Durham Insider Leads Neighborhood Crawl

Durhamite’s affection for their home is pretty well-known. To be clear – there was a mass ceremony for people to “marry” the city last month. So, events like the upcoming Neighborhood Hike are a pretty obvious outcome of such affection.

The April 9th hike begins in the South Ellerbe Creek Nature Area at Ninth and Green Streets at 9 AM and continues through an old mill village. See an old liquor house, a parsonage ordered from a Sears catalogue and a quiet urban garden in Old West Durham before continuing up Oakland, past Oval Park, in the Watts-Hillandale neighborhood and past the old Watts Hospital.

Next is a hidden alley and the site where a famous songwriter was born followed by Walltown and some insight into Duke's original plans to build here. The hike will go past Richard Nixon's house in Trinity Heights and continue past the homes of Duke's famous faculty and coaches on Buchanan (including Cap Card, the father of Duke Basketball - and Wallace Wade, whose bowl games paid for Cameron Indoor Stadium).

Finally, the hike continues down Watts Street, past Trinity Park park, to the site where Kevin Costner was filmed in his boxers then head across East Campus to Ninth Street, past Erwin Cotton Mills and back to where the starting location.

Local history lover John Schelp will narrate along the way. No need to register. Parking is available on streets near Ninth and Green. Get more history here and see some images from last year’s hike here. The hike is co-sponsored by Sierra Club, GoTriangle, Clean Energy Durham and the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association and occurs rain or shine.