The Raleigh Skyline (ca. 1960)
 
Raleigh’s skyline has changed a great deal since this photo was taken 50 years ago. Although four of the buildings seen in this view were demolished years ago, six of them are still standing today.
Raleigh, North Carolina
(Downtown)
Skyline from Rhamkatte Road.
The postcard view of downtown is from “Rhamkatte Road,” which was for decades the primary vantage point for photographing Raleigh’s skyline, much as South Saunders St. is today.
Photo courtesy Hughes Photography
I wonder if any of our readers know where the ‘Rhamkatte Road’ vantage point is in 2011? Extra points if you can identify the ten most prominent buildings seen in the 1960 skyline.Â
This photochrome postcard was published by the Raleigh News Agency, and was printed by Tichnor Bros. of Boston.
Tichnor Brothers, Inc.  (1912-1987)
160 N. Washington Street, Boston and Cambridge, MAA major publisher and printer of a wide variety of postcards types. Their view-cards were produced on a national level. They also produced a black & white series on the hurricane of 1938 in line block halftone.
Their photochomes went under the trade name Lusterchrome. They also produced an early Tichnor Gloss series in offset lithography that was so heavily retouched they floated somewhere between being artist drawn and being a photograph. The company was sold in 1987 to Paper Majic.
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07/22/2011
Lake Wheeler Road next to Dix Hill
07/22/2011
The only one I can say for sure is the Oddfellows building.
07/22/2011
…and the courthouse?
07/22/2011
I’ll give it a shot, from left to right:
The Carolina Hotel (gone)
The Professional Building
The Odd Fellows Building
The back of the Federal Post Office
The back of the Old County Courthouse (gone)
The Masonic Building (not sure if that’s the correct name – its the one with the Masonic Hall on the ground floor that had stories added to it)
The Insurance Building (think that’s the name – the one designed by the same architect that did the Empire State Building)
The Hotel Sir Walter
and of course
DAVIS AUTO SERVICE! :)
07/22/2011
Thus far — some hits — and some misses. I’ll reveal the building identities on Monday, so there’s still plenty of time for anybody to take a stab at it.
SJ — You are correct, sir!
07/22/2011
It looks like Gorman Street plowed right through Rhamkatte from Avent Ferry south beyond Tryon. I wonder how the name evolved from Ramcat to Rhamkatte, as this link suggests:
http://www.legeros.com/ralwake/photos/weblog/pivot/entry.php?id=2052
07/25/2011
Re: Raleigh Skyline (ca 1960) — Building IDs, for those who are interested (left to right):
Hotel Carolina is on the extreme left (demo’d 1980; Raleigh City Hall on site today)
Hotel Raleigh, the next building, with the turret, (demo’d 1978; N&O parking lot is on site today)
Odd Fellows Building (cor Salisbury + Hagrett)
Raleigh Building (cor Hargett + Fayetteville — it and the Odd Fellows are adjacent to each other, so in the photo it looks a single large structure.)
Capital Club Building (cor Salisbury + Martin)
Lawyers Building (aka the State Theater; Salisbury St; demo’d 2010; County Justice Center going up on site)
US Post Office building
Citizens National Bank (demo’d 1964; NCNB built on site; that building now occupied by First Citizens Bank on Fayetteville St)
Wake Co. Courthouse (demo’d in 1967; present courthouse on site)
Durham Life Insurance Building (aka the Superman Building; now an office annex to the courthouse)
Hotel Sir Walter (now a residence for senior citizens)
We have written about many of these buildings in several Goodnight Raleigh articles. You can also read about these and other downtown Raleigh buildings on this site — http://www.emporis.com/application/?nav=worldmap_ci_bu_ob_li&id=101907&bt=22&ht=2&sro=1&lng=3
Note to NCSU — I don’t know why the Professional Building doesn’t appear in the photo. It may be hidden behind the turret of the Hotel Raleigh in the angle of this shot. Don’t know if Davis Auto is still there or not, but the surrounding neighborhood seen here was part of the notorious Raleigh slum known as ‘Southside.’ It was demo’d in the early 1970s, and the Heritage Park residential units on South St occupy the site today.
07/26/2011
Excellent. Thanks!
