eating house

Historic Black Business Series, no. 11: Columbus E. Artis’ eating house.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

By 1910, Wayne County native Columbus E. Artis operated a small grocery store in Stantonsburg. Less than two years later, he had set up an eatery in a narrow brick building on South Goldsboro Street. (Alexander D. Dawson, having closed his fish and oyster stall in the city market, ran a rival eatery across the street. The directory listed eight eating houses — all downtown, all African-American-owned.)

In the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Artis Columbus E eating house 214 Goldsboro h 304 Jones.

By 1915, Artis had gone into business as an undertaker and in time would establish a funeral home that rivaled Darden & Sons. He did not completely abandon the restaurant business, though, as, in 1917, Will Barnes reported on his draft registration card that he was a cook for C.E. Artis, and the 1922 city directory lists Artis as proprietor of The Delicatessen at 559 East Nash Street.

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2024.

Historic Black Business Series, no. 10: Agnes Taylor’s eating house.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory (1912).

The entire 400 block of South Douglas (formerly Spring) Street is empty, and it’s difficult to determine the exact location of Agnes Taylor‘s eating house. (Or her house-house, which was just down the block.) It was a short-lived business, and both the 1908 and 1913 Sanborn maps show a grocery at 410 South Spring. It’s difficult to say, but per location I’d guess Taylor’s eatery catered to Black customers.

I have not otherwise found Agnes Taylor in Wilson records.

Historic Black Business Series, no. 7: Alexander D. Dawson’s fish and oyster shop.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

(I missed last Sunday — I ran out of photographed signs — so you’ll get two this week. Or maybe I’ll just double up every week for Black History Month.)

In 1908, Alexander D. Dawson, a former teacher and local Republican Party stalwart, operated a fish and oyster stall in the city hall and market building in the 100 block of North Goldsboro Street. (Also the present-day site of City Hall.) Dawson was listed as a “dealer in fish” in the 1900 census, but it’s not clear when he been hawking his wares at the city market.

Wilson city hall, market, and fire department, circa 1900.

However, it appears he shut down the stall soon after. In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: restaurant cook Alexander Dawson, 50; wife Lucy, 49; and children Sophie, 25, school teacher, Mattie, 23, stenographer, Virginia, 19, school teacher, Lucile, 17, Alexander, 15, Clarence, 13, Augusta, 11, and Arlander, 1. By 1912, Dawson operated a small eating house two blocks away from the city market at 215 South Goldsboro Street, the heart of Wilson’s tobacco warehouse district.

Though A.D. Dawson lived until 1930, it appears that he closed his restaurant before 1916.

Postcard courtesy of North Carolina Digital Heritage Center’s digitalnc.org.

Trouble.

Wilson Daily Times, 8 October 1918.

There is no listing for Woodard’s cafe in the 1916 or 1920 Wilson city directories.

Pepsi-Cola was invented in New Bern, North Carolina, in 1893. Its bottles made handy weapons.

A “dead policeman” was a speed-control device stationed in the middle of a street.

——

Home cookin’.

Gizzards & Livers made the New York Times!

“Now living in Durham, N.C., [Kate] Medley, 42, has spent more than a decade collecting images for her book of photographs, ‘Thank You Please Come Again,’ which the digital magazine The Bitter Southerner published in December. The book began with a journalist’s curiosity, but ended up as a way for a daughter of the Deep South to make sense of the beautiful, brutal, complicated place she came from.”

To my dismay, the article didn’t identify the location of that iconic green building, so:

Anyway, even though Gizzards & Livers is not Black-owned (Palestinian-American, I’m told), I feature it here because:

(1) it sits at the corner of Hines and Lodge Streets, at the edge of a 125 year-old African-American neighborhood;

(2) it carries on the legacy of the little groceries and eating houses that fed working-class folk in Wilson’s tobacco warehouse district a hundred years ago; and

(3) that sign (which has since been freshened up) is classic Louis Thomas III! (Rest in peace.)

Historic Black Business Series: no. 1, Moses Brandon’s eating house.

The 500 block of East Nash Street is justly remembered as the 20th century epicenter of Wilson’s African-American-owned businesses. However, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black entrepreneurs and tradespeople also operated across the tracks. As Wilson’s downtown experiences a resurgence, let’s rediscover and celebrate these pioneering men and women.

Check in each Sunday for the latest in the Historic Black Business Series!

More than a hundred years before Larema Coffee House set up shop on the bottom level of Gig East Exchange, Moses Brandon ran an eating house in a livery business whose building occupied roughly the same footprint. Like other downtown eateries in the early 1900s, Brandon would have catered largely to people working in nearby tobacco warehouses and factories. Most likely, his clientele were white.

Detail from Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson, N.C., 1908.

Moses Brandon, son of Frances Terry of Virginia, married Amie Hilliard on 22 May 1895 in Wilson. A.M.E. Zion minister L.B. Williams performed the ceremony, and Charles H. Darden, Braswell R. Winstead and L.A. Moore served as witnesses.

In the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Virginia-born Moses Brandon, 50, day laborer; wife Emmie, 45, washerwoman; and son Marvin, 12. 

In the 1908 Wilson city directory, Moses Brandon’s listing shows his “eating house” at 127 South Goldsboro Street and his home at 125 Ashe Street.

