Hidden Durham App Brings City's Untold Stories to Life Through Student-Community Collaboration

A first-of-its-kind mobile experience born from a partnership between Durham Public Schools students and Duke University students and staff is now available to the public. Hidden Durham invites residents and visitors to discover the people, places, and stories that make Durham unlike anywhere else — through augmented reality, multimedia storytelling, and artificial intelligence.

The app features more than 50 stops across the city, each curated and developed through the collaborative work of DPS and Duke contributors alongside local historians and community experts. The result is an immersive, accessible platform that turns everyday Durham landmarks into gateways for deeper exploration.

Highlights include an augmented reality encounter with Major the Bull, trivia quizzes with commemorative Pauli Murray quarters as prizes, a scavenger hunt through Lakewood Shopping Center, and an expert-led audio tour with historian John Schelp recounting the surprising coalition that defeated a major hospital bond issue. Users can also discover a centuries-old ivory surgical manikin — now reimagined in an only-in-Durham moment set to the Chicken Man.

At the heart of the app is a monument to civil rights icon Pauli Murray, rendered in a statue designed by Murray's own family.

"Durham contains multitudes," the project team notes — and Hidden Durham was built to surface them.

The app is free and available now. A short overview video is available online.  For questions, contact David Stein at dstein@duke.edu. The app is a project of the PepsiCo Education Project through the Duke Office of Community Affairs.

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