07/30/2011
Most of the ‘southside’ houses were “revitalized” into the housing project northwest of Western-MLK/South Saunders. But a few of the them houses survived on Jamaica Drive south of Western/MLK until the new building was built there a few years ago.
There are still a few houses from that north of South Street, ending at the somewhat hardened east edge of Boylan Heights.
10/01/2013
What I know or have read…the Governor Tryon Road supposedly started from a plantation near the Garner Lowes and hence why the name Tryon Road starts in that vicinity. I posit that Ramsgate/Rhamkatte was simply a road from Raleigh to Tryon Road added at a later date. It is historically a freedsmans crossroads community so may very well have only come into being in the 1860’s like Method and Oberlin Roads.
Another aside is that the Old Avent Ferry road can be seen on modern maps easily as Ashe Ave, Bilyeu, Cennetennial and current Avent Ferry. There are some original cuts of the road out in the woods near Lake Johnson and between Centennial and Western Blvd.
08/25/2014
That top photo from the postcard is not taken from “Rhamkatte Road” as stated. It’s Lake Wheeler Rd. “Ram Cat” was a nickname give by locals but it was never named that. Ramsgate Dr is farther down Lake Wheeler closer to Tryon Rd. And I’ve lived in Fuller Heights there where the photographer stood to take that photo all my life & vividly remember that being my view of “Uptown” (as it was called back then).
08/25/2014
Sorry, Cindy, but you are wrong. Rhamkatte Road turned off to the right from South Saunders Street before you rose up Caraleigh Hill. It ran behind Dorothea Dix hospital. It was Rhamkatte Road long before Lake Wheeler was built. They probably changed the name when the lake became a popular boating lake.
There was – way back in the 19th century – a community called Rhamkatte. There was even a publication called (IIRC) the “Rhamkatte Roaster.”
Of course, youngsters would never know that fact. I was born at Rex Hospital in the early ’40s. I remember Rhamkatte Road and I remember when Lake Wheeler was built (sometime in the early to mid ’60s maybe).
08/26/2014
There’s an interesting map of Rhamkatte on the Legeros Fire Blog. The inscription says it was “Prepared from NC Highway Map for the Rhamkatte Roaster.” The map isn’t dated, but the blog says it appeared in the N&O in 1944:
http://legeros.com/ralwake/photos/weblog/pivot/entry.php?id=2052
The blog entry includes a modern map from that part of town for comparison.
08/29/2014
I believe I went to work in 1962 at Lake Wheeler as a high school student. As I recall the lake had only been open a short time and the road was know as Rhamkatte then and for years later. You were in the boondocks when driving from downtown Raleigh to the lake.
09/01/2014
From 1939 WPA Guide to Old North State (relevant to Rhamcat comments)
At 28.1 m. a tablet imbedded in a boulder commemorates the Ramsgate Road. This highway between Wake Crossroads, now Raleigh, and Orange County was built by Gov. William Tryon in 1771 before his expedition against the Regulators (see tour 25). The route, so named for the old Ramsgate Road in England over which pilgrims to Canterbury journeyed centuries ago, was nicknamed Ramcat or Rhamkatte in derision of Tryon.
09/01/2015
Nothing to do with the buildings in question, but somewhere in these postings someone mistakenly located the old Wake Theater as being across from the courthouse on Fayetteville Street; actually it was situated across Fayetteville Street from the front of the The Brigg’s Hardware building.
03/02/2016
You will find the community of Rhamkatte and Rhamkatte Rd on the 1887 Shaffer’s map of Wake Co at http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/ncmaps/id/968/rec/13 Ramcat Rd is shown on the 1871 Fendol Bevers map of Wake Co at http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/ncmaps/id/241/rec/10
11/29/2020
I grew up on Lake Wheeler rd in my great grandfather’s house. It was called Rhamkatte rd. I recall my father and grandmother referring to it as such.
11/19/2025
My Grandparents and children lived on Ramcatte road in 1930 census. Grandparents worked at Dorothea Dix Hospital. They later moved to 10 East Stree. My Mother spoke of going to school in Boland Heights.I was thrilled to find the picture of the old house as I can picture what the house looked like that they lived in. Thank you. Paula