Stokesdale Historic District

Southeast of downtown Durham, the Stokesdale Historic District is a residential neighborhood of about seventeen blocks, centered on Fayetteville Street, that was platted as Stokesdale in 1912. It contains 203 primary contributing buildings, including houses, duplexes, churches, commercial buildings, and a school and library, built between 1912 and 1960. Its houses range from triple-A-roofed and Foursquare forms to bungalows, Colonial Revival, Period Cottages, Cape Cod, Minimal Traditional and Ranch homes, reflecting the economic mix of the residents. The neighborhood grew as the African American population of Durham expanded during the tobacco era, and it is regarded as the southern portion of the city's largest black community. Its development is tied to leaders of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, Lincoln Hospital and North Carolina Central University, including John Merrick, Aaron McDuffie Moore and C. C. Spaulding, whose homes and institutions stood along Fayetteville Street. The district is valued for its planning and for the evidence it preserves of a self-sufficient black middle class in early twentieth-century Durham.