Page 56, 1930 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson, N.C.

This page from the 1930 Sanborn fire insurance shows the area around present-day Daniels Learning Center (formerly Elvie Street Elementary School.) Cemetery Street runs along the left side; the old public graveyard lay abandoned in the large blank space alongside it.

Contentnea Guano Company, which manufactured fertilizer, and Export Leaf Tobacco were major employers of African-American men in East Wilson. And real estate developers had already built two rows of shotgun (or “endway”) houses on South Railroad and Elvie Streets to accommodate laborers. The set facing Railroad Street is still intact.

South Pender Street as we know it did not exist, and the street marked Stantonsburg  is what we now call Black Creek Road.

This aerial image, adapted from Google Maps, shows the area today.