This is the east campus of Duke University. Despite the fact that West Campus appears as though it were constructed by monks in the year 1280, East is actually the older of the two campuses, although even it isn’t the institution’s original site.
The institution that is now Duke University was founded in 1838; about 100 miles away from its current location in Randolph County. Local farmers hired a schoolteacher named Brown to better educate their children; Brown’s schoolhouse would later be organized as Union Institute.
Union Institute eventually begat Trinity College, which was supported by the Methodist church in exchange for educating its clergy. The school grew rapidly, but the administration felt the school was limited by its extremely rural location. Plans were hatched to relocate the college to Raleigh.
It was at this point that the young and growing community of Durham stepped into the story. Durham itself had been more than a carriage stop and a trashy hotel only twenty years earlier, but it was experiencing rapid growth thanks to the tobacco enterprises of John Green, W.T. Blackwell, and one Washington Duke. Duke was a devout Methodist, who had been supporting Trinity for a number of years, and when local businessman Julian Carr offered his racetrack and fairgrounds as a campus, Duke gave the money to build the buildings.
Duke's East Campus was the main location of Trinity College until a new West Campus was completed and the school was renamed after the Duke family. Afterwards, it served as the women's college until the school went coed. Today, East Campus houses each year's incoming freshman in order to foster class unity.
