How Soon We Forget

In a recent email, Mike Linden, AlphaGraphics of New Bern, inquired if we had any old photos of the Dunn Building. I met Mike at the recent AlphaGraphics ribbon cutting in the their new building on Trent Road. He was curious to know if we had any old photos of the Owen G. Dunn Building located at the corner of Craven and Pollock. Owen G. Dunn is their parent company and he is interested in hanging photographs of the old office building in their new conference room. Since we have numerous albums with slides and photos taken in the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, I was able to find four old photos of the building and forward them to him.

According to Peter Sandbeck, author of The Historic Architecture of New Bern and Craven County, the printing firm founded by Owen G. Dunn in 1902 became the largest of its type in Eastern North Carolina by the time of Dunn’s death in 1940. Dunn was also the editor of the New Bern Sun, one of the city’s two daily newspapers of the period, which later merged with the New Bern Journal to become the City’s present newspaper, the Sun Journal.



Dunn Office Supplies - 1984


 This  significant four story building was built in 1924 adjacent to Owen G. Dunn’s printing plant. In the late 1980’s, the Dunn family sold the building to a local partnership of five developers who rehabbed the building using a portion of the $2million low interest loan pool created in the early 1980’s by Swiss Bear, local banks and City to spur rehabilitation projects in the downtown. The rehabilitated building was leased to the City for use as office space which they later purchased.  When the building sold, the Corner Grill, a popular restaurant and hangout owned by Ruby and Jack Russell, relocated to corner of Middle and Broad…today known as the Chelsea.

The Corner Grill - Now the Chelsea

What stood out most of all when I looked at the old pictures, is the aerial clutter of the utility lines at that intersection before they were placed underground in the late 1990’s.   

Susan Moffat Thomas

Executive Director



Dunn Bldg - 1990



Dunn Bldg Today
 Corner of Craven & Pollock Streets.

How soon we forget.