Durham City, North Carolina

The city of Durham is the county seat of Durham County but also has its territory extending to Wake and Orange Counties. It is one of the vertices of the Research Triangle together with Raleigh and Chapel Hill and is home to higher learning institutions like Duke University and North Carolina Central University. The city is included in the “Top 20 Places to Educate Your Child” a survey conducted by Forbes in December 2007. Here are some of the key landmarks in Durham. The historic Carolina Theater is situated in downtown Durham and is being operated by a nonprofit organization. This Beaux-Arts style theatre was introduced in 1926 and is the last surviving among thirteen original theatres in the city. The North Carolina Museum of Life and Science provides visitors with hands-on exhibits that make them appreciate the particularities of natural science. Among its most prized and popular exhibits are Aerospace that introduces the early NASA space program; Butterfly House, a three-story glass house that serves as a conservatory of tropical butterflies; and Prehistoric Trail that features life-size plaster amphibians, reptiles, and dinosaurs including the gigantic Brontosaurus, T-Rex and Triceratops. The latter two exhibits are actually categorized under, BioQuest which also includes Explore the Wild (serves as a home for black bears and lemurs) and Catch the Wind, which demonstrates the influences of the wind in our environment.

Another important landmark in Durham is the 22-mile rails-to-rails American Tobacco Trail which begins in the City of Durham and ends at North Carolina Highway 54, crossing through the City of Durham to Durham County, Chatham County, and Wake County. The Catsburg Store in Old Oxford Highway and Hamlin Road is a two-story box and canopy store built in the 1920s. This store is no longer open for business but has been preserved and remained as an important landmark in the area, attracting photographers and artists and get awed with its interiors. The town which is also named Catsburg serves as a tribute to Sherrif Belvin, the owner of the store, who has been nicknamed as “Cat.” The store is actually popular for selling bootleggers or smuggled alcoholic beverages. Other landmarks that may rise up people’s interests are the following: a historic farmhouse, the Bennett Place and quarters for lave, the Horton Grove.

Another interesting fact on Durham is that the place has been frequented as a shooting location for film and television shows. Such works include Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd with their roles in Kiss the Girls (1997) and The Rookie (2002) and episodes of the television drama Dawson’s Creek. Durham also exhibits a number of arts festivals including the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival which one of the United States’ premier documentary film festivals. Durham is also home to a number of jazz festivals, symphony concerts, art exhibitions, making it a perfect place for exhibiting a diverse world of artistic media. Famous people who originated from Durham are songwriters Don Schiltz, John Loudermilk, artist Ernie Barnes, NBA power forward Rodney Rogers, Undersecretary Robert K. Steel, and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, Doug Marlette.