These days, the Wilmington Police Department's headquarters are on Bess Street in the Port City's Northside neighborhood, in a building that opened in 2006.
For more than 40 years before that, however, Wilmington police operated out of a building at 115 Red Cross St. that had some history of its own, as a large office building for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.
The office building was initially connected to the original Union Station railroad hub on Front and Red Cross streets that was built in 1913, though the office building dated to the 1940s.
By 1959, however, with the Atlantic Coast Line looking to leave town, the office building was already being considered as a new home for the police department.
the Wilmington area has lost since 2004
According to past StarNews reporting, in 1959 Wilmington City Manager James R. Benson, Police Chief J.J. Padrick and city engineer Robert Coleman were already studying the feasibility of using what was known as "building D" as police headquarters.
At the time, the police department was located in the basement of City Hall/Thalian Hall, where it would remain until 1962, when the Atlantic Coast Line essentially gifted much of its former property to the city.
Wilmington police would move into the former office building on Red Cross in 1962. The original Union Station next door was torn down in 1970.
According to a 2009 StarNews story, retired Wilmington police officer Obbie Blanton Jr., who died in 2020, said he was one of several officers who helped fix up the building on Red Cross Street for use as a police station, adding that it was "a big step up" from the City Hall basement.
By the 1990s, however, and even before that, the building was beginning to show its age. Problems included leaky windows and asbestos, and even when the building was still occupied in the mid-2000s the third floor had been condemned and cordoned off.
When the inevitable happened and the building was torn down in 2009 — ironically, to make way for a new Union Station to serve Cape Fear Community College — "several Wilmington police officers took pictures and collected a few bricks," the StarNews wrote. At the time, the building was just one of four that remained from the Atlantic Coast Line days.
The Red Cross Street location of the Wilmington Police Department would be immortalized in David Lynch's 1986 film "Blue Velvet," which featured numerous scenes shot both in and outside of the building.
John Staton is the cultural issues reporter for the StarNews. You can reach him at jstaton@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Two historic buildings once housed Wilmington Police Department
