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Town in Orange County

Carrboro

A mill village on the western edge of Chapel Hill, incorporated in 1911 as Venable and renamed in 1913 for Julian S. Carr, the Durham industrialist who electrified its cotton mill. The mill village grew into a town of its own, known today for its farmers’ market, its music venues and its independent politics.

Source: NCpedia, North Carolina Gazetteer

952 works about Carrboro are indexed here. 19 held at OCPL →

Common subjects in works about Carrboro

Arts, Music & PerformanceChapel Hill and Carrboro music sceneGrowth, Land & PlanningFrom West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town, 1882–1913Roads, Rail & TransportationSchools & EducationThe Cat’s Cradle and the “Chapel Hill sound” of the 1990sUNC & Campus Life
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In the chronology

Storylines about Carrboro, in date order. Each has its own page.

StorylineHistoric Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro1864–2018 · 171 events · Northside, Pine Knolls, Tin Top and Pottersfield in Chapel Hill and the Lloyd–Broad neighborhood in Carrboro grew from land bought by freedpeople such as Toney and Nellie Strayhorn, around their churches, the Orange County Training School and Lincoln High. Urban renewal, campus growth and rising land prices pressed them from the 1970s, and conservation districts, a zoning overlay in Carrboro and the Jackson Center’s work have answered since 2004. StorylineFrom West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town, 1882–19131882–1913 · 83 events · In 1882 a university railroad spur ended a mile west of Chapel Hill, and the settlement of West End grew around its boxcar depot. Thomas Lloyd opened a gin and grist mill in 1883 and the Alberta Cotton Mill in 1899, which Julian Carr's Durham Hosiery bought in 1909. Incorporated as Venable in 1911, the town became Carrboro in 1913. StorylineThe last trains on the Chapel Hill branch, 1888–19371888–1937 · 4 events · Passenger service on the ten-mile branch between University Station and Carrboro ended as car ownership spread and roads improved. Captain Fred Smith became the branch's conductor on October 16, 1888. Effective January 1, 1924, the Southern Railway put the line under a separate corporation, to be operated as the State University Railroad Company, the News reported. The State Utilities Commission let the railroad drop passenger service, and the last passenger train ran on October 24, 1936, a trip some Chapel Hill and Carrboro people made into a railway picnic. The freight train was taken off by January 8, 1937, and Smith retired after 47 years as the line's conductor, kept on by the Southern Railway as a freight solicitor. StorylineCarrboro’s first public schools and school taxes, 1898–19271898–1927 · 14 events · Carrboro's school moved from a mill house to a brick graded school paid for with bonds, and the commissioners then called one school tax election after another. About 1898 a mill house on Center Street became the village school, until a frame school opened on West Main Street about 1908. In 1920 voters approved $25,000 in school bonds, and a new brick school went up in 1921. In 1923 the old schoolhouse was moved and became a Methodist parsonage and Sunday school rooms. Tax elections called for 1923 and 1924 were to supplement the six-month term, and in 1927 superintendent C. A. Hoyle said that without a tax shift Carrboro would have only six months of school. StorylineHerbert Lloyd's gin and grist mill at Carrboro, 1898–19211898–1921 · 3 events · Fire struck again and again at the steam gin and grist mill by the tracks at Carrboro, whose frame buildings had started the settlement in the early 1880s. Herbert Lloyd ran it from about 1898. His roller mill burned and was not rebuilt, and by August 1919 he was rebuilding a cotton gin partly destroyed by fire the fall before; the News urged him to restore the roller mill for the farmers' sake. A brick grist mill later replaced the burned frame buildings, but about 1921 lightning set a fire that burned out its interior. It was soon repaired, and W. Albert Lloyd is said to have made it a grocery and his home. StorylineThe Bank of Chapel Hill, 1899–19311899–1931 · 7 events · Founded in 1899 with $2,500 paid in, the Bank of Chapel Hill was, in Lefler and Wager's county history, the county's first bank after the Civil War. Julian S. Carr was elected president, and it opened for business that July. It moved into a new building on Franklin Street in 1914. In 1919 it raised its capital to open a bank in the mill town of Carrboro, and the Bank of Carrboro took in more than $30,000 in deposits on its first day. In 1925 it bought the assets of Chapel Hill's second bank, the Peoples Bank. After the bank failures of 1930, the federal government named it depository for postal savings at the Chapel Hill post office in 1931.
