alley

Taylor and Gilliam Alleys.

I’ve long been curious about the trio of little houses behind the Mary Jane Taylor Sutzer house in the 500 block of East Nash Street. In an interview a few months ago, Samuel C. Lathan mentioned them:

Lathan: … And Rev. [Russell B.] Taylor had an orchard.

Henderson: Oh, okay.

Lathan: Back there where those houses at down Nash Street.

Henderson: Okay. Back behind?

Lathan: Yeah, it was an orchard back there. …

Not long after, I noticed a little notation in a margin of the 1940 census of Wilson. Listed adjacent to the Taylor household were the three households of  … Taylor’s Alley.

Here they are yesterday morning:

Per description in the nomination form for Wilson Central Business-Tobacco Warehouse Historic District, Sutzer purchased the house on the left from Alfred Robinson prior to building her own house in 1915. The two dwellings on the right are described as “small, four-bay by one-bay, two-room bungaloid houses.”

A little further west on the 500 block of East Nash, the census records another alley, Gilliam’s, with a duplex.

The 1930 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson reveals Gilliam’s Alley as the tiny space running from Nash Street between Dr. Matthew S. Gilliam‘s medical office and the Orange Hotel. (Of the buildings shown below, only the Orange still stands.)

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, October 2025.

The ghosts of downtown alleys.

The edges of Wilson’s downtown warehouse and industrial district were once shot through with tiny alleys lined with duplexes built to house workers and their families. Most that remain have been paved and renamed as “Lane.” In what was once the mill village of Wilson Cotton Mills, however, a couple of dirt tracks remain as Cedar Street and Holly Street. These houses, which have been converted to single-family, were occupied by white families only, but offer a glimpse of what would have been a familiar streetscape to African-Americans living in similar alleys nearby.

Cedar Street, formerly Factory Alley.

Holly Street, formerly Jones Street Alley.

Detail from 1922 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson. South Factory Street is now Layton Avenue. Lodge Street Alley (Warehouse Alley) is now Wayne Street. At (A), the house visible above on Cedar Street/Factory Alley. At (B), the house on Holly Street/Jones Street Alley.

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, March 2025.

Lost neighborhoods, no. 3.

As illustrated in earlier “Lost Neighborhoods” posts, downtown Wilson was once shot through with narrow alleys packed with the tiny double-shotgun dwellings of African-American tobacco workers. In addition to Banks Alley and Oil Mill Alley and Parker’s Alley (also known as Vick’s Alley) and Young’s Alley, there were:

  • Sunshine Alley

Sunshine Alley lay in the shadow of Liggett & Meyers’ tobacco warehouse and within a block of Smith’s, Planter’s Warehouse, Banner, Monk-Adams, Farmers and Watson Warehouses. As shown in the 1922 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson, the western end of the alley was a slot off Goldsboro Street in the block otherwise bounded by Hines, South Mercer and East Jones Streets.

Screen Shot 2018-10-07 at 7.01.41 PM.png

The eastern end formed a dogleg dividing the block bounded by Goldsboro, Hines, Spring and Jones Streets.

Screen Shot 2018-10-07 at 7.01.08 PM.png

Sunshine Alley is long gone, but its path is easily followed in the driveway of the Family Dollar store at Hines and Goldsboro, the driveway of Barrett’s Printing House (the white-roofed structure below standing within the former footprint of Smith & Leggett) and the cut-through that continues past Barrett’s to Douglas Street (formerly Spring).

Screen Shot 2018-10-07 at 7.21.12 PM.png

  • Walnut Alley

Only a block long, Walnut Alley ran parallel to South Spring (Douglas) and South Lodge Streets between East Walnut and East Banks Streets. The 1922 Sanborn fire insurance map depicts a small “colored church” on Spring.

Screen Shot 2018-10-07 at 9.33.04 PM.png

That church is now Saint Rose Church of Christ, and the alley is Walnut Lane.

Screen Shot 2018-10-07 at 9.38.12 PM.png

Current maps courtesy of Google Maps.