A history of Graham,
then and now
Postcards, papers and photographs of Graham from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Graham was laid out in 1849 as the county seat of the newly formed Alamance County, and was incorporated as a town in 1851; it became a city in 1961. It was named for William Alexander Graham, U.S. senator from North Carolina (1840–1843) and governor of North Carolina (1845–1849).
The lynching of Wyatt Outlaw, the first African-American Town Commissioner and Constable of Graham, on February 26, 1870, by the Ku Klux Klan, along with the assassination of State Senator John W. Stephens at the Caswell County Courthouse, provoked Governor William Woods Holden to declare martial law in Alamance and Caswell Counties, resulting in the Kirk-Holden War of 1870.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Graham’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
3 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewOneida Cotton Mill, 1917: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Graham, decade by decade
![Burlington, Graham and Haw River, N.C. City Directory [1929-1930]](https://images.towntapestry.org/story/12368/40a9e73e686ac90058d7-s.jpg)
CommonsJustice of the Peace in1940
LOCJustice of the Peace1940
LOCOld garage used for a dwelling by a Negro family. Outskirts…1940
LOCSome of the people living in an old garage converted into a…1940
LOCSome of the people living in an old garage converted into a…1940
LOCUntitled photo, possibly related to: Some of the people liv…19401990s
6 historic places in Graham
Graham has 6 listings on the National Register, and they protect 195 historic buildings, because North Main Street Historic District alone counts 101.
Where they are
When they were listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Oneida Cotton Mill (1917) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (3), the Library of Congress (5) and the National Register (3). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.