Duke University East Campus Union Building to be renamed after father, son custodians

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Duke University is honoring the service of two long-time custodians and renaming its east campus union.

The building will be named the "George and George-Frank Wall Center for Student Life" after its first janitor George Wall.

Wall was newly freed from slavery when he was hired as a janitor at the university when it was still Trinity College.

His son George Frank was the oldest of nine children and also worked as a custodian at Duke for more than 50 years until he died in 1953.

The Durham neighborhood Walltown is named in honor of George Wall, who purchased one of the first plots of land next to Duke's east campus in 1899.

Wall's son left $100 dollars to Duke University in his will which was a gift that was added to the scholarship fund decades before there were black Duke faculty members, and before black students were first admitted to the university.