History of Winston-Salem:
Ludlow's Plan
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The neighborhood and others nearby were as a group called simply Southside for many years, apparently from its earliest development. City directories use "Southside or 'S'Side" to identify the location of streets in Washington Park, Sunnyside, and elsewhere in the city's southern sector. The Sanborn Map Company's index maps of 1895 and 1900 provide no name for the neighborhood, but show the area with "Winston-Salem Land & Inv. Co." written across it. In 1911 the Winston-Salem Journal reported that it had arranged for "better suburban carrier delivery" and had appointed "Master Joe Inmon of Arcadia [sic] Avenue, Southside," as district agent for the Journal on the Southside. Real estate auctions in 1911 also advertised the area as Southside. Interviews indicate that "Washington Park" has long been the name of the streets in the district's core; that name became more prevalent about 20 years ago when younger residents began to move into the neighborhood. Some older people in the neighborhood still call it Southside, though others knew it as "Washington Park" when they were children.
As indicated above, the ravine around which Ludlow planned the aptly named Park Boulevard was identified as Sunny Side Park. Presumably, the irregular V-shaped park boundary reflected the land owned by WSL&I rather than a deliberate park design. When the plat was recorded, this 17-acre parcel was dedicated as a park and remains today under city control. The plat shows numbered blocks and lots; all blocks had one or more alleys providing access to the backs of properties. Many alleys remain today; several still connect streets.
Just as in the West End neighborhood, the development of Washington Park followed Ludlow's plat with remarkable loyalty. The plat is almost identical to the layout of the streets today, with minor exceptions. In the plat the only link with the city to the north was Main Street. Broad Street (named Boswoth, also Bosworth, on the plat and on Sanborn maps and early city directories; referred to as Broad in this discussion) ended above Bond Street (named Middallhaff on the plat). Today Broad Street continues to the north and Bond Street is a dead end; on Ludlow's plat Bond Street made a ninety degree turn to meet Park Boulevard at its northern apex. Eastern extensions of Bond and Shawnee are drawn on the plat in dotted lines; they apparently were outside the irregular boundary of WSL&I's property. The extensions were never built.
The area south of Banner roughly between Main and Broad was not owned by WSL&I; therefore it is not drawn on the plat. Broad and Acadia are only dotted lines in this area, and Doune and Rawson streets are not shown at all south of Banner, although they are on contemporary Sanborn maps and contain some of the earlier buildings in the district. The southernmost street on the plat is Acadia Avenue; lots are drawn on the north side only with the exception of the area from Main to Sunnyside. Nevertheless, both sides of Acadia Avenue developed concurrently. WSL&I's holdings also included a block-wide stretch of land which plunged to the south. Here, Ludlow drew an extension of Hollyrood Street leading to a curvilinear circular road named Brookside Drive, perhaps around a body of water. This portion of the plat is not subdivided into lots, nor are the blocks numbered.
A comparison of Ludlow's plat with the map on the title page to the 1895 Sanborn Maps shows few differences, one being the continuation of Broad beyond Banner to Acadia, and the continuation of Doune (today's Rawson) three blocks south of Acadia. Little had changed in the title pages of 1900, 1907 and 1912. By 1912 Wachovia Creek had been renamed Salem Creek. By 1917 the neighborhood was sufficiently developed to warrant inclusion of parts of eighteen blocks in detailed enlargements showing the residential development which had taken place in the area. This area was bounded roughly by Main, Vintage, Hollyrood and the block south of Acadia, and does not reflect the 'gaps' in Ludlow's plat.
The areas described above correspond generally to the neighborhood known today as Washington Park. Also on Ludlow's plat, extending southeast from Sunnyside Avenue, is a separate neighborhood following a strict rectangular grid pattern with "Sunny Side Avenue" cutting a diagonal swath through the grid. The plat shows the streetcar line coming down Main, turning west on Cascade as far as the park, and east one block on Cascade to Sunny Side Avenue and then to Sprague Street. On Sunny Side Avenue and in parts of the Sunnyside neighborhood lots were small, enabling purchasers to determine the lot sizes they would establish. This area developed concurrently with the Washington Park neighborhood, but from its inception on paper, through its development and continuing until the present time, it has been a distinct neighborhood known as Sunnyside. Although the plat showed the park's name as Sunnyside, that name became associated with the southeastern neighborhood, not with the neighborhood known today as Washington Park.
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Information from the National Register of Historic Places:
Architects | Development Companies | Residents | History of Winston-Salem | Ludlow's Plan | The Park | Streetcars
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