Duke University - Durham, North Carolina

Duke University - west corner of Campus Drive, the main drive entrance to East Campus

Ahh...Duke University. THAT school. All I have to say is GTHD! GO HEELS!

Alright, enough of rivalry. On to the point of this post. BTW, long one ahead: there's a lot towards this one.

Source: Duke University Wikipedia Page

Duke University is in Durham, North Carolina. It's home to the Blue Devils, Eruditio et Religio, a championship Division 1 men's basketball team (which I hate to admit sometimes), and a damn good education. It's private, so unlike the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (go Heels, y'all), it has more out-of-state students than UNC. Which isn't a good or bad thing; it's just what it is. Beautiful campus though!

Da Blue Devils...ew (Source)

While the sign mentions Trinity College, its very first incarnation was a subscription school founded by a group of Methodist and Quaker families in 1838 (sidenote - subscription schools were private, since there was rarely any state money to provide towards education at the time). Under the leadership of Brantley York (hired to be the principal), it became the Union Institute over in Randolph County (about 20-30 miles southwest). Within twenty years, the school sought state help, and was rechartered the Normal College 1851 (didn't grant degrees till 1853). The school's trustees engaged in a relationship with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South: the Church would help fund the school if it provided free training for Methodist preachers. This would be formalized when Normal College became Trinity College in 1859. It wouldn't be the Duke University we know until 1924, thanks to The Duke Endowment established by James B. Duke. Trinity College had been in Durham by this point; it had moved from its original location in Randolph County in 1892, also thanks to the Duke family (and the Carr family). The Endowment helped provide the funding to build the beautiful West Campus with its iconic Chapel, and redo the original campus (now known as East Campus) in its current Georgian style.

Now there's a little backstory to this funding source, and unfortunately I can't guarantee its truth. But I think it's a neat little story nonetheless.

The Dukes, as many North Carolinians already know, earned a lot of money growing tobacco in the piedmont region. Their farm was in the rural parts of Durham (then Orange County, it's now in the middle of north Durham the city), where they grew and processed tobacco. Washington Duke eventually had a lot of money and wanted to put it toward helping higher education and furthering those institutions. The story is that he admired the reputation of Princeton University, and its beautiful campus and Gothic-style architecture. He went to Princeton and said he wanted to donate his millions to Princeton (which any university would love to have), but on one condition: Princeton must change its name to Duke to honor him. Princeton, of course, said no; they've built up enough of a reputation with their name that it wouldn't have been worth it. But Trinity stepped up to this local family and promised to build a whole new campus with the beautiful Gothic architecture that Washington Duke liked so much about Princeton's campus. As a result, we have Duke's West Campus (which Tar Heel fans joke is a fake Princeton) and East Campus (the original campus of Trinity College).

I'm not sure of its veracity, but if you've visited Duke University, the story makes some sense.

Another story behind why Trinity College received the Duke family's donation was because a daughter of the Duke family attended Trinity at the time. Which honestly makes more sense. And the fact that I heard it from a friend who attended Duke for undergrad makes it more likely so. But the first story is still cool.

Now that I've touched on the beginnings of Duke University (which is a great school, but GTHD), I will devote an entire post to the UNC-Duke rivalry. That's a whole interesting story in and of itself that still lives today. Don't expect to find a roadmarker on it; however it's a strong piece of culture in the Triangle, NC, area, so I feel like it has to be noted.