Though not in the Historic District, this tight cluster of shotgun houses in the 1100 block of South Railroad Street — called “endway” locally — comprises a sight once common across East Wilson. Built cheaply from about 1900 to World War II as rental housing for low-wage workers, relatively few of the District’s endway houses have survived into the twenty-first century.

These houses, shown here from the rear, were built in the 1920s and feature a small front porch sheltered by a shed roof. The exteriors are little modified since the addition of indoor plumbing (likely in the 1950s), and several retain their original galvanized metal standing-seam roofs. Public documents for 1101 Railroad Street show that the houses measure 504 square feet (14 feet wide by 36 feet deep.)

The block of Railroad below Elvie Street was originally numbered 801-819, as shown in this excerpt from Hill’s 1928 Wilson city directory:

By the early 1960s, it had been renumbered to the 1100 block, as shown in the 1963 directory:

Google Maps Streetview shows the 1100 block from the corner of Railroad and Lincoln Streets.

Top photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2019.