Chronology

Charles Gerrard leaves the university his Tennessee lands

Gerrard, a Revolutionary lieutenant living in Edgecombe County, bequeathed his 2,560-acre service tract on the Cumberland River below Nashville, asking that it stay university property forever, along with warrants for 11,364 more acres. The gift emboldened the trustees to begin the Main Building.

Subject: South Building

The cornerstone of the Main, later South, Building is laid

A special Grand Lodge of Masons met at the university to lay the cornerstone of the principal building. Its walls rose a story and a half and then stood roofless for years for want of money.

Subject: South Building

The university raises money for the Main Building by lottery

The legislature of 1801 let the trustees raise up to $4,000 by lotteries. Two drawings, the first of 1,500 five-dollar tickets and the second in 1802, cleared $5,080.81, though agents were slow to account for tickets.

People: William Polk · John Haywood

Subject: South Building

William Norwood gives $100 toward finishing South Building

William Norwood of Hillsborough contributed $100 toward finishing South Building at the university.

Subject: South Building

Students move into the finished South Building

Subscriptions Caldwell gathered on tours of the state in 1809 and 1811, about $8,220, let contractor John Close finish the Main Building begun in 1798. Students moved in during 1814.

People: Joseph Caldwell · John Haywood · William Gaston

Subject: South Building

Trustees vote to raise Old East a story and build Old West

At Caldwell's urging, and against the faculty's plea to spend on books and apparatus, the board voted to enlarge Old East, build Old West to match and start a new chapel, borrowing from banks against Tennessee land sales. Architect William Nichols ran the work, and the South Building's Prayer Hall became a chemistry laboratory.

People: Joseph Caldwell · Elisha Mitchell · William Nichols

Subject: South Building · Gerrard Hall · Old East · Old West

The trustees settle William Nichols's accounts for Old West and the campus repairs

The university settled with William Nichols, its supervisor and builder, for Old West, the new chapel, the bricks made on university land and repairs to South Building, the President's House and Steward's Hall. Battle gives the cost as about $26,587 and says the accounts showed a want of careful superintendence.

Subject: Old West · South Building · Steward’s Hall

Students illuminate the college to welcome Caldwell home from Europe

When President Caldwell came back from nearly a year in Europe buying books and apparatus, the students lit up the college buildings and escorted him to a stand by the well in front of South Building, where he spoke to them and the villagers. In December 1825 the trustees formally thanked him for his work.

People: Paul C. Cameron · George E. Badger

Subject: South Building · The Old Well

Enslaved plasterers, masons and laborers work on South Building's new roof

Thomas Waitt's bill for 1837 work on South Building, including its tin roof, lists wages for enslaved plasterers and masons Stewart, Chester, Peter, Calvin and Evans and laborers including Lewis, Tom, Redin, Abraham and Jordan.

Subject: South Building

Senior tutor becomes the university's librarian

Until 1838 the faculty chose a librarian every half year; after that the senior tutor held the office, and in 1838 Tutor William H. Owen, librarian since 1836, was voted a salary of $100 a year. Owen had counted about 1,900 books in the library in December 1836.

Subject: South Building · UNC Libraries

Dialectic and Philanthropic societies draw lots for the east and west buildings

The trustees had the society presidents, William M. Howerton and Matt W. Ransom, cast lots before Governor Graham, President Swain and Charles Manly; the Philanthropic won the east side and the Dialectic the west, and South Building rooms facing north went to the Phis and those facing south to the Dis. The arrangement lasted until 1868.

People: Matt W. Ransom · William A. Graham · David L. Swain

Subject: Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies · South Building · Old East · Old West

President James K. Polk returns to Chapel Hill for the university commencement

Polk came from Raleigh by carriage with Sarah Polk and a large party, lodged in an annex Nancy Hilliard built onto the Eagle Hotel for his stay, visited his old room in South Building and met Elisha Mitchell, and stayed through commencement on June 3.

People: Elisha Mitchell · Nancy Hilliard

Subject: South Building

University library moved from South Building to Smith Hall

The university's books were taken from the president's lecture room in South Building to the new Smith Hall, and Hubbard, Charles Phillips and the librarian were told to prepare a catalogue. At the start of the Civil War the books were stored in a room of the East Building.

People: Charles Phillips · F. M. (Fordyce Mitchell) Hubbard

Subject: UNC Libraries · South Building · Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre) · Old East

New belfry built on South Building

A belfry was raised on South Building to plans by the builder Thomas H. Coates, replacing the one burned in 1856. It was strengthened after the 1875 reopening and still carried the bell in Battle's day.

Subject: South Building

Wilson Caldwell returns to the reopened university and later heads its labor force

When the university reopened in 1875 Wilson Caldwell went back to work there. He became curator of South Building and head of the campus labor corps, and held the post until his death in 1898.

