Escort Notes

Durham

Durham is home to Research Triangle Park, Duke and North Carolina Central universities, and many “City of Medicine, USA,” medical and weight management centers. Durham is also known as “A County with MERIT” (Medicine, Education, Research, Industry, and Technology).

Durham is the pinnacle of the Research Triangle Region of North Carolinas heartland, linked to Chapel Hill to the south and west and Raleigh and Cary to the south and east.

Durham is a compact, 299-square-mile, single-city county, one-third to one-half the size of neighboring counties. It is 16 miles across, 25 miles long, and 28 miles from corner to corner, including the City and County of Durham and Research Triangle Park.

The Eno River cuts through North Durham as a nature greenbelt, including state and city parklands and historic sites, offering primitive backpacking, hiking/walking trails, camping, and wildlife.

While Durham was born from tobacco and textiles, it now draws its breath from research, education, medical centers, weight management centers, and high-tech industries.

Durham County has 249,654 residents and a total job force of 166,048. Each day, 81,786 people commute from bedroom communities to work in Durham.

Downtown Durham was North Carolinas first commercial district on the National Register of Historic Places and is now a regional center for arts, entertainment, and dining.

The southeast part of the City of Durham encompasses world-famous Research Triangle Park, which is four miles from Downtown, two miles from RDU International Airport [map] and roughly midway from Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

Research Triangle Park (RTP), created from Southeast Durham pinelands and farmland in 1959, is now 7,000 acres, eight miles long, and two miles wide. RTP is a private, non-profit entity owned and operated by the Research Triangle Foundation in a Durham County “special research and production district.” A newer portion now spills into Wake County toward Morrisville and Cary.

The name “research triangle” came from the parks proximity and affiliation with Duke University (and later North Carolina Central University) here in Durham, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State University in Raleigh. The communities form the “points” of the triangle.

Durham is believed to be the site of an ancient Native American village named Adshusheer. The Great Indian Trading Path, later a famous wagon trail, is traced through present-day Durham by Snowhill, Mason, and St. Marys Roads.

William Johnston, a local shopkeeper and farmer, forged Revolutionary ammunition, served on the Provincial Capital Congress in 1775, and helped underwrite Daniel Boones westward explorations.

In 1865, Union General Sherman and Confederate General Johnston negotiated the largest troop surrender of the Civil War at Bennett Place in Durham, 17 days after Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox.

Trinity College moved from Randolph County to Durham as the 1800s came to a close. Washington Duke donated $85,000 to facilitate the move, and Julian Carr, a Durham tobacco and textile executive, donated the original plot of land. Following a $40 million donation by Washington Dukes son, James Buchanan Duke, Trinity College was renamed Duke University in 1924.

Dr. James E. Shepard founded North Carolina Central University, the nations first publicly supported liberal arts college for African-Americans.

In the late 1950s, Reverend Douglas Moore, minister of Durhams Asbury Temple Methodist Church, along with other religious and community leaders, pioneered sit-ins in Durham and throughout North Carolina to protest whites-only lunch counters.

Hundreds of fascinating galleries, murals, public artworks, and sculptures are scattered throughout the Durham community. In addition, 18 performing-arts venues and numerous outdoor plazas provide artistic space for live entertainment and creative contemplation.

Durham has more than 300 wonderful restaurants, dozens of which have received special recognition in the regional and national press, including Southern Living, The New York Times, Food and Wine, Bon Appétit, Esquire, and Gourmet.

Durham is home to a thriving colony of nationally acclaimed chefs and restaurants ranging from new concept chains to good ol North Carolina barbecue houses and from traditional favorites—like Chinese, French, Mexican, and Italian—to more exceptional fare—like Caribbean, Ethiopian, and Middle or Far Eastern.

A Fortunate Marketing Mistake

The origin of Durhams nickname, the “ Bull City,” has nothing to do with cattle! John Green of the Blackwell Tobacco Company named his product “Bull” Durham Tobacco after Colmans Mustard, which used a bull in its logo and which Green mistakenly thought was produced in Durham, England.

