Westover Neighborhood (Raleigh: houses, college, camp)

[Corgi Dad]

Does anyone know the history of the Westover neighborhood? It's a subdivision in west Raleigh located adjacent to the State Fairgrounds. Most of the houses are small (~1,000 sf) and built from 1930 to 1940. That would have been during the depression and prior to WW2. It appears to be a mill village but I can't find any evidence of a nearby mill or factory. About the nearest development at that time would have been Meredith College, about 1.5 miles to the east.

[goldenage1]

Originally Posted by Corgi Dad

Does anyone know the history of the Westover neighborhood? It's a subdivision in west Raleigh located adjacent to the State Fairgrounds. Most of the houses are small (~1,000 sf) and built from 1930 to 1940.....

I do not think it is anything special. People just expected less from their housing during that period. We rented a 700 SF house in Silver Spring Maryland, built just after WWII, when government workers poured into the area. The RE agent told use the family had raised two children there. It was two bedrooms, one bath, a tiny eat-in kitchen and a LR. The people currently there took out the oil furnace in the basement, and made the basement a rec room.

[wizard-xyzzy]

"Westover, community in w central Wake County, formerly the site of Thompson, a railroad station. Settled 1917 and named for Westover, Md. "

From https://books.google.com/books?id=KF...EQ6AF6BQi-AhAD

The date makes me believe that the development of this area was influenced by the western edge of Camp Polk. See https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/c...%2C7619%2C3831

A 1907 map in https://www.alliedfamilies.com/uploa..._railroads.pdf shows the location of Thompson between Method and Asbury.

[paytonc]

It shows up on state highway maps starting in the late 1930s, after the state fairgrounds were established on part of what was Camp Polk. The fairgrounds' establishment may have provided sewer access.

"Thompson Station" is shown on said maps roughly where the indoor soccer thing is today.

New subdivisions were arising west of Raleigh at the time; Sunset Terrace, south of there along Western, appears to have been recorded in 1939. Houses built during the Depression were of modest scale.