Main Street
The wagon road itself almost certainly followed a precolonial trading path.
The Blount map of Durham's Station c. 1867 shows the wagon road curving south just past Queen Street, then turning east again along the future route of Ramseur Street. By 1887, Main Street met Dillard Street in a T intersection and made a slight jog north before continuing east - a routing to go around the home of tobacco and textile tycoon Julian Shakespeare Carr.
By 1902, the jog had been eliminated and the Dillard-Main intersection was in its present alignment. The realignment may have been done in connection with Carr's construction of two cotton mills and worker housing farther east.
People
Julian Shakespeare Carr • William N. Pratt • John Sprunt Hill • Benjamin Newton Duke • James B. Duke • Washington Duke • George W. Watts • Richard Harvey Wright • George Watts Hill • Atlas Monroe RigsbeeLandmarks
Brightleaf Square • West Village • Five Points • Hill Building • Old Courthouse • St. Philip's Episcopal Church • Former Durham County Library • Human Services Complex • First Presbyterian Church • Durham Rescue Mission