By the time James B. Duke of the American Tobacco Company purchased the Blackwell Tobacco Company in 1898, Bull Durham was the most famous trademark in the world. It sparked such popular phrases as “bullpen” (from a Bull Durham ad painted behind the Yankees dugout) and “shooting the bull” (most likely from chewing tobacco). The famous bulls image was painted all over the world, including on the Great Pyramid of Egypt!

Duke put cigarette cards, predecessors of modern baseball cards, into each pack of tobacco. By the 1930s they were immensely popular, and today they are much sought-after collectors items.

North Carolina is the “Old North State,” a reference that originated with the division of the Carolinas in 1710. It was one of the 13 original American colonies, the first to vote for Independence, and the 12th to ratify the U.S. Constitution. With 52,660 square miles, North Carolina is now home to 8.2 million residents. The state motto is esse quam videre, “to be rather than to seem.” The dogwood is the state flower, the cardinal the state bird, and the emerald the state gem.

Raleigh-Durham is shorthand for Raleigh-Durham International Airport [map], or RDU in airport code. It is often misused by the media as shorthand for the former five-county Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area, redefined in 2003) or the two-metro Raleigh-Durham-Cary CSA (Combined Statistical Area)—upon which nearly all so-called "city" rankings are based...e.g., best places to live. The comprehensive laborshed region is highly-rated, both as a place to live and a place to do business.

City of Medicine, USA

The 1910 invention of B.C. Headache powders in Durham may have been the Citys first step toward its City of Medicine, USA, designation. This identity is built on Durhams outstanding hospitals and major national and multinational health-care companies: it is also built on the Citys cutting-edge research companies, specialty clinics, nationally recognized medical teaching facilities, and acclaimed centers for weight management.

Durham has become synonymous with medicine. Nearly one in three people in Durham works in a health-related field, making medicine the Citys leading industry. The City of Medicine now has more than 300 medical and health-related companies and medical practices, with a combined payroll that exceeds $1.5 billion annually.

At the heart of Durham's reputation are six modern hospitals — Duke University Hospital & Medical Center, Duke Childrens Hospital & McGovern-Davison Health Center, Durham Regional Hospital, Durham Veteran's Administration (VA) Medical Center, Lenox Baker Children's Hospital, and North Carolina Eye & Ear Hospital — which offer more than 100 different medical services. Research Triangle Park, the largest university related research park in the world is based in Durham County and encompassed by the City of Durham.

The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham is the nations first state-supported, residential high school to prepare tomorrows leaders in the applications of science, mathematics, and technology.

Durham also has been very inventive. Durham has led the way with 3-D Ultrasound, an Alzheimer gene breakthrough, AZT, childproof caps on medicine bottles, digital cellular telephones, and more.

Durham as a Movie Location

Durham has been a very popular location for the film and movie industry, a trend that began with the 1950 release of Bright Leaf, which offered the star power of Gary Cooper and Lauren Bacall.

The 1983 thriller Brainstorm, starring Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood (in her final performance), was filmed in Southeast Durham at the Research Triangle Park.

In 1987, the blockbuster Bull Durham, starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins, was set in various locations around Downtown Durham and produced by Durham native Thom Mount.

Nick Nolte starred in Weeds (1987), filmed at North Carolina Central University and Duke University, and Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway led the cast of 1990s The Handmaids Tale, filmed at locations around Downtown Durham, including Duke University.

The Program, starring James Caan, premiered at Duke University. Getting In, starring Andrew McCarthy, was filmed in various Durham locations, including Duke.

Troy Beyer and Taimak starred in The White Girl, an anti-drug drama by journalist Tony Brown, filmed at North Carolina Central University in 1987.

Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfuss starred in the 1990 film Once Around, which was shot in the Forest Hills residential area.

In 1992, Durham was featured in “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles,” as well as in North Carolinas new tourism commercials.

A made-for-TV movie, A Friendly Suite, starring Marlee Matlin and Melissa Gilbert, shot exteriors at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.

Kiss the Girls, based on James Pattersons best-selling novel and starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd, was filmed in Durham in the spring of 1996.

Durham has served as a location for the TV series “Dawsons Creek,” with filming on the Duke University campuses and in several other spots.