In 1909, Branson was also operating an “ice cream joint” on the East Side, i.e. east of the railroad tracks. In May of that year, he was brought up on charges of selling ice cream made from the milk of a tubercular cow. 

News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 16 May 1909.

It’s not clear how long Brandon operated at 127 South Goldsboro. In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County, Moses Brandon, 55, is listed as the proprietor of boarding house, with wife Amy, 51, as laundress. 

In 1912, the city directory shows that Brandon had moved his eating house to 411 East Nash, across the street from the Atlantic Coast Line railroad station.

The Wilson Daily Times reported Moses Brandon’s death on 4 March 1914, noting that he “had conducted a restaurant in this city for a great many years and is one of Wilson’s best known colored citizens.”   

Black businesses, 1913, no. 6: the 200 block of South Goldsboro Street.

Cross-referencing the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory and the 1913 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson reveals the specific locations of Black-owned businesses just after the turn of the century. Here’s a closer look at the 200 block of South Goldsboro Street, which was dominated by wholesale groceries and small restaurants.

In 1913, before he founded a funeral home, Columbus E. Artis operated a small eatery in a narrow brick building on South Goldsboro Street. Alexander D. Dawson, having closed his fish and oyster stall in the city market, ran a rival eating house across the street. 

Black businesses, 1908, no. 4: 200 block of South Goldsboro Street.

Detail, Sanborn fire insurance map, Wilson, N.C., 1908.

Cross-referencing the 1908 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory and the 1908 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson reveals the specific locations of Black-owned businesses just after the turn of the century. Above, the intersection of the 100 block of East Barnes Street and the 200 block of South Goldsboro Street.

  • Sidney Wheeler
  • J. Thomas Teachey
  • William Hargrove — in the 1900 census of Wilson, Wilson County: blacksmith William Hargrove, 32; wife Leuvenia, 30, washing; daughter Bessie, 6, and Lillie, 3; widowed sister Mary Boddie, 25, cooking; and cousin Julious Heat, 20, farm hand.
  • Isaac J. Young‘s blacksmith shop operated in the present-day location of Worrell’s Seafood. In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 315 Spring Street, horse shoer Isaac J. Young, 46; wife Laura, 29; and sons Cornelius, 12, and Robert, 9; plus lodger Henry Moy, 5.

Aerial view courtesy of Google Maps.

Black businesses, 1913, no. 4: 400 block of East Nash Street.

Sanborn fire insurance map, Wilson, N.C., 1913.

Cross-referencing the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory and the 1913 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson reveals the specific locations of Black-owned businesses just after the turn of the century. Here’s a closer look at one side of the first block east of the railroad.

Though described as a restaurant in 1913, the 1912 city director listed Charles H. Knight‘s barbershop at 414 East Nash Street. In the 1910 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: barber Charles Knight, 35; wife Elsie, 37; and sons Charles, 8, and Frank, 6; plus boarders Ethel Coleman, 23, and Sarah Jackson, 28, both teachers.

Sarah Gaither operated a small eating house at 418 East Nash as early as 1908, per city directories. In the 1900 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: day laborer Rufus Gaither, 57; wife Sarah, 56; and children Julius, 22, Mandy, 18, Aaron, 17, and Clarence, 15, sharing a house with Ella Gaston, 30, and her sons Ralph, 10, and Albert, 2. Rufus and Sarah Parks Gaither married 2 February 1873 in Iredell County, N.C., and are listed in the 1880 census of Turnersburg, Iredell County, with their young children. Sarah Gaither died 1912-1915. Rufus Gaither died 23 July 1915 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 24 August 1853 and was a widower. Bertha Farmer was informant.

John Blount‘s barbershop occupied 422 East Nash. 

The three buildings that now occupy this block were built in the 1920s. However, Google Maps shows a modern barbershop operating in the footprint of Blount’s business.

Black businesses, 1913, no. 3: East Nash at South Lodge Street.

Cross-referencing the 1912 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory and the 1913 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson reveals the specific locations of Black-owned businesses just after the turn of the century.

This block of East Nash Street fronts the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad’s passenger station. In 1913, it contained four storefronts, all housing Black-owned businesses, and a large house. Just a few years later, all were demolished to make way for the Terminal Inn, the two-story, multi-bay building that for decades was anchored by Terminal Drug Store and Star Credit Department Store and still stands today.

Moses Brandon operated an eating house next to the Atlantic Coast Line tracks. His death is reported here.

Austin Neal‘s barber shop was next door at 409 East Nash. The business later moved to the 500 block of Nash Street.

The business at 407 was labeled “cobbler.” The city directory listed Bud Wiley, bootblack, as proprietor.

John G. Corbin‘s pool room rounded out the storefronts. In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: street laborer Brazell Winstead, 48; dressmaker Ada, 22; sister-in-law Martha Corben, 31, laborer; and brother-in-law John, 34, farmer. [Braswell Winstead was, in fact, a college-educated teacher turned barber who had been an assistant to postmaster Samuel Vick. It seems unlikely that Martha Corbin was a laborer or John a farmer.]

The house at 401 East Nash was occupied by white millhand J. Frank Johnson.