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StorylineUniversity students' night schools and social work, 1910–19161910–1916 · 4 events · About 1911, asked for help by the young Black workers who cut firewood and carried water in the dormitories, students began teaching them reading and arithmetic in what were called moonlight schools. Under Frank Porter Graham at the campus YMCA those classes grew to take in history, English, debating, home sanitation and the Bible. The YMCA had already organized Sunday schools enrolling 321 pupils. On November 1, 1915 it opened night moonlight schools in six schoolhouses within four miles of Chapel Hill, with 54 student teachers and about 300 pupils, and students also ran a night school at Carrboro and two for Black pupils. Fifteen students carried the night schools on in the fall of 1916. StorylineSouthern Power and electric service, 1911–19191911–1919 · 4 events · By June 1911 Duke's Southern Power Company had carried its line of towers across Orange County, and within a few years it had a generating plant in the county and was bringing electric power to its mills. In 1915 the company built a coal-fired steam plant beside the Eno near University Station as a backup for its hydroelectric stations, and by July 1916, with flooding shutting the river stations, it was sending current as far as Charlotte. That October the company surveyed a line to Carrboro to power the mills and light the town. In West Hillsborough the steam-driven Bellevue mill ran partly on electricity by 1919 and completely by the mid-1920s. StorylineThe 1915 road law and the county road supervisor, 1915–19171915–1917 · 10 events · In 1915 Senator Frank Nash's act directed the Orange County commissioners to spend the road tax on the roads of the county at large rather than township by township, and to elect a county supervisor of roads. A. W. Clarke became superintendent of roads that March. In 1916 the county placed the Chapel Hill to Durham road and the road from Carrboro to the Alamance line under the federal engineer and authorized the superintendent to buy equipment to work convicts on the roads. By 1917 inspectors counted 37 miles of central highways and many more miles of Class A and Class B roads, and the commissioners were ordering straightening, bridge work and a sand-clay road. StorylineChapel Hill’s movie houses and the Pickwick fire, 1916–19241916–1924 · 11 events · In 1924 Chapel Hill lost its Pickwick theatre to fire and gained a theatre owned by and run for Black residents. Early in 1916 Lindsey and Strowd opened the Tar Heel Theatre on Franklin Street and S. J. Brockwell's Pickwick went up in the same row, and about 1918 Henry Guthrie opened a picture house on West Franklin Street, in the blocks where Black families were settling. On February 9, 1924 an early-morning fire burned the Pickwick. Brockwell rebuilt it, fireproof, on the same site, and it opened on May 31 with seats for 750. On July 4 the Standard opened on West Franklin Street, owned by tailor Durward O'Kelly, builder Charlie Brooks and brick mason Jesse Kirkland. StorylineSunday closing and Sunday beer sales in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1916–19751916–1975 · 13 events · Chapel Hill's aldermen let drug stores keep set Sunday hours in 1916, and in April 1923 they closed the town's stores on Sunday, leaving cafes and drug stores two short windows to sell drinks and tobacco, soon lengthened. In 1924 the Carrboro aldermen turned down the Methodist and Baptist churches' call to stop all Sunday trade and set Sunday hours instead, after more than half the town's voters petitioned against it. In 1928 Chapel Hill's mayor heard charges against druggists who had sold cigarettes during church hours, and in 1933 the aldermen ordered the grocery stores closed on Sundays. Chapel Hill stopped late-night beer sales in 1942, and the county banned Sunday beer sales in 1946. Both towns repealed their Sunday bans on beer and wine in 1971, but Carrboro restored its ban in 1974, and a court dismissed merchants' suit against it. In December 1975 a newly elected Carrboro board repealed it again. StorylineBattery C, Orange County’s National Guard artillerymen, 19171917 · 4 events · Men from Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsboro helped fill Battery C, a Durham-based field artillery battery of the North Carolina National Guard, by its July 1917 deadline. Chapel Hill and Carrboro furnished 34 men and Hillsboro 4, and Samuel M. Gattis Jr. of Hillsboro was made one of its lieutenants. On July 23 the Order of Red Men entertained the Chapel Hill and Carrboro men at their hall in Carrboro. Two days later between 30 and 35 young men left for camp at Trinity College in Durham before training in South Carolina. In late August the Chapel Hill Red Cross sent the battery's Orange County men comfort bags, and a committee of the battery wrote to thank the women. StorylineBig farms sold in small tracts, 1919–19231919–1923 · 3 events · Between 1919 and 1923 three big Orange County farms were broken up and sold at auction in smaller tracts. On July 12, 1919 the 508-acre Williams-Snipes farm near Carrboro sold in tracts laid off by a Greensboro realty company, and Professor H. H. Williams of the University bought most of it. That October the New Hope Valley tobacco farm east of Chapel Hill, owned by Maynard Mangum of Durham, was auctioned as sixteen farms and brought $98,260.70. On November 22, 1923 Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm near Hillsboro was sold at auction in small farms along the Durham-Greensboro highway, with its personal property; Carr had already sold his Holstein herd to Chapel Hill dairyman C. H. Weaver. StorylineConsolidating the rural schools and hauling the children, 1919–19261919–1926 · 32 events · Between 1919 and 1926 Orange County closed many of its small country schools and began carrying the children by truck and bus to larger ones. The Chapel Hill Graded School had a Ford truck for country children by 1919, and in 1923 superintendent Claytor began folding the county's one- and two-teacher schools into larger ones. The county board set an order for new buildings at Efland, White Cross, the Orange County Training School, Orange Grove and Caldwell, ordered its first school buses in 1924 and sold the emptied schoolhouses. By April 1926 the county had put up seven brick consolidated schools since 1922, including the Orange County Training School for Black pupils, and ran 24 buses. StorylineDairying and clean milk around Chapel Hill, 1920–19321920–1932 · 8 events · Falling cotton prices and the boll weevil turned farmers in southern Orange County to dairying in the 1920s, and the