Durham received the nickname “Bull City” in the late 19th century when the Blackwell Tobacco Company called its product “Bull Durham Tobacco”. Durham was known as a banking and tobacco hub, and while both industries have continued to flourish, the city has also attracted many other industries to our area. Durham is home to several renowned higher education institutions, most notably Duke University and North Carolina Central University. Durham is also a national leader in health-related activities, focusing on Duke University Hospital and many private companies.
Duke and its Duke University Health System are the city's largest employers. North Carolina Central University is a historically black university that is part of the University of North Carolina System. Together, the two universities make Durham one of the vertices of the Research Triangle area; at the center of this area is the Research Triangle Park, south of Durham, which covers an area of 11 square miles and is dedicated to research facilities. The Duke University campus houses the Neo-Gothic Duke Chapel and the Nasher Art Museum.
Other notable sites in the city include the Museum of Life and Science, the Durham Center for the Performing Arts, the Carolina Theater, and Duke Homestead and Tobacco Factory. Bennett Place commemorates the place where Joseph E. Sherman lived during the American Civil War. The city is served, along with Raleigh, by Raleigh-Durham International Airport.
The Eno and Occoneechi, related to the Sioux and Shakori, lived in the area and may have established a village called Adshusheer (or Ajusher) in the area that became Durham. The Occaneechi Trail, a corridor of commercial roads and trails, crossed the area. Native Americans expanded the region by establishing settlements and commercial transportation routes. Frontier men from the area, before the American War of Independence, participated in the Regulatory MovementThe loyal militia used Cornwallis Road to cross the area in 1771 to put down the rebellion.
William Johnston, a local farmer and merchant, manufactured ammunition for the Continental Army, served in the Provincial Congress in 1775 and financially supported Daniel Boone in his explorations to the west. In the period before the war, large plantations were established, including Hardscrabble, Fairntosh, Lipscomb, Walnut Hall, Patterson and Leigh. In 1860, the Stagville Plantation was at the center of one of the largest plantations in the South. African slaves were brought to work on these farms and plantations, and slave quarters became the center of distinctly Southern cultural traditions that included crafts, social relationships, life rituals, music, and dance.
There were also free African Americans in the area, including several who fought in the War of Independence. Durham Station, as it was known for its first 20 years, served as a depot for occasional passengers or express packages until early April 1865, when the federal army, commanded by Major General William T. Sherman, occupied Raleigh, the nearby state capital, during the American Civil War. The last formidable Confederate army in the South, commanded by General Joseph E.
Johnston, was headquartered in Greensboro, 50 miles (80 km) to the west. Following the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia by General Lee in Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, Gen. Johnston requested terms of surrender, which were negotiated on April 17, 18 and 26 at Bennett Place, James and Nancy Bennett's small farm, located midway between army lines, about 3 miles (4.8 km) west of Durham Station. The success of the tobacco industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries encouraged the then growing textile industry to settle outside Durham. The early electrification of Durham was also a great incentive.
Thanks to the economic decline of single-family farms in the region at that time, these textile factories doubled their population of Durham. These areas were known as East Durham and West Durham until they were finally annexed by the city of Durham. Durham's industrial fortunes declined in the mid-20th century. Textile factories began to close during the 1930s.
Competition from other tobacco companies (as well as the decline in tobacco consumption after the 1960s) reduced the revenues of Durham's tobacco industry. As a result of its significant African-American community, which included many activists, a major civil rights movement developed in Durham. Multiple sit-ins were held and Martin Luther King Jr. The Durham Committee on Black Affairs, organized in 1935 by C.
Spaulding, Louis Austin, Conrad Pearson and James E. Shepard, have been cited nationally for their role in the fight for black voting rights. The committee has also used its voting power to defend the social and economic rights of African Americans and other ethnic groups. Moore, minister of Durham's Asbury Temple Methodist Church, along with other religious and community leaders, pioneered the sit-ins in North Carolina to protest discrimination at food counters that only served white people.
