Hillsboro St., Raleigh, N.C.
For Flashback Friday this week we feature a vintage postcard which captures a glimpse of Hillsboro St. which has long since been lost to memory. I love the image of the streetcar rumbling past the elegant mansions on its route up the dusty street.
Hello Lucy,
Sue and I have had a big time at the Raleigh fair. [The rest of the message is illegible.]
– Nellie [?]
Apparently this treasured card was pasted into a scrapbook at some point, and as a result the message has been obscured.
The large neo-classical mansion seen on the right was the home of Richard B. Raney, proprietor of Raleigh’s famed Yarborough House, and benefactor of Raleigh’s first public library in 1899 — the Olivia Raney Library. Sadly, the mansion was destroyed by the state in the 1950s. The library itself was torn down in 1966.
All the buildings seen in this postcard view are long gone. But there is a single relic seen here that exists to this day — any GNRal readers care to take a stab?
Our postcard this week was published by F.M. Kirby.
Fred Morgan Kirby 1887-1997
Wilkes-Barre, PAA publisher and large retailer of postcard views of the American South and mid-Atlantic region. These cards were sold from their Five & Dimes stores which numbered 96 in 1912.
“Flashback Friday” is a weekly feature of Goodnight, Raleigh! in which we showcase vintage postcards depicting our historic capital city. We hope you enjoy this week-end treat!
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01/13/2012
I’ll have a go, but I believe that I see two:
1. the border marker of the monument for the Confederate Dead in the foreground.
2. The spire of the Edenton St. Methodist Church.
01/13/2012
I’ll take Brian’s answer and include the spire of Sacred Heart Church…
01/13/2012
Meruncc:
I thought that too, but the Sacred Heart Cathedral wasn’t built until 1924. Perhaps there was another church on that site?
01/13/2012
The picture does seem to be taken from the Captial Grounds. The Churches could be Edenton Street Methodist (right foreground) and Hiller Baptist, (left aft)
01/13/2012
And I assume the Edenton Street spire was destroyed in the 1950s fire. That leaves only the Confederate Memorial border.
01/15/2012
Brian’s answer, plus the streetcar tracks are still under the street.
01/18/2012
So Raleigh Boy, what’s the answer?
01/18/2012
Yep, the stone border around the Confederate Monument is the only structure seen in this postcard view that survives to this day.
The church spire seen on the left belonged to the ‘Hillsboro Street Christian Church.’ The congregation replaced the original frame church with an impressive stone building in the 1920s. It was demolished in the late 1970s, and a parking lot occupies the site today.
The second spire is that of Edenton Street Methodist Church. As NCSU pointed out, that building burned to the ground following a lightning strike in 1956. The congregation rebuilt in a similar neo-Gothic style on the same site.
As noted, all the mansions in this block were demolished in the 1950s and ’60s.
And Brandon is correct — the streetcar tracks still exist under the asphalt. I saw them (and took photos) last summer when the city was repaving Edenton St.
02/14/2012
Was “Hillsboro Street Christian Church” the first name of what is today Hillyer Memorial? That church’s website notes ( http://www.hillyerchurch.org/AboutUsnew.asp ) that their original building was built in 1915 at the corner of Hillsboro and Glenwood, which would be about where that steeple is in the postcard…
02/14/2012
Atticus — Hillsboro Street Christian Church and Hillyer Memorial were two separate congregations. Hillsboro Street Christian Church was established sometime in the 1890s, I think. They built a handsome ‘carpenter gothic’ structure at the corner of Hillsboro and Dawson before 1895. The spire of that building is what is seen in the postcard view. Apparently the congregation disbanded or reorganized and the United Church built a beautiful stone Romanesque styled sanctuary on the site in the 1920s. For decades thereafter the United Church was a center of liberalism in Raleigh. Prominent figures such as Rev. Martin Luther King, Eugene McCarthy and Eleanor Roosevelt spoke there. (Raleigh Architectural Inventory, 1978) Sadly, this historic Raleigh landmark was demolished in 1977.