Part of The university closes and reopens · 46 events

People: Wilson Swain Caldwell

Subject: South Building

Cornelia Phillips Spencer learns on her fiftieth birthday that the university will reopen

A telegram from Raleigh on March 20, 1875, reported that the legislature had passed a bill letting the closed University of North Carolina reorganize with some state support. Spencer, whose letters to state leaders had pressed for the reopening, and a few friends entered South Building and tolled the college bell to celebrate.

Part of The university closes and reopens · 46 events

Subject: South Building

The student YMCA first takes part in commencement

The 1880 commencement opened with an address to the Young Men's Christian Association by the Rev. F. C. Woodward of Elizabeth City, the association's first part in commencement exercises. By 1884 it met regularly in its own hall in South Building.

Subject: University YMCA · South Building

The university pipes well water to its buildings

Until 1892 only the chemical laboratory had running water, from a small tank and a hand pump. In the summer of 1893 water from a large well was pumped by steam into iron tanks in the attic of the South Building for use across the campus, though the supply proved too small.

Subject: South Building

Joshua Gore's steam plant brings electricity to the campus and village

A steam engine near South Building drove a small dynamo and the pumps that filled the campus water tanks, and lines ran from it to university buildings and to shops, cafes and hotels in the village. Physics professor Joshua W. Gore planned the work; the library in Smith Hall got power late in 1896, and arc lights later went up along campus walks.

Subject: South Building

President Edwin Alderman gives South Building a stone doorway copied from Westover

During his presidency Edwin Alderman added a carved stone pedimented doorway to South Building, modeled on the one at Westover, the colonial James River mansion in Virginia. With the new well temple, it was an early step toward the Colonial Revival that later ruled campus building.

People: Edwin Anderson Alderman

Subject: South Building

The class of 1899 gives a bronze bust of Zebulon Vance and plants ivy from Lee's tomb

On Class Day the seniors, led by Julian S. Carr Jr., presented a bronze bust of Vance, and that afternoon planted on the South Building a sprig of ivy from Robert E. Lee's mausoleum.

People: Edwin Anderson Alderman

Subject: South Building

Nash renovates South Building and adds its portico

Nash carried out the renovation of South Building and added the portico in 1926 and 1927, part of his remodelling of older campus buildings that also took in Old East, Old West and Gerrard Hall.

Subject: South Building · Gerrard Hall · Old East · Old West

Robert B. House becomes the university's first executive secretary

The trustees created the post of executive secretary to carry part of the president's load, and House, class of 1916, came from the North Carolina Historical Commission to fill it. His first major task was a plan for better teacher training; he ran the office while Chase was abroad in 1927.

Subject: South Building

Coates and law dean Van Hecke withdraw their resignations after meeting with President Graham

That spring law dean Maurice T. Van Hecke had recommended that Coates stop teaching and work only for the Institute, and first Coates and then Van Hecke offered to resign. At a June 6 meeting in Graham's South Building office both stayed on: Coates got a fall leave and a second chance in the law school, and he agreed to stop presenting the law school or the university as the Institute's sponsor.

People: Frank Porter Graham

Subject: South Building · UNC School of Law

William Friday becomes acting president of the Consolidated University

Named acting president at 35 while the trustees searched for Gordon Gray's successor, Friday began his duties on March 1, 1956. The board approved him as president on October 26, 1956, and at his first news conference he named moving the administrative offices from South Building on the Chapel Hill campus to the old Institute of Government building on Franklin Street as a first goal.

People: Gordon Gray

Subject: South Building · Institute of Government

State troopers clear Manning Hall on Governor Scott's orders

About 75 state troopers ringed Manning Hall, the striking food workers' headquarters, on the afternoon of March 13 after Governor Bob Scott ordered it vacated. Students left before police arrived, and a crowd of up to 1,000 then rallied on the steps of South Building.

Part of UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 1996 · 13 events

People: J. Carlyle Sitterson

Subject: South Building

Students sit in at South Building and hand Chancellor Sitterson a petition of 800 names confessing to the disruption policy

Seventy-five to 100 students occupied the South Building lobby for over an hour to protest the trustees' disruption policy and its use against three students charged after the December cafeteria strike. Three were admitted to Chancellor Sitterson's office with a petition of 800 UNC students indicting themselves for violating the policy during the strike's first days; Sitterson said the matter lay with President Friday. Bello and the strike steering committee condemned the sit-in.

People: J. Carlyle Sitterson · William C. Friday

Subject: South Building

Jesse Jackson comes to Chapel Hill during the Black Cultural Center sit-in

Jesse Jackson came to Chapel Hill while students occupied South Building for a free-standing Black Cultural Center, met first with Chancellor Hardin and urged him to call a special trustees' meeting, which Hardin refused. Sixteen students and a Chapel Hill resident were arrested that day.

Subject: Sonja Haynes Stone Center (Black Cultural Center) · South Building

UNC raises housekeepers' pay by 90 cents an hour

Guskiewicz told the campus by email that housekeeping salaries would rise, with the amount set by position and experience and back pay to November 21, 2022. Housekeepers, who had asked for $20 an hour and an end to parking fees, called the raise a slap in the face and rallied outside South Building in February 2023.

Subject: South Building