The Shoe - And A Little House History

I’ve spent quite a bit of time lately trying to learn about our house’s history. I think the key word in the previous sentence is TRYING. It hasn’t been as easy as I thought. Record keeping in our city becomes pretty antiquated prior to 1962 and it requires fishing through giant red volumes filled with scrawled handwriting and mysterious notations. Also, to make things even more difficult, at some point the name of our street changed. Anyway, I’ve traced our homes ownership back to 1963, I’ve found 9 owners so far. The average length of ownership, about 6 years, I guess that’s pretty normal for a neighborhood close to a large university.

Neighborhood History
Our neighborhood association has an amazing website with lots of info about our neighborhood history, it’s answered many of my questions. What we do know is that the majority of homes in our neighborhood were built as housing for the employees of the nearby Erwin Cotton Mill. The mill closed in 1986, some parts have been torn down, and what remains has been turned into condos. Most of the homes in the neighborhood were originally owned by the mill and rented to the employees for a nominal fee. All of the mill houses were sold by the mill, usually to their tenants, back in the 40’s. The nicer, bigger homes in the neighborhood usually belonged to the mill managers, or shopkeepers who owned stores nearby, many of these homes were kit homes like those available from Sears or Aladdin Homes.

House History
I’ve been trying to find out if our house was built as mill housing, or by someone else, based on my experience thus far, it may remain a mystery. I’ve sent some e-mails to the city and I’m hoping that there is an original building permit on file for the construction of our house. I’ve also been to the public library, someone suggested I look in the City Directories available on microfiche. They date back to 1918 and are basically like phone books, but they list not only you’re address, but your occupation as well. Unfortunately, the mill houses are listed as ….Millhouse #64, West Durham, no real address, nothing to go on. Not very helpful.

Real estate records state that our house was built in 1920. When we ripped out the toilet and the tub, they were stamped “American Standard 1926.” This could mean either our house was built in 1926, or that the house was built without a bathroom and that one was added later. But, that may also point to our house being a mill house, since most were built without indoor “facilities”. Bathrooms were added later as they became more common. We do know that the house originally had German siding, you can see it in the closet of the bedroom addition, they didn’t even plaster over it, they left it exposed. It’s pretty cool! The siding is also visible in our little laundry/mudroom off the kitchen. It’s another addition built to house the heater and the washer and dryer, probably it was originally the back porch.

The house is in the bungalow style, it has a wide front porch, exposed rafter tails, neat windows on either side of the fireplace, and a hipped roof with a little gable at the top. But the inside is devoid of all decoration, if there were originally any built-ins they are long gone. My guess is this house was built as your basic model, no special add ons. It has nice plain wide woodwork, especially at the wall base where it’s almost 6” tall. The woodwork is all heart of pine and was originally stained a dark color. The reason I know this is that the paint was peeling off everywhere when we moved in. Someday maybe we’ll restore it all back to it’s original state, but for now white will have to do. The floors are lovely heart of pine as well, the grain and color of the wood is amazing. And two really nice things are the higher than normal ceilings and the two fireplaces. Probably both built due to necessity, without central heat the fireplaces may have been the only heat source. And the high ceilings helped keep things cooler during the long, hot steamy summers.

There have been several adjustments to the original floor plan but we're not sure what they all are. A bedroom and a screened in porch were added off the back of the house at some point, as well as the enclosure of the original backporch for a mudroom. Something has been done to the bathroom but we’re not sure what, it could have involved the closet in the front bedroom. When building a closet in the bathroom we cut into the wall and discovered the aforementioned shoe, and a newspaper from 1956. It remains a mystery…..

By the way, we did do half of item one and all of item 2 from my last post. Instead of cleaning up and re-organizing what remains of the mess we made completing these home renovations, I am writing this. And if I wasn’t writing this post…… I’d probably be reading someone else’s blog. Escapism at it’s best!

Comments

[maryse]

what a cute little house you have.

[Anne]

The shoe's adorable too.

[em]

Thanks! I tried on the shoe and felt like Cinderella's ugly step sister, I think it must be about a size 4-1/2. I'd love to find the Cinderella who belongs to that shoe. Maybe she can answer all our questions about the history of the house!

[jm]

That is SO cool that you found that shoe! Maybe it wasn't put there by Cinderella, though... perhaps her prince? :)

(Weblogs are the best form of escapism I know right now...perfect for avoiding clean up.)

[John Schelp]

I was in the middle of a google search for "Old West Durham" and came across your posting (below).

Wanted to say hi (from a neighbor) and let you know that your estimate of the bathroom be added in 1926 is likely right on target. :)

The Erwin Cotton Mills fought being annexed by Durham for years. The mill owners said if West Durham were annexed, they'd leave (to avoid paying City taxes).

West Durham was finally annexed in 1925 (bringing water and sewer lines soon thereafter).

According to Jean Anderson's book (Durham County), each yard in West Durham had an outhouse out back until 1925-26.

[GK]

Great site, and great house.

Just FYI, the tax dates are notoriously wrong - 1920 is sort of a default date.

One way to get a better sense of the patterns of development in your area is to look at the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. There was one done in 1913 that includes OWD, although relatively little was built by that time, and another done in 1937. This won't really nail it down, but it will help you sense the timing and direction of construction.
The 'big red books' can be frustrating, particularly if your property was company housing and owned en-masse with others by Erwin Mills. There is usually a reference to another deed buried in the last reference ("the property described in...") that may be the larger property. If you can trace this back, it will at least tell you when the land was first acquired by the mill, if not exactly when your house was built.

Good Luck!

GK