. Albans just past the new CVS had to be an old road, because for a few hundred yards there are steep banks on either side, and there is an old farmhouse back in the trees on the right.

Falls of Neuse was realigned in the mid 80's (I think) to create Bland

Was it that late? Bland deadends into New Hope Church now...so did you have to jag west on New Hope for a few hundred yards and then turn right onto Bland? Or did it cut through the Eastgate Shopping Center parking lot to hit Wake Forest directly? I think the latter, because there is another segment of Bland to the right off Wake Forest (at that Urgent Care clinic), and that also looks like an "old road" (no curb and gutter, what looks like some old farmhouses sitting on it...) That segment of Bland ends at St. Albans (old Louisburg Rd.)...wonder if that segment of bland also used to be Falls of Neuse??

[ChiefJoJo]

Was it that late? Bland deadends into New Hope Church now...so did you have to jag west on New Hope for a few hundred yards and then turn right onto Bland? Or did it cut through the Eastgate Shopping Center parking lot to hit Wake Forest directly? I think the latter, because there is another segment of Bland to the right off Wake Forest (at that Urgent Care clinic), and that also looks like an "old road" (no curb and gutter, what looks like some old farmhouses sitting on it...) That segment of Bland ends at St. Albans (old Louisburg Rd.)...wonder if that segment of bland also used to be Falls of Neuse??

Couldn't have been the late 80s... I grew up just west of there, and often rode my bike to Eastgate Park off Quail Hollow and sometimes to the SC. Eastgate Shopping Center has been there along with Montecito Apmts, for as long as I can recall. It used to be anchored by an A&P grocery store, and drug store (Kerr I think), and there was an old barber shop around the corner. You might be thinking of the newer road that extended Hardimont across FON in the late 80s/early 90s... I think it's New Hope Church Rd (by the Wal-Mart) that replaced the old St Albans E-W connection.

Another memory from that area... you guys mentioned Old WF Rd... I can recall that stretch by Millbrook Rd, where it was actually a small community called Millbrook, with an old post office and a couple of small shops right there by the RR tracks. I used to stop and get ice cream after soccer games at mini city soccer fields (which of course are now a Capital Ford, some offices and a nondescript shopping center). I'm pretty sure Millbrook was not incorporated, as it was engulfed by Raleigh sometime in the 80s a al Westover, Oberlin, Method, etc.

I'd love to see an old map of that area pre-WWII.

[JeffC]

Couldn't have been the late 80s... I grew up just west of there, and often rode my bike to Eastgate Park off Quail Hollow and sometimes to the SC. Eastgate Shopping Center has been there along with Montecito Apmts, for as long as I can recall. It used to be anchored by an A&P grocery store, and drug store (Kerr I think), and there was an old barber shop around the corner. You might be thinking of the newer road that extended Hardimont across FON in the late 80s/early 90s... I think it's New Hope Church Rd (by the Wal-Mart) that replaced the old St Albans E-W connection.

Actually, I was asking how the old FON (now Bland) connected up with Wake Forest Road, Since Bland hits Hardimont half a block west of Wake Forest Road. I'm sure FON predates Hardimont...so at some point, FON/Bland must have cut across the Eastgate parking lot to hit Wake Forest...the service station there does not look that old (post-suburban).

[Jones_]

I never did have a frim handle on when FON realigned to be the through street vs. WF Rd. I think the eastern chunk of Bland was just a simple connector between what at that time were two dirt roads called Wake Forest Rd and Loiusburg...though since WF was us 1 in the 1950's it may have been paved in concrete like the piece north of 540 still is near Cheviot Hills. Anyway, Eeast gate looks like it was developed in the 60's (like Quail Hollow up the road). I follow your reasoning but tend to think that 'western' Bland was shifted west a bit at some point....those intersections pre-automobile were "v" shaped and I would guess maybe as early as the 1920's but surly by the construction of Eastgate (60's or whenever) Bland was swung around to form a right-angled intersection with the then through-traffic Wake Forest Road. Hardimont looks to have been added without regard to the alignment of FON for through traffic though it could have been at or near the same time.

In the 60's the only paved roads I know of were US 1, 70 and 64 as they approached Raleigh. All the others were misaligned country roads. Somebody has a history of many of them online though I have found mistakes in his info.

For an even older home nearby accross the road from melting pot in teh Charlie Gaddy Woods, is the Crabtree athanial Jones house from about 1820. His plantation was camp Crabtree during the civil war and the family cemetery is in the yard of a house behind vitamin shoppe.

I will look for that other mill on an 1871 map I have....it shows dozens and dozens of them and can be bought at teh City Museum for 7 bucks. Its a fun hunt if you are into that.

Edited May 15, 2007 by Jones133