Search and filters
Search and filters · 1 active
14 dated events match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–14.Back to highlights
Entries
Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
-
Joseph Hyde Pratt comes to North Carolina and settles in Chapel Hill
Pratt came to North Carolina in 1897 as state mineralogist and made his home in Chapel Hill for the rest of his life. He also lectured in mineralogy at the university.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
-
Harriet Berry works for the state Geological and Economic Survey in Chapel Hill
Berry began work in Chapel Hill with the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey in 1901 and rose from stenographer to secretary and, in 1917, acting head. She left in 1921, the year her Good Roads lobbying produced the state highway commission law.
-
Joseph Hyde Pratt teaches economic geology at UNC
Pratt was professor of economic geology at the University of North Carolina from 1904 to 1925, while also serving as state geologist.
-
Geologist Joseph Hyde Pratt builds a Colonial Revival house on East Franklin Street
Joseph Hyde Pratt, UNC professor of economic geology and later state geologist, builds a two-story Colonial Revival house set well back on a large lot on East Franklin Street. Pratt also built several other houses on that part of the street.
-
Faculty members organize the Chapel Hill Country Club
About forty-five people, mostly university faculty, organized a country club and rented a house and several acres at the edge of Chapel Hill, laying out golf links and tennis courts. Joseph Hyde Pratt chaired its board of governors.
-
Students improve Franklin Street and Battle Park during Community Service Week
During Graham's first statewide Community Service Week, about a hundred students worked on Chapel Hill: one crew graded Franklin Street under Joseph Hyde Pratt with teams paid for by merchants and bankers, others cleared the grounds around Swain Hall, cleaned the Battle Park trails under the Rev. W. D. Moss and gathered trash from the alleys.
-
The first Good Roads Institute meets at Chapel Hill
State geologist and faculty member Joseph Hyde Pratt chaired the first Good Roads Institute held at Chapel Hill. The institute later became part of the university's extension program.
-
The Chapel Hill to Durham road is turned over to the federal engineer
The commissioners placed the road under the U.S. government engineer, as the central highway through Hillsborough already was, and set $40 a mile a year for upkeep. On May 1 they did the same for the road from Carrboro to the Alamance line by way of White Cross.
-
Chapel Hill welcomes home its World War soldiers alongside Confederate veterans
On Saturday, May 10, 1919, a parade of Confederate veterans, returned soldiers and sailors, former student soldiers and town groups filled Franklin and Columbia Streets. Over 2,000 people crowded Memorial Hall to hear Archibald Henderson, L. P. McLendon and Joseph Hyde Pratt, with William Cain presiding.
-
Townspeople and faculty form the Battle Park Association at Joseph Hyde Pratt's home
A meeting at Colonel Pratt's home launched a volunteer group to restore Kemp Battle's paths and bridges in Battle Park. By the end of 1931 it had cleared old walks, opened about three miles of trail and rebuilt the bridges.
-
Louis Graves starts a newspaper campaign to give Franklin Street a Williamsburg look
Feeling the business district looked shabby beside the new campus, Chapel Hill Weekly editor Louis Graves began praising Colonial Williamsburg's shops in editorials. Joseph Hyde Pratt, John M. Booker, W. D. Carmichael Jr., Collier Cobb and George Watts Hill backed the plan, and architect Archie Davis gave the planning commission watercolors showing owners how to remodel.
-
Chapel Hill appoints its first town planning commission
After more than a year of urging by the Chapel Hill Weekly, the town named a five-member planning commission to review the design of new and remodeled buildings. It set the Colonial Revival look of downtown for the next decade.
-
Geologist Joseph Hyde Pratt, first chairman of the Chapel Hill Planning Board, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
Joseph Hyde Pratt (1870-1942), professor of geology and the first chairman of the Chapel Hill Planning Board, was buried in the cemetery.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
-
Neurosurgeon Warner Wells buys the Pratt house on East Franklin Street
Ten years after Joseph Hyde Pratt's death, Dr. Warner Wells, a neurosurgeon on the UNC medical school faculty, buys the Pratt house on East Franklin Street, which became known as the Pratt-Wells House.
Suggest a correction to an entry →
A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →
Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.
