The George Wall House, also called Old Man Wall's House, is a historic

shotgun house A shotgun house is a narrow rectangular domestic residence, usually no more than about wide, with rooms arranged one behind the other and doors at each end of the house. It was the most popular style of house in the Southern United States from t ...

in the Walltown Neighborhood in

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

History

On July 21, 1899, George Wall purchased a lot from the West End Land Company in

. Wall, a former slave, was a service worker at the nearby Trinity College (later

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

). He purchased a second lot, next door, on April 2, 1906. The house was completed some time in 1906 and is built in the original

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small p ...

style with an el edition and tin roof. By 1923 the area in which Wall had settled became known as Walltown, in honor of him. The house is currently vacant and in disrepair, but is still owned by the Wall family.

References

{{Coord, 36, 0, 52.3, N, 78, 54, 52.6, W, type:landmark_region:US-NC, display=title 1906 establishments in North Carolina African-American history in Durham, North Carolina History of Durham, North Carolina Houses completed in 1906 Houses in Durham, North Carolina Shotgun architecture