The Bull City has the Blues

The blues found a special home in Durham in the late 1930s. Since then, the Bull City has become the epicenter of Piedmont Blues—a sensitive and delicate form of blues played and recorded by the likes of Blind Boy Fuller, Bull City Red, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and legendary guitarist Reverend Gary Davis.

These and other artists, living and performing in Durham, playing on the streets, at tobacco auctions, and in clubs, gave rise to the term “Bull City Blues.” They recorded such classics as “Working Man Blues,” “Me and My Dog Blues,” and “Homesick and Lonesome.”

Like the other blues styles—those played in Memphis, the Mississippi Delta, and post-war Chicago, Bull City Blues helped define our community as it contributed to Durhams musical heritage.

Today, the Piedmont Blues are enjoyed at the Festival for the Eno in July, the Bull Durham Blues Festival in September, and at various other events and venues around the community, played by contemporary artists such as John Dee Holeman, Fris Holloway, and Scott Ainslie.

Durhams Rich African-American Heritage

Durham has long been one of North Carolinas most ethnically diverse historically significant communities. In particular, Durham has a rich African-American heritage. The influence of Durham African-Americans can be seen in business, education, entertainment, civil rights, and many other areas of the broader American culture.

Durhams Parrish Street was an African-American entrepreneurial enclave, nationally cited as one of three such enclaves to be exceptionally prosperous. The rise of “Black Wall Street,” as the street became known, began immediately following the Civil War as Durhams tobacco industry started to thrive. As Durhams African-American population accumulated wealth, African-American businesses, like N.C. Mutual Life Insurance Co. (founded in 1898, now the nations largest black-owned financial institution) and Mechanics and Farmers Bank (founded in 1907 by African-American businessmen and operated continuously and profitably since then), opened on Parrish Street.

Both W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington, though critical of each other, visited Durham and wrote of its successes at exemplifying both social progress and the strength of economic self-help. Washington declared Durham “the city of Negro enterprise...of all the Southern cities I visited I found here the sanest attitude of the white people toward the black... I never saw in a city of this size with so many prosperous....”

Today, Historic Parrish Street is in the midst of a revitalization aimed at using the landmarks innovation and heritage to leverage economic revival—yet again demonstrating the communitys strength of economic self-help. Durham has remained a major hub of black enterprise. Three businesses listed in Black Enterprise magazines top 100 list, including N.C. Mutual Life Insurance, which the national magazine lists as the #1 black-owned insurance company in the nation, are based in Durham.

Durhamites were at the forefront of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., sensing that a change in direction was needed, chose Durham to make his 1960 speech in which he first publicly endorsed sit-ins as a method of direct, nonviolent confrontation with segregation laws. But Durhamites involvement in the fight for equality began years before Dr. Kings monumental “Fill up the Jails” speech at Durhams White Rock Baptist Church.

Durhamites Floyd McKissick and Reverend Douglas Moore were instrumental in Kings decision to endorse civil disobedience. Moore and McKissick trained students to conduct peaceful sit-in protests in several states between 1957 and 1960. Moore also started a network of such training centers in other parts of the South. In 1960, McKissick headed the NAACP Youth Council, of which the four Greensboro students who caught The Associated Press attention on February 1, 1960, were members.

Durham African-Americans are national leaders in education, from Dr. James E. Shepard, founder of N.C. Central University (the first publicly funded liberal arts college for African-Americans in the country) to historian John Hope Franklin, recipient of the Nations highest civilian honor (the Presidential Medal of Freedom) and former Chairman of the Presidents Commission on Race Relations.

Durhams African-American Heritage Guide celebrates these and the many other nationally significant contributions Durham residents have made to African-American history and culture in the areas of art, business, education, politics, religion, and sports.

City of Champions

Most people know Durham as the “Bull City” and the “City of Medicine,” but there are numerous arguments for another moniker: “City of Champions.” Consider the fact that Durham is home to Duke and North Carolina Central Universities (NCCU). Together, these two universities have brought home four national basketball titles in 14 years. And, in 1989, both schools appeared in the NCAAs Final Four (Duke in Division I and NCCU in Division II), with NCCU bringing home the trophy that year. Check out Durhams athletic teams impressive facts, and confirm that Durham is indeed a “City of Champions.”

Click here to see what else the City of Champions boasts.