Durham County

History

Brief History

Durham was formed in 1881 from Orange and Wake. It was named for the city of Durham which was named in honor of Dr. Bartlett Snipes Durham who donated the land on which the railroad station was located. The building of the railroad station was the beginning of the town of Durham. It is in the central section of the State and bounded by Wake, Chatham. Orange, Person, and Granville counties. The present land area is 290.11 square miles and the population in 1990 was 181,854. Durham, incorporated in 1866 as the Town of Durham in Orange County, is the county seat.

Taken from:  Corbitt, David L. The Formation of the North Carolina Counties, 1663-1943.  Second printing.  Raleigh: State Department of Archives and History, 1969.  Powell, William S.  The North Carolina Gazetteer.  Chapel Hill:  The University of North Carolina Press, 1968.  Land areas and 2000 populations are from the US Bureau of the Census.  Please see http://factfinder.census.gov or http://census.state.nc.us to find out more.