Durham's main employers are Duke University and Duke Medical Center (39,000 employees and 14,000 students), about 2 miles (3.2 km) west of the original center, and the Research Triangle Park businesses (49,000 employees), about 10 miles (16 km) to the southeast. These centers are connected by the Durham Highway (North Carolina) 14. The soil is predominantly clay, making it poor for agriculture. The Eno River, a tributary of the Neuse River, runs through the northern part of Durham, along with several other small streams. Downtown Durham is on a ridge that forms the dividing line between the Neuse River basin, which flows east to Pamlico Sound, and the Cape Fear River basin, which flows south to the Atlantic near Wilmington. A small part of the city is in Wake County.
Durham's climate is humid subtropical (Cfa according to the Köppen classification system), with hot and humid summers, cold winters, and warm to mild springs and autumns. Durham receives abundant rainfall, with thunderstorms common in summer and high temperatures of 80 to 100 degrees F. The region sees an average of 7 inches (180 mm) of snow per year, and any snowfall that falls usually melts within a few days. Health and pharmaceuticals continue to gain importance and many companies are headquartered in Durham, such as GlaxoSmithKline, IQVIA, Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Parexel International, Chimerix, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Bio Products Laboratory USA, bioMérieux USA and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. Federally, Durham is in North Carolina's 4th congressional district, which is represented by Democrat Valerie Foushee.
Durham Technical Community College is a two-year public institution that awards associate degrees. Air travel is provided by Raleigh-Durham International Airport, 12 miles southeast of Durham, which carries about 4.5 million passengers a year. There is frequent service (five flights a day or more) to Boston, Charlotte, Philadelphia, New York LaGuardia, New York Kennedy, Newark, Washington Reagan, Washington Dulles, Chicago O'Hare, Dallas, Houston and Atlanta, Georgia. Daily nonstop service is offered to approximately 30 destinations in the United States and there is also daily international service to London Heathrow, Toronto-Pearson and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
Duke University also maintains its own transportation system. Duke Transit operates more than 30 buses, with routes throughout the campus and the health system. Buses and vans on the Duke campus have alternative schedules or don't operate during breaks and holidays. After the Civil War, the Durham short hawthorn bull became the logo of Bull Durham Tobacco (later W, T.
Blackwell & Co. Why is Durham known as the City of Bulls? Have you ever wondered about Durham's famous nickname, the “City of Bulls”? It's a story that dates back to the post-Civil War era. This nickname is deeply connected with the history of the city. The bishop's case reached Parliament, where he declared that Durham was outside the boundaries of any English county and that from time immemorial it was widely known that the sheriff of Northumberland was not a Durham sheriff nor did he have that freedom as a sheriff.
The land that would become County Durham now bordered the Great Pagan Army, a border that today still forms the boundaries between the historic counties of Yorkshire and County Durham. In 1881, the General Assembly created Durham County from Orange and Wake Counties, and Durham became the county seat. Durham public schools are administered by Durham Public Schools, the eighth largest school district in Carolina of North. The Durham Art Walk features a variety of artists who come together each year for a large exhibition of works on the streets of Durham.
The merger of Durham City Schools (several inner-city neighborhoods) and Durham County schools in the early 1990s generated controversy. The city that grew up there was known as Durhamville, Durham Station and Durham's before its name was shortened to Durham. Durham Cathedral was rebuilt after the Norman Conquest and, together with Durham Castle, is now a World Heritage Site. The Durham Dragons, a women's quick-throw softball team, played at Durham Athletic Park from 1998 to 2000.
County Durham became heavily industrialized in the 19th century, when many coal mines opened in the Durham coal field. In less than a week, students from North Carolina College in Durham and Duke University organized a sit-in in Durham. In the 1950s and 1960s, what is now the largest university research park in the world and which gives its name to the vast Triangle region, was excavated in the pine forests of Durham to turn it into a special fiscal district of the County Durham.
