William Chambers Coker

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 18 dated events in the chronology →

1. 1903 William C. Coker begins turning a boggy pasture into the campus arboretum UNC's first professor of botany began developing a five-acre boggy pasture on the campus into an outdoor classroom for the study of trees, shrubs and vines native to North Carolina. From the 1920s through the 1940s he added many East Asian trees and shrubs.Search the index · North Carolina Botanical Garden: Coker Arboretum
2. 1908 Botanist William C. Coker builds his house at The Rocks At The Rocks, his estate north of the village (now 609 North Street), botanist William Coker built a stuccoed two-story house raised on a high stone base, with wide eaves and a fieldstone wainscot. Little finds it the nearest thing in Chapel Hill to Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie houses; its architect is unknown. People: William Chambers CokerSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 46
3. By 1908 UNC sets up a separate botany department with Coker as its chair By 1908 William C. Coker, who had come to the university as an associate professor in 1902, was a full professor and chair of the newly established Botany Department, housed in Davie Hall.Search the index · North Carolina Botanical Garden: William Chambers Coker
4. 1917-1919 President Edward K. Graham engages planner John Nolen to study the campus Urged by a faculty grounds committee of W. C. Coker, George Howe and Collier Cobb, formed in 1913, and after the trustees endorsed a full campus plan in spring 1916, Graham brought in the national planner John Nolen. Between 1917 and 1919 Nolen studied the campus and recommended building out the land south of South Building, the direction the 1920s expansion took. People: Collier Cobb, William Chambers Coker, George HoweSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 50
5. 1920-1925 William C. Coker directs a university bureau for school grounds Coker set up and ran the UNC Extension Division's Bureau of Design and Improvement of School Grounds, which sent plans and a field assistant to schools around the state; 33 towns were helped in 1920-21. In 1921 the bureau began advising on home and factory grounds as well.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District, National Register nomination (OR0303), p. 17
6. June 1920 Louis R. Wilson and W. C. Coker are raised to Kenan professorships At the 1920 commencement meeting the trustees made librarian Louis Round Wilson and botanist William C. Coker Kenan professors, in the same action that recognized Horace Williams. People: William Chambers CokerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), pp. 201-202
7. December 14, 1922 William C. Coker's committee is put in charge of the care of the whole campus After Coker drew his 'Plan A' for siting dormitories on the campus's east side, the grounds and buildings committee in December 1922 gave him and a subcommittee charge of the care and improvement of the entire campus, with its own budget. The nomination calls him in effect the university's first resident planner.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District, National Register nomination (OR0303), p. 18
8. by March 1923 William C. Coker gives the Chapel Hill Country Club land for a clubhouse and golf course By early 1923 Coker had given the new Chapel Hill Country Club its grounds south of the campus. The clubhouse went up that spring and the golf course over the next two years. The land later passed to the university and is used for tennis courts and a greenway park; the Laurel Hill subdivision was laid out along the course. People: William Chambers CokerSearch the index · DigitalNC: Chapel Hill Weekly, March 1, 1923, p. 1
9. 1927 William C. Coker plats the Laurel Hill subdivision On his land southeast of the campus, Coker had T. Felix Hickerson lay out Laurel Hill Road along a ridge beside the golf course, with short cul-de-sacs and large lots. Coker approved every house plan and seems to have sent builders to Atwood and Nash; seven houses were built before the 1929 crash. People: William Chambers Coker, Thomas F. (Thomas Felix) HickersonSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 64
10. from 1927 William C. Coker's Rocky Ridge lot deeds restrict the race of residents In selling the lots of his Rocky Ridge Farm development, Coker wrote covenants into the deeds that set the number of buildings, the cost of houses and, in the early deeds, the race of the residents. These private restrictions governed the neighborhood before Chapel Hill had residential zoning. People: William Chambers CokerNC State Historic Preservation Office: Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District, National Register nomination (OR0303), p. 13
11. 1928 W. C. Coker buys Dr. Jones's Gothic cottage, which becomes the Chi Psi fraternity house In 1928 W. C. Coker bought the property at 321 West Cameron Avenue, and the 1850s Gothic cottage of Dr. Johnston Blakeley Jones became the Chi Psi fraternity's house. People: William Chambers CokerSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 29
12. December 1928 Chi Psi announces a Norman-style house for West Cameron Avenue Chi Psi announced plans for a $50,000 Norman-style stone house by the university architects Atwood and Nash on the old McCauley place on Cameron Avenue. The design broke with the campus's Colonial theme: steep slate roof, casement windows with stone trim, an arched entrance and a stone terrace. The old McCauley house, the chapter's home, burned on Christmas night 1929, and in November 1930 the chapter was still without a new house. People: William Chambers Coker, Arthur Cleveland NashSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 62
13. 1935 Botanist William C. Coker marries Louise Venable William Chambers Coker married Louise Venable, daughter of former UNC president Francis P. Venable, in 1935. After her death in 1983 part of the grounds of The Rocks, the Coker home on North Street, became a public garden in her memory.Search the index · North Carolina Botanical Garden: Preserves and Natural Areas (The Rocks)
14. September 8, 1939 Citizens buy land for a Negro Community Center Ten Chapel Hill men, among them Louis Graves, R. B. House and Paul Wager, signed a $1,500 note at the Bank of Chapel Hill to buy about five acres of the old Craig place at the west end of Rosemary Lane for a Black community center. The project grew out of concerns raised by the Negro Civic Club. People: William Chambers Coker, Louis GravesDigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, October 6, 1939, p. 2 (People of Both Races Combine Efforts to Establish a Community Center for Negroes)
15. 1952 to 1954 Morgan Creek Hills subdivision begins beside the new 15-501 Bypass Work on Morgan Creek Hills, on the south side of the 15-501 Bypass, started while the bypass itself was being built between 1952 and 1954. The land had several owners, among them William Chambers Coker and Bill Hunt, and the neighborhood filled in over many years with large houses on rough, hilly lots. People: William Chambers CokerSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 80
16. 1953 William C. Coker dies and leaves his land north of town to Coker College At his death in 1953, botanist and real estate developer William Chambers Coker left a large tract along Estes Drive, including the land around Eastwood Lake, to Coker College in Hartsville, South Carolina. The college later had the land developed, producing Coker Hills and Lake Forest.Search the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 79
17. 1963 UNC completes Coker Hall and names it for William C. Coker The university completed a new building in 1963 and named it Coker Hall for William Chambers Coker, Kenan professor of botany and long-time head of the buildings and grounds committee.Search the index · Carolina Story: Virtual Museum of University History: William Coker (1872-1953) and Coker Hall
18. October 12, 2017 The Rocks in Chapel Hill and Cedar Grove School join the Study List Among nine central and southeastern public requests approved on October 12, 2017 were William C. Coker's house, The Rocks, in Chapel Hill and the Cedar Grove School north of Hillsborough. The same meeting placed the Hillsborough survey's Ja-Max Motor Lodge and Military Academy dining hall site on the list. People: William Chambers CokerSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: National Register Advisory Committee agendas, minutes and approved lists, p. 1418