Durham

ABOUT DURHAM
Advanced Aerial Photography/DCVB
Durham Facts
About 7 million visitors come to Durham each year for all sorts of entertainment, dining, spectator sports,
medical care, and more. As the 17th smallest county in NC, with its fourth largest city, Durham packs a
whole lot—from big city fun to quiet country relaxation—into a compact area of only 299 square miles.
Location and Background
With a population of 279,641 people, Durham is located at the
pinnacle of a 3,000-square-mile North Carolina region known
as the Research Triangle. Durham is also home to the region’s
namesake, Research Triangle Park (RTP).
Durham began as a Native American village named
Adshusheer on the Great Indian Trading Path. It was re-settled
by the Scottish, Irish, and English in the
1700’s and named Durham in 1853. During
the antebellum period, Durham plantations
lay amid some of the largest holdings in the
South. Their African slave quarters became
the hearth of distinctively Southern cultural
traditions.
After the Civil War, Durham first attained
international recognition with “Bull Durham”
tobacco and a worldwide trust founded by
the Duke family.
At the turn of the Nineteenth century,
Durham’s African-American enterprises,
including “Black Wall Street,” captured the
world’s attention, and later still, Durham Civil
Rights leaders pioneered the national sit-in
movement.
Twenty-first century Durham is home
to national centers for medicine, health
care, weight management, humanities, publishing, sports, art,
research, technology, and entrepreneurial start-ups.
Character
Durham is a unique blend of ethnic groups, cultures, lifestyles,
and interests. In a study of 274 similar, mid-sized, urban
communities, Durham ranked first on the Creativity Index – a
measure of a community’s technology, talent, and tolerance –
key factors important in attracting a “creative class” of people
who are particularly innovative and contribute to a successful,
vital economy.
Due to the influence of RTP, universities, and medical centers,
homegrown influence is blended with a mix of people from
throughout the country and the world.
Education
Trinity College moved from Randolph County
to Durham in 1892. Durhamite Washington Duke
donated $85,000 to facilitate the move, and Julian
Carr, a local tobacco and textile executive, donated
the original plot of land. Following a $40 million
(over $500 million in today’s dollars) donation by
Washington Duke’s son, James Buchanan Duke,
Trinity College was renamed Duke University in 1924.
Today, Duke is home to nearly 13,000 students, a
world-class medical facility, and nationally ranked
law and business schools.
North Carolina Central University was founded
in 1910 by Dr. James E. Shepard as the National
Religious Training School and Chautauqua.
The school was purchased by the state in 1923,
becoming the nation’s first publicly supported liberal
arts college for African Americans. Now an affiliate
of the 16-campus state university system, NCCU has more than
8,000 students. Its 103+ acre campus includes 56 Georgian
Revival-style buildings, a sports complex, the NCCU Museum of
Art, and a law school ranked among the top for women.
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