Home > Context > History > 1861 - 1880 > Development

Physical Development (1.4.7)

Residential construction in Elizabeth City between 1865 and 1881 was limited primarily to lots within the old antebellum boundary lines. Development was particularly intense in the old Race Tract area in the Shepard-Road Street area where both Olive Branch Baptist Church and Cardozo's school were situated. This area, which was gradually becoming the heart of the city's black community, had the advantage of being located along the two major roads leading south of the city-now South Road Street and Southern Avenue. Other residential construction, while limited in number, was primarily infill among older neighborhoods and along the main roads and streets leading into the town: West Main Street, North Road Streets, and Rum Quarter Road, now Ehringhaus Street.

Commercial development occurred almost exclusively in the two business districts at Main and Road streets and at Main and Water streets. Among the few surviving commercial structures erected between 1865 and 1880 are The North Carolinian Building (ca. 1871) at 106 East Main Street and the Wood Building (ca. 1892) at 111 South Road Street buildings, both in the old mercantile center at Main and Road streets. The two business districts remained distinct from each other until the turn of the century. The period's industrial buildings, none of which survives, continued to be clustered along the waterfront on either the Pasquotank River or Poindexter, Tiber, or Charles creeks. With the construction of two mills by the Kramers along or just north of Poindexter Creek, that area was becoming an industrial center for the city, a location that would increase in importance for the next sixty years.