2026 Historic Bike Ride

5 Locations | Curated by RHDC

May is Preservation Month and Bike Month, and this year we’re celebrating America’s 250th birthday, too! Hop on your bike for a ride into history. The Raleigh Historic Development Commission (RHDC), in partnership with the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) and Raleigh Sister Cities, is hosting the 3rd annual Raleigh Historic Bike Ride. This year, the 5-mile route will feature stops at 5 Raleigh Historic Landmarks that span 250 years of the city’s building history! RHDC volunteers at each site will share a brief history of the property and talk about what else was going on in Raleigh during that time.

The gambrel-roofed home of Colonel Joel Lane has been restored to its 1790-1795 appearance by the Wake County Committee of the Colonial Dames. Colonel Lane became known as the "Father of Raleigh" after he sold a thousand acres of land to the state in 1792 to establish a permanent state…
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Built to replace the original capitol, which burned in 1831, this National Historic Landmark is one of America's most important neoclassical structures. Three outstanding nineteenth century architects, Alexander Jackson, Ithiel Town, and David Paton designed this copper-roofed, roughly…
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The three-story Heilig-Levine Furniture store remains one of the few intact nineteenth century commercial buildings surviving downtown. Built as a hotel, it displays the heavily bracketed cornice and tall arched windows of the Italianate style. Two adjacent commercial structures have been…
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Thirty-six hand-carved, hand-painted horses--all jumpers--carry revelers around and around on the Chavis Park Carousel, a gem in the WPA-era park built for African Americans in segregated Raleigh. Before Chavis Park, African Americans had only limited access to Raleigh's Pullen Park; the story…
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When Wilson-based BB&T moved to Raleigh, it needed an architectural statement to underscore its ambition. Emery Roth & Sons, New York architects famous for the Pan Am Building in New York City, delivered a Manhattan-caliber skyscraper perfectly scaled to Raleigh's skyline. The…
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Thank you to RHDC's official partners, the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission (BPAC) and Raleigh Sister Cities, for their help in organizing the 2026 Raleigh Historic Bike Ride event.

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