price of Chapel Hill's milk twice went before citizens' committees. After the high school's agriculture teacher helped 37 farmers buy purebred Jersey cattle, they formed a breeders' club. By 1927 C. H. Weaver had built a pasteurizing plant at his Oak Grove Dairy, and a government inspector tested more than 400 cows for tuberculosis. When the dairymen together raised milk from 15 to 20 cents a quart in 1928, wide protest brought agreement on 17 1/2 cents. In 1932 a second committee recommended 12 1/2 cents, though the aldermen set no price. StorylineSchool dental clinics in Orange County, 1920–19401920–1940 · 7 events · From 1920 to 1940 Orange County schoolchildren received free or reduced-fee dental care through clinics backed by the State Board of Health, civic clubs and the Red Cross. In January 1920 state school dentist A. M. Schultz treated 75 children free at Chapel Hill High School, then set up a county clinic at Hillsboro. From about 1928 Dr. J. P. Jones ran a clinic for Chapel Hill school children for the Kiwanis Club. By May 1935 a clinic at the Chapel Hill school for Black children had treated 340 children, with Black residents raising $100 of its cost. From 1936 Dr. I. A. Daves of the State Board of Health toured the county's Black schools, reaching every one by 1940. StorylineCounty school finance and the special tax districts, 1923–19241923–1924 · 5 events · In 1923 Orange County began its first round of school consolidation and, for the first time by Lefler and Wager's account, funded its school deficits with bonds. Robert Hume Claytor folded one- and two-teacher schools into larger ones and sought local tax elections. In August the commissioners voted six percent bonds to pay debts the Board of Education had run up to keep a six-month term, and called school tax elections in the Carrboro district and part of Cedar Grove Township. In April 1924 the county board moved building money to Efland, which had a local tax, an eight-month term and a paved road for school trucks, and put it first in the building order. StorylineBreeding and testing the county's dairy cattle and poultry, 1923–19271923–1927 · 10 events · In 1923 the Bank of Chapel Hill backed the Chapel Hill high school's purebred Jersey program, and that fall Jersey owners in the southern half of the county formed a breeders' club. Federal inspectors found no tuberculosis in the town's dairy herds that summer, a result the Weekly credited to the town's testing rule. In 1924 the first county poultry show formed a poultry breeders' association, and in 1925 the Lloyds' large incubator at Sunnyside began hatching farmers' eggs. That year the county joined the federal and state campaign to rid its cattle of tuberculosis and Chapel Hill began grading its dairies under the state milk ordinance, and in 1927 a federal inspector tested more than 400 cows in the town's dairies. StorylineAuctioning land into house lots, 1923–19251923–1925 · 7 events · From 1923 to 1925 farms and fields around Chapel Hill and Carrboro were cut into house lots. The Chapel Hill Insurance and Realty Company opened Forest Hills on the Pittsboro road and lots on North Street in 1923. In 1924 the Durham Auction Company sold the Lloyd field in Carrboro and part of the old Purefoy land at sales with bands and free dinners, and W. C. Coker's woods east of the campus were laid out in large lots. In 1925 the realty company bid in most of Robert L. Strowd's farm east of town at auction and began selling lots there as Davie Woods. StorylineChapel Hill and its dogs, 1923–19481923–1948 · 13 events · For a quarter century Chapel Hill and Orange County contended with stray dogs and repeated outbreaks of rabies, answering each with muzzles, leashes, quarantines and the shooting of dogs at large. In 1926 an outbreak put fifteen people under the Pasteur treatment, a course of rabies vaccine injections, and the aldermen ordered loose dogs muzzled and leashed or shot. Police shot loose dogs in 1929, and from 1932 a town pound killed unclaimed dogs. The county began vaccinating dogs in 1936, and outbreaks brought quarantines in 1937, 1940 and 1941. In 1948, with about 8,000 dogs thought unvaccinated, the commissioners ordered vaccination checks in every community. StorylineBuilding University Lake, 1930–19321930–1932 · 13 events · In October 1930 the creeks supplying the University and Chapel Hill ran low, and J. S. Bennett warned of rationing. A year later laborers began clearing the site of the University's dam on Morgan Creek, a concrete dam designed by T. C. Atwood, 380 feet long and 30 feet high, to flood about 200 acres. H. D. Carter wrote that the work would end the last remains of the mill dam built on the creek by Matthew McCauley. About May 1932 the lake began supplying the University and Chapel Hill, and after a weekend deluge in October it filled for the first time and spilled over the dam. Carter put the dam's cost at $180,000. StorylineScouting in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1925–19351925–1935 · 4 events · Chapel Hill hosted what the Weekly called the national council's first patrol leaders' training camp in 1925, when about 125 picked North Carolina Scouts camped on Emerson Field. By 1932 thirty-six men had set up a Chapel Hill district committee under Joseph Hyde Pratt to equip and house the troops of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. In 1933 it reported that the Carrboro troop had grown and had a three-room house, that the Chapel Hill troop had 47 members, and that plans were under way for a troop for Black boys. In December 1935 a new district council sought student leaders for the Carrboro troop and heard a report on the Black troop. StorylineThe short route to Raleigh: the old Raleigh road, the Nelson road and Route 54, 1925–19291925–1929 · 15 events · Chapel Hill's push for a paved road east toward Raleigh set it against the county commissioners and ended with Route 54. In October 1926 the commissioners voted to borrow $25,000 to surface the old Raleigh road, then rescinded the vote; the Weekly reported that a group of Hillsboro citizens opposed the borrowing. When the State Highway Commission left the road east to Nelson off the state map, Chapel Hill Democrats wrote in Republican John T. Fowler against commissioner McCauley in protest. In 1927, at John Sprunt Hill's request, the commission put the Chapel Hill to Nelson road on the map as a short cut to Raleigh. In July 1929 Route 54 opened west to Graham and east to Nelson. StorylineDurham Hosiery's Carrboro mills through the Depression and after, 1928–19421928–1942 · 8 events · Falling demand for cotton stockings, and then the Depression, led Durham Hosiery Mills to close its