On the back of the placard John and Hallie Hearn gave to people at the Wake Forest Historical Association’s program about the history of the Wake Forest Fire Department there was a hand-drawn map of the town in 1947.
The streets then are recognizable as today’s streets, but many of them in 1947 had very different names from today. And this was also before a decision was made to have all (well, almost all) east-west streets named as avenues while the north-south streets are called streets.
We will begin in the southwest quadrant of town with South Main Street and Dunn Street, which was apparently expected to cross the Seaboard Airline Railroad because that extension was in dotted lines. Vernon Street is recognizable, ending at South Wingate Street, but the short street linking it to West Sycamore was then called Dorsett Street, now an unattached part of South College Street.
From the end of Vernon a dotted line for a street never built, Lassiter Drive, curved to the north, crossing the new Woodland Drive and ending at Durham Road. Also, this was before Holding Park, and the street extending west from South Main that is now West Owen Avenue was then Vance Street. Again, it was planned or proposed to go farther, crossing South Wingate and ending at Durham Road.
North of Durham Road, Gore Field was at the end of West Avenue – both long gone – and something called Falls Road left North Wingate and headed west. We know that street as Stadium Drive, but how do you get from Stadium to the Falls community? Also, a Grove (Groves?) Avenue left Falls Road and quickly ended at Groves Stadium with East Drive to the east of the stadium and West Juniper Street to its north.
Up in this northwest quadrant, North Wingate, North College and North Main streets are in place, and North Main has its median. But the only built streets heading west are West Juniper, Oak Street/Wall Road and a short section of Chestnut Street. Cedar Avenue was indicated by broken lines with no name on them.
Moving back to the southeast quadrant, White Street (with no South attached) ended at its intersection with West Sycamore though again a future extension was planned. Brooks Street was only built for two blocks running south from Waite Street (for some reason, everyone at that time had added an E to the name of the first college president). Owen and Jones streets were in place, as was a short section of Taylor Street and Franklin Street. Elm Street did not reach to Brooks.
Heading north, Spring Street is in today’s location, but it has a Baker Street (dotted lines) to the south in about the location of the small strip mall John Lyon built for his grocery store. Today, that street heads north from Spring and is called North Brooks. Spring ended at a one-block street, Davis Street, still existing but now a short section of North Franklin Street.
Caddell Street is shown but with no name. On the north side of Spring Street the 1947 Lewis Street is now North Taylor Street. Also, the east-west street then called Thomas Street is now East Pine Avenue which then and now is not connected to West Pine. We find Nelson Street in both 1947 and today, but its neighbor to the north, then Durham Street, is now East Walnut Avenue.
What was DuBois Avenue, running north-south from Nelson to East Juniper Street, became Briggs Avenue in 1947, turning to the west to meet White Street. It appears it is now a portion of North Franklin and East Cedar Avenue. Allen Road remains where it was and is.
There were no streets shown for what is now called Mill Village because it was not part of the town and would not be until it was annexed in 1977. The management at the mill that was the reason for the village’s existence, first Royall Cotton Mill and after bankruptcy Royal Cotton Mill, began selling the workers’ houses to their occupants in 1941 or so. After that, there was no reason to maintain the separate town, and its charter was repealed in 1945 by the General Assembly.
The Town of Wake Forest took over maintenance of the water system – there was no sewer system. Substantial improvements were made in the Mill Village after its annexation, including paving streets, installing a new water and sewer system and providing help in repairing houses.
5 Responses
Can someone please share this hand drawn map?
White Street was named for the third president of Wake Forest College, John Brown White. White was the nephew of Sarah Merriam Wait wife of first WFC president Samuel Wait. Taylor street may have been named for the fire chief or more likely for 6th president Charles E. Taylor. Just as a side note, North Main was known for many years as Faculty Ave. but in the 1890s the new home of W.C. Powell (circa 1895) and the home of President Taylor had addresses on Philadelphia Ave. The name obviously was short lived.
Who were all these people for whom the streets were named? Wait(e), DuBois, Grove and tree names are obvious enough, but what about “White”, or “Taylor” or “Caddell”? Was something wrong with Lewis that (s)he lost out to Taylor?
J.L. Taylor was the second fire chief and I think he was also the police chief. There was a professor named White, I think. As for the other names, both the ones superseded and the current ones, I am not sure where some of them like Caddell came from.
With the current growth rate, it would not surprise me that like the Mill Village, Wake Forest proper may be annexed by the city of Raleigh.