Many downtown/Westside residents including some of our neighbors often ask “where is the hill?” in Hobbs Hill. We’ve previously shared that Hobbs Street and the neighborhood were named after the Hobbs family that owned the land for a generation. But that “hill” is harder to see/perceive, largely due to all of the development that has occurred locally in the past 50 years!
There is approx. 20′ in elevation drop from the entrance to Hobbs Hill at Armour Street to Hobbs Street, and then another 30′ from Hobbs St. to the Julia Circle cul-de-sac, or a total change from top to bottom of neighborhood of approx. 50′ – and that is one of the most significant neighborhood elevation changes in all of historic downtown/Westside Davidson! If you look carefully from Armour Street, the views do indicate its peak elevation in area.
But the significance of the “Hobbs Hill” is most easily discerned by viewing a County topographic map – peaking at 840-842′ ASL, the area shaded in “yellow” is the highest elevation point in the entire Town of Davidson, west of Main Street – with only a handful of other points in downtown Davidson reaching near that height (and one peak on Davidson College property surpassing that at a maximum 846′ ASL). So back in the historic days of Davidson, long before “Hobbs Hill” was built/named, natives and residents trekking across the area’s rural forested and farm land on foot, horseback/carriage would have much more easily recognized the “hill.”