Carrboro mills, and Carrboro people had to find other work. The company began curtailing work in 1928 and about June 1930 closed its No. 4 spinning mill. A yarn mill went back to full time in 1932, but in June 1938 the company closed Mill No. 7, its last Carrboro mill, putting about 140 people out of work. In 1939 it auctioned much of its Carrboro property, many houses going to the families living in them. By 1940, the Weekly reported, University wages had made up much of the loss, and in 1942 a munitions plant was hiring mostly from Carrboro and nearby. StorylineOrange County in the 1928 election and the new county board, 1928–19291928–1929 · 8 events · Herbert Hoover carried Orange County over Alfred E. Smith in November 1928, 2,564 to 1,800, though Chapel Hill went for Smith and Carrboro for Hoover. When the defeated Republican congressional candidate, Junius Harden, charged that hundreds of students had voted illegally in Chapel Hill, officials of both parties said the student voters were legally qualified. W. T. Sloan was elected sheriff, and for the first time, the Weekly noted, all three county commissioners came from the Chapel Hill end of the county. Chairman George Johnston, sworn in at his bedside, resigned because of illness; John Hanner, appointed in his place, became chairman in January 1929, and Johnston died on January 13. StorylineThe Carrboro school as a community center: night school and clinics, 1929–19331929–1933 · 15 events · Between 1929 and 1933 the Carrboro school served grown people as well as children, with health clinics, a night school for adults and the start of a library. The annual child health clinic gave free examinations and vaccinations there, and in 1931 Dr. J. P. Jones began a free dental clinic. A night school for adults, begun in summer 1931 by students of a University extension course, reopened at the school that fall under Mrs. R. M. Grumman. In 1933 the State Federation of Women's Clubs named its pupil Marvin Pendergraph the most improved night-school pupil in North Carolina, and Nellie Roberson gave the school 145 books toward a library for grown people as well as children. StorylineRelief in Orange County as the Depression deepens, 1929–19331929–1933 · 47 events · When the Depression began, Orange County had no health department, no public health nurse and no hospital of its own, and welfare superintendent George H. Lawrence's list of families in dire need grew from 30 to about 60 by December 1929. The commissioners matched private gifts for an emergency health fund, and the Kiwanis Club, the King's Daughters and the Daily Tar Heel took up relief. In 1930 the county said its funds could not meet emergency relief, and Chapel Hill set up an unemployment committee under Howard W. Odum. In September 1932 the commissioners, short of money, cut off county relief to every family with an able-bodied man, and federal relief allotments began that October. StorylineBaby clinics and the Junior Service League, 1930–19471930–1947 · 10 events · Free monthly clinics for babies, held separately for Black and white children, were opened by Chapel Hill's Junior Service League in 1940 and moved into the new Carrboro Health Center in 1947. An earlier clinic for Black babies had run for several weeks at Rock Hill Baptist Church in 1930. With the district health department, the League held clinics for children under two, for Black babies at the Orange County Training School and for white babies at the Carrboro school. It also began a free training school for Black household workers, with an employment agency. Dr. Robert Barrett Lawson and later Dr. Beryl Mason attended the clinics, and by 1944 Hillsborough had separate clinics of its own. StorylineAdult literacy classes in Orange County, 1931–19391931–1939 · 5 events · In 1939 the county's adult education council counted 530 white and 1,106 Black adults in Orange who could not read and write, and night classes had been working to reach them since 1931. They grew from a two-week course in Chapel Hill in July 1931, taught by Eva Edgerton of the High Point night schools, whose students started the Carrboro Night School for Adults. In the year to December 1939 the council held classes for 637 adult students in Carrboro, the McFarland community and around Hillsborough. By November 1939 Black adults met weekly at Rock Hill Baptist Church, taught by volunteers from the Orange County Training School, though the congregation had no money to heat the building. StorylineThe 1933 bank holiday in Orange County1933 · 3 events · The March 1933 bank holiday left University students unable to get cash, and the University and Chapel Hill merchants made allowances. The Bank of Chapel Hill closed on March 6 and 7 under the national and state orders, and President Graham postponed the University's recess because students could not get cash to travel home and back. Students were allowed to register without paying fees at once, and merchants kept accepting checks and giving credit. The bank reopened for limited business on March 8, and when full banking resumed on March 15 deposits far exceeded withdrawals. In April, with the Carrboro mills idle, the bank closed its Bank of Carrboro branch and moved the accounts to the parent bank. StorylineBeer, repeal and the 1933 liquor vote1933 · 5 events · In 1933 Chapel Hill and Orange County split over alcohol. Restaurants in Chapel Hill, where a law had barred alcohol within four miles of the University since the early 1800s, began selling legal beer on May 1, and the county issued 18 retail beer licenses, 10 of them in Chapel Hill. That fall advocates of repealing the 18th Amendment nominated Collier Cobb Jr. for Orange's one seat in the state convention, and the dry forces named J. J. Ward. On November 7 Orange voted 1,169 to 807 against a convention. Chapel Hill was the only precinct for repeal, while Carrboro voted heavily against. The state went dry by a wide margin, so the convention was never held. StorylineOrange County’s PWA school building program, 1935–19361935–1936 · 29 events · In 1935 Orange County sought Public Works Administration money for school buildings, with the government to grant 45 per cent, and the size of the county's own share decided how much got built. A $471,000 application was approved, but the commissioners limited the county's share to $150,000, cutting the program to $272,000. When bids ran above estimates they raised the share to $190,000 and cut the new Hillsboro school for Black children and the Training School addition. The school board kept the Training School on its site despite a petition from some of Chapel Hill's Black residents. By May 1936 ten projects were under way, and the new Chapel Hill high school opened in October 1936. StorylineCurb markets and community canneries, 1937–19611937–1961 · 17 events · Orange County farm women opened a curb market in Carrboro in September 1937 with the county home demonstration agent and moved it to Chapel Hill the next January. Government-sponsored community canneries, where families came to can meats and vegetables, opened at White Cross in 1943 and at the Hillsborough school in 1944. The women's market's sellers took in $30,280 in its seventh year and $40,004 in its eighth, and in May 1945 Black farm families opened the Orange County Negro Curb Market on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Another cannery was being finished at Aycock School in 1947. The Chapel Hill women's market, in the old church building on North Columbia Street by 1954, marked its twentieth anniversary in October 1957. In August 1961 the market's 16 sellers from the county home demonstration clubs moved into a new block building beside Brady McLennan's Durham Road restaurant. StorylineABC stores and liquor by the drink in Orange County, 1938–19781938–1978 · 35 events · After Orange County voters turned down ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) liquor stores in 1938, efforts to bring the question back failed for years; in 1955 the commissioners refused the Chapel Hill PTA's request for a countywide vote. In September 1958, on petitions with 1,049 names, the board set the county's first liquor vote since 1938. Despite a dry campaign through the churches, the county voted for the stores on February 3, 1959, carried by the Chapel Hill precincts and by Hillsboro. Stores opened in 1959 and 1961, and in 1964 the ABC board voted for a second Chapel Hill-area store over opposition from university officials, ministers and the Carrboro town board. The state board turned down the West Rosemary Street site chosen for it in January 1965. Orange County voted for liquor by the drink in a 1973 statewide referendum that failed, and when a 1978 state law allowed a local vote, the county approved mixed drinks; Chapel Hill restaurants began serving them that November. StorylineThe 1939 law ending University merchandising1939 · 8 events · A new law, effective July 1, 1939, forbade the University to sell merchandise in competition with citizens, and the University Service Plants stopped selling coal, refrigerators, radios and appliances. Two of the plants' employees, Harvey Bennett and Frank Blocksidge, took over the stock and the Franklin Street salesroom as Bennett and Blocksidge, and the firm leased a coal yard beside the railroad tracks in Carrboro to take over the University's coal business; in June a crowd there watched a power-driven conveyor unload a 53-ton car of coal. University officials were unsure what the law meant for the Book Exchange and Swain Hall, the Weekly reported. That October tennis coach John Kenfield opened the Carolina Sports Shop on East Franklin Street. StorylineOrange County’s home front in the Second World War1940–1946 · 151 events · From 1940 to 1945 Orange County was drawn into the Second World War. Red Cross women sewed garments for Britain and later made surgical dressings, a record 2,507 of them in Hillsborough on D-Day. The draft board sent men into the Army from 1940, and by late October 1945 it counted 3,110 drafted. Farm families, schools and civic clubs pledged or sold war bonds and gathered scrap, and the county more than doubled its quota in the Seventh War Loan. Carrboro's munitions plant loaded shells for the Navy, and German prisoners of war worked Orange farms in 1945. The county marked V-E Day quietly, while Chapel Hill celebrated the end of the war with Japan on Franklin Street. StorylineOrange County's war loan drives, 1942–19451942–1945 · 12 events · From farm families pledging a pig or an acre of crops in 1942 to the Victory Loan of 1945, Orange County kept buying war bonds, and it passed its quota in each drive from the Fourth War Loan on. In 1942 rural families pledged $50,000 in bonds and stamps for the year. The Fourth War Loan of 1944, under county chairman J. Maryon Saunders of Chapel Hill, passed its $540,000 quota by mid-February, helped by a $25,000 county investment, though E bond sales lagged. The county went over in the Fifth and Sixth loans, and in 1945 the Seventh closed at $1,308,000 against a $574,000 quota. Saunders counted $6,120,000 in bonds bought in the seven drives he led. StorylineCarrboro’s Mill No. 7: munitions plant to woolen mill, 1942–19551942–1950s · 25 events · In 1942 National Munitions Corporation turned Carrboro's empty Mill No. 7 into a shell-loading plant for Navy anti-aircraft ammunition. It grew to more than 500 workers, won the Army-Navy E award in January 1943 and renewals after it, and closed on August 17, 1945, when the Navy canceled its contracts. Pacific Mills of Boston had bought the old Mill No. 4 building that January and opened Carrboro Woolen Mills there in April 1945; it bought Mill No. 7 as well, with the deed filed in May 1946, and in 1947 the government sued National Munitions over excessive war profits. Pacific Mills later closed the Carrboro woolen operation, in the mid-1950s by one account and the early 1960s by another. StorylineShort wartime school days, 1943–19441943–1944 · 3 events · Wartime farm work shaped Orange County's school hours in 1943 and 1944. In August 1943 Superintendent R. H. Claytor announced that most county schools would run from 8:15 to 1:15 for the first six weeks so children could help on farms. Chapel Hill's schools ran a wartime short day from 8 to 1. In November, 99 of 160 parents favored a day from 8:40 to 2, but on November 16 the Chapel Hill school board put an 8:45 to 3:15 schedule into effect, against most parents' wishes. By May 1944 all Orange County schools had gone on a short schedule, after young farmers were drafted and heavy spring rains delayed the crop year. StorylineVeterans’ organizations in Orange County, 1943–19581943–1958 · 29 events · Between 1943 and 1958 Orange County's veterans organized posts in each town, and Black veterans formed their own, in Chapel Hill in 1944 and in Hillsboro in 1947. Chapel Hill's American Legion post drew many protests in 1943 for a traveling carnival with a strip act and gambling games, and editor Louis Graves, a Legion member, criticized the post. Hillsborough veterans organized Post No. 85 in 1944. After the war came a Carrboro Legion post, the county's first two Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, a Marine Corps League post and a county veterans' service office. In 1955 Chapel Hill's Paul Robertson became the Legion's state commander, and in 1958 fire gutted Hillsboro's Legion hut, which reopened in 1959. StorylineCarrboro’s school and the Chapel Hill district, 1950–19591950–1959 · 52 events · In 1950 Carrboro's school committeemen told the county board that Carrboro preferred to stay in the county school unit rather than join a larger Chapel Hill tax district. By 1953 the school was crowded and a grand jury called its building extremely shabby; a state survey team recommended a new site and a merger with the Chapel Hill unit. The state split the Carrboro-White Cross district in 1954, and the county bought a site behind the new Carrboro Methodist Church, later enlarged to about 18 acres. After flooded rooms and a fallen ceiling in 1955, Carrboro parents debated the merger, and the district committee voted to stay in the county unit. In August 1958 Carrboro voters approved joining the Chapel Hill district, 713 to 303; the new elementary school opened, and in 1959 the old building was sold to the town. StorylineFire protection for the countryside, 1951–19641951–1964 · 17 events · When Chapel Hill's fire department stopped answering most calls outside town in January 1951, people in the countryside began arranging fire protection of their own. Rural residents around Hillsboro, whose truck already stayed near town, formed the Orange Fire Protective Association, raised money by memberships and had a truck by March 1951, crewed by the town's volunteer firemen. Carrboro offered contracts to property owners around town in 1954. Around Chapel Hill, voters approved a tax-supported fire district 188 to 9 in 1955, and in 1956 Chapel Hill agreed to protect the district in return for its fire tax. In 1964 the county set up an Orange Fire Commission to regulate the departments receiving county aid. StorylineDay care in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1952–19741952–1974 · 7 events · Day care in Chapel Hill and Carrboro grew from a center run by Victory Village's student council in 1952. In 1970 parents and children marched into South Building for a University day-care center, and Women's Liberation members opened the Community School for People Under Six for children of all races and incomes, which First Baptist Church evicted in 1972. Binkley church housed a program for disabled children from 1971, and in 1974 the Chapel Hill aldermen sought authority to fund day care. StorylineRecreation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1955–19641955–1964 · 20 events · Chapel Hill voters turned down a recreation tax in 1957 and approved one in 1963, and in between private backers and gifts of land supplied a recreation center and a pool. A 1955 act created a Chapel Hill-Carrboro recreation district, but Carrboro asked to be left out. At the 1957 hearings Carrboro residents feared for their school tax and Black PTA leader Lattice Vickers asked what Black residents would get; the commissioners dropped Carrboro and the rural areas, and voters turned down the tax 1,176 to 514. Private backers formed Chapel Hill Recreation Center, Inc. on Bolin Creek land offered by John W. Umstead and his family, and in 1962 Exchange Pools, Inc. opened a pool beside the center. StorylineThe 1956 school bonds and what they built, 1955–19581955–1958 · 14 events · In 1955 commissioners' chairman R. J. M. Hobbs asked the county and Chapel Hill school boards to plan for a large bond election, and the board called a vote on $2 million in school bonds, divided among the county schools, Carrboro and the Chapel Hill unit. At the February 1956 hearing two Hillsboro men objected, citing the uncertainty left by the Supreme Court's school decision; Remus J. Smith Sr. answered that the classrooms would be needed even if segregation ended. Voters approved the bonds on March 27, 1956. The county board put a new Carrboro school first and that fall adopted a $1.17 million building program, and contracts for work from Carrboro to Efland followed through 1958. StorylineThe Pearsall Plan in Orange County, 1956–19611956–1961 · 6 events · In 1956 Chapel Hill's five precincts voted down the Pearsall Plan, apparently the only small community in the state to do so, while Orange County as a whole approved it 3,359 to 1,784. The amendment allowed local votes to close schools and tuition grants for private schools to avoid integration. Former state senator Irving Carlyle attacked it at a University forum, and school board member Clarence D. Jones called the tuition grants unfair, while Representative John W. Umstead backed it, saying it kept the question away from extremists on both sides. In 1961 the Chapel Hill school board recommended a tuition grant for a Carrboro parent's two daughters, which the News called the state's first formal application. StorylineSchool desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1954–19701956–1970 · 74 events · In 1956 and 1957 Preston Weaver applied to move his son from Northside School to the white Chapel Hill Elementary, and in 1958 the county school board refused applications from the Vickers and Walden families for places at the new white Carrboro Elementary. After the school board refused in 1959 to admit ten-year-old Stanley Vickers to Carrboro Elementary, his parents sued, and their 1961 win in federal court set the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools on the course to desegregation. In 1966 all-Black Lincoln High merged into Chapel Hill High, and Lincoln's name, colors and mascot were left behind. In the fall of 1969 Black students protested at the town's junior and senior high schools. In September about 150 walked out of Guy B. Phillips Junior High for about an hour over the choice of cheerleaders, and the principal said the school was weighing a three-to-one white-to-Black quota for all school organizations. In November the school board reprimanded, but kept on, a Chapel Hill High teacher who Black students said had called a Black student a racial slur. On November 11 about 200 Black students presented demands to the principal, among them more Black teachers and an Afro-American studies department, and the day ended in broken windows, injuries and police. The next night about 500 Black parents and students took their grievances to the board at First Baptist Church, and on November 17 the board promised a biracial grievance committee and renewed efforts to hire Black teachers, and Black students ended their boycott of Chapel Hill High. In February 1970 the city schools reported every school racially balanced, with Black enrollment of 22 to 36 percent, while only about 12 percent of teachers were Black. StorylineCarrboro’s old school becomes its town hall, 1959–19611959–1961 · 9 events · After the new Carrboro elementary school opened, the Town of Carrboro bought the empty old school on West Main Street and turned it into its town hall. The Orange County Board of Education accepted the town's $30,000 bid on September 14, 1959. On March 19, 1960 voters approved $95,000 in bonds, 122 to 28, to buy and renovate the building. Contractor L. G. Tripp remodeled the main floor as a town hall with a community meeting room and made the auditorium a police and fire station, and the town gave the Carrboro Library a room. Several hundred people toured the new town hall on April 9, 1961. StorylineChapel Hill's thoroughfare plan, road widenings and bypasses, 1959–19941959–1994 · 32 events · The State Highway Commission approved a northern bypass around Chapel Hill and Carrboro in 1959, and in 1961 Chapel Hill adopted a long-range thoroughfare plan of 32 projects that included one. The plan was amended in 1962 and adopted for the town and its environs in 1965, with a road along Bolin Creek, an outer loop and one-way pairs downtown. That fall the aldermen pressed the state to return to the plan's route for a northwest bypass. From 1973 residents and the University opposed proposed roads through Battle Park, along Bolin Creek and past the Horace Williams House as the plan was revised, and in 1979 the town asked the state for a southern bypass over rural residents' objections. The council withdrew that request in 1980. In 1985 the town and the state made Pittsboro and South Columbia streets a one-way pair, and in 1988 the council endorsed the state's design for widening the U.S. 15-501 bypass to four lanes with a planted median. The state let the first widening contract in 1989 and put off widening South Columbia Street until 1994. From 1990 to 1992 Chapel Hill put off a decision on widening South Columbia Street, made frontage roads along U.S. 15-501 its first federal road request and chose a four-lane design with a median for widening N.C. 86, while the county commissioners opposed widening N.C. 54. In 1993 and 1994 Chapel Hill and Durham studied the U.S. 15-501 corridor, weighing six lanes against light rail, and in November 1994 the council endorsed the state's four-lane plan for N.C. 86. StorylineOrange County’s first county-wide zoning plan, 1960–19671960–1967 · 5 events · A plan to zone Orange County's rural areas, begun in 1960 when Granges and other groups petitioned the commissioners, drew protests at eight community meetings, loudest in Eno Township, where residents gave commissioners chairman Donald Stanford rough treatment. In February 1962 opponents met at Palmer's Grove to hear Durham attorney Blackwell Brogden, whom they had engaged, speak against zoning outside Hillsboro. That March the county Planning Board agreed to review and simplify the whole ordinance, and the Orange County Farm Bureau's directors opposed it 'in its present form', with president Oscar Compton objecting to its sign limits for farm produce and its lot sizes. In 1967 the county adopted a zoning ordinance for Chapel Hill Township. StorylineCarrboro seeks its own zoning authority, 1962–19631962–1963 · 3 events · A 1957 act let Carrboro zone its fringe only through the Chapel Hill planners, and in 1962 the town moved to take that power for itself. On October 9, 1962 the Board of Commissioners began the move to take over planning and zoning of its suburbs from the Chapel Hill zoning district. At first the town planned to share the Chapel Hill District Planning Board, but in December it decided to ask the General Assembly for power entirely separate from that board. On February 12, 1963 the board endorsed a special act, drawn by Town Attorney L. J. Phipps with Chapel Hill attorney J. Q. LeGrand, that would let Carrboro zone the town and its suburban area. StorylineThe Inter-Church Council's housing work, 1963–19661963–1966 · 3 events · The Inter-Church Council, formed in 1963, was building homes on Community Chest money by 1965. In 1966 students from Morrison Residence College and the Nurses Dormitory finished a nine-room house it had begun for a Black family near the Carrboro town dump, and Adelaide Walters began her years as chair of its housing committee. StorylineOrange County’s House seat changes hands, 19631963 · 6 events · Orange County lost its member of the General Assembly twice in 1963. John W. Umstead Jr. was ill from the first day of the session and stepped down by mid-March, and the county Democratic Executive Committee unanimously chose Recorder's Court judge L. J. Phipps to succeed him. Phipps took the oath on March 18. On June 22 the state American Legion elected him department commander, and because the Legion barred its commander from elective office he gave up the House seat, leaving Orange without a representative. On September 3 the county executive committee nominated Edwin J. Hamlin, publisher of the News of Orange County, by 28 to 27, and Governor Terry Sanford appointed him on September 10. StorylineThe Klan in Orange County, 1964–19881964–1988 · 10 events · Between 1964 and 1968 the Ku Klux Klan held rallies with cross burnings east of Chapel Hill and near Hillsborough, called a night rally beside Interstate 85 and gathered off Highway 54 west of Carrboro. In 1965 a House committee named the Sportsman's Lakeside Lodge as the Klan organization in Orange County, and the sheriff reported three recent Klan meetings in the county. That December Congressman Charles Weltner urged an audience of about 1,700 in Memorial Hall to stop supporting the Klan. In 1987 Klan members marched on Franklin Street beside numerous protesters, and in 1988 about 50 marched through Hillsborough and rallied at the courthouse before a crowd of hecklers. StorylineOrange County’s antipoverty program and JOCCA, 1964–19821964–1982 · 9 events · Orange County's antipoverty program began in 1964 with a slow start for Community Action, Inc., a proposed privately financed biracial corporation meant to work on Chapel Hill's racial and economic problems. In April the county commissioners, while saying they favored its aims, put off endorsing it over objections to the makeup of its 18-member board. By mid-May the commissioners and the Chapel Hill aldermen had named members, and in June Carrboro's commissioners voted 3 to 2 to take part. In September the county commissioners unanimously created an Economic Opportunity Act advisory committee to plan a county program and seek federal funds, and in October they named its fifteen members. Joint Orange-Chatham Community Action (JOCCA), created in 1966, set up a rural health service that began in 1970, and Gloria Williams directed JOCCA in the 1980s and 1990s. StorylineHealth care across language and immigration1967–2024 · 13 events · From the student-run SHAC clinic of 1967 to UNC’s interpreter services, the CAMPOS program and the Center for Latino Health of 2008, care for the county’s newcomers has grown with its languages, and the health department was serving clients in almost 20 languages by 2014. El Futuro’s bilingual mental health work in Carrboro and the refugee wellness program of 2015 carry it on. StorylineFrom campus buses to Chapel Hill Transit, 1968–19901968–1990 · 162 events · Student-run buses began crossing the UNC campus in 1968, and a bus system for the University and the two towns was planned from 1970. Town buses ran for five weeks in 1971 before their money ran out, and voters then turned down a bus tax. Carrboro refused to join a later plan, but in February 1973 Chapel Hill voters approved bonds and a tax. With a federal grant, a University contract for bus passes and used buses from Atlanta, Chapel Hill Transit began running on August 1, 1974 and carried about 259,000 riders in its first eight weeks. The drivers formed a union in 1975, the town leased University airport land for a bus garage, and the buses carried more than two million riders in their first year. Service was cut in 1976 and night buses gave way to shared-ride taxis in 1977, and in 1979 federal aid lowered the bus tax and paid for 17 new buses. From 1980 the town replaced its aging buses with new General Motors buses that knelt at the curb and carried wheelchair lifts, finished a maintenance and operations facility and reshaped its routes, running nine from the fall of 1982. Ridership slipped in 1981, fares rose, and the drivers petitioned against the town's purchase of uniforms until they began wearing them in 1983. Ridership, down to 1.81 million in 1984-85, rose again from 1985 to more than 10,000 riders a day as the system added routes and buses. In 1988 a Blue Line began running to Duke, and in 1989 the council approved a park-and-ride lot on N.C. 54, the University opened one on Estes Drive, and the state funded 14 more buses and more park-and-ride lots. In 1990, after carrying more than 2.1 million riders the year before, the buses began running from a new park-and-ride lot on N.C. 54 East, 14 new buses arrived, and drivers complained that tight schedules forced them to speed. StorylineDroughts, the Durham lines and Hillsborough water, 1968–19901968–1990 · 79 events · In the fall of 1968 drought dropped University Lake to its lowest level since it was built in 1930. Durham agreed to pipe water to Chapel Hill, and the University paid for nearly all of an emergency line, begun on October 1, that began delivering a million gallons a day on October 27. Chapel Hill's aldermen banned lawn sprinkling and car washing, the University suspended physical education classes, and Carrboro protested a 40 percent rise in its water rate. The ban was lifted in November, and winter rains refilled the lake. The University raised the lake's dam two feet in 1970 and drew Durham water through the pipeline again in the dry falls of 1970 and 1973. A drought in 1976 brought mandatory water restrictions and a second line from Durham. In 1977 the new Orange Water and Sewer Authority bought Durham water with federal drought aid until Durham's own lake ran low, then built a pipeline to buy treated water from Hillsborough, finished in April 1978. Drought returned in 1980, when OWASA drew on its quarry reservoir and bought Hillsborough water, and in 1983, when mandatory restrictions took effect on September 6, Orange County was declared a farm disaster area and the Chapel Hill council asked OWASA to halt new water connections. In 1984 the council tightened the conservation ordinance. In the 1986 drought, in the driest season since 1890, mandatory restrictions ran from July to September and again from October to December, OWASA bought water from Lake Holt in Butner, and the Chapel Hill council moved to hold back building permits in severe shortages. Durham sold OWASA water again in the dry summers of 1987 and 1988. In the dry fall of 1990 northern Orange County's water users were under the county's conservation rules until October rains brought University Lake back to normal. StorylineCarrboro’s Black political firsts1969–2024 · 30 events · Braxton Foushee became Carrboro’s first Black alderman in 1969 and Robert Drakeford its first Black mayor in 1977, followed by Richard Knight Jr. as town manager, Hilliard Caldwell and Joal Hall Broun on the board, and Walter Horton as police chief in 2013. Barbara Foushee was sworn in as the first Black woman mayor in 2023, and the town named the Drakeford Library Complex in 2024. StorylineChapel Hill and Carrboro music sceneFrom 1969 · 59 events · Cat's Cradle opened in a small basement club near the UNC campus in 1969 and, after several moves, settled in Carrboro in 1993. With Merge Records, founded in Chapel Hill in 1989, and bands such as Superchunk and Polvo, the local scene drew national press in the early 1990s as a possible "next Seattle." StorylineSelling the University’s utilities, 1970–19771970–1977 · 61 events · From 1970 Chapel Hill and Carrboro pressed to take over the water, electric and telephone systems the University owned. Carrboro lost a court fight over a 1970 water rate increase, and in 1972 a state study commission recommended that the University sell its utilities. Bids were opened in April 1974, and that fall the commission chose Southern Bell for the telephone system and Duke Power for electricity and water, over a nonprofit backed by the towns. The trustees asked that the water system go to a local authority, and OWASA, created in 1975, took over the water and sewer systems in 1977. StorylineCarrboro’s water bill fights with the University and OWASA, 1970–19821970–1982 · 8 events · When the University raised its water rate in 1970, Carrboro paid at the old rate and the state sued the town, which answered that the University held a water monopoly. From 1979 Carrboro refused to pay OWASA's higher fire hydrant fees; OWASA sued, a judge ordered the town to pay in 1981, and after losing in the Court of Appeals the town took the case to the N.C. Supreme Court in 1982. StorylineCarrboro's town government, 1971–19921971–1992 · 51 events · Robert Wells was elected mayor of Carrboro in 1971 with four new aldermen. In 1972 the board fired its town manager, named a 25-year-old UNC senior in his place and called bonds to extend water and sewer service. A sewer moratorium and stricter zoning slowed building from 1973, a police chief who fired nine patrolmen was asked to resign that summer, and in 1976 Carrboro hired its first Black town manager. In 1975 residents formed the Carrboro Community Coalition, which elected its candidates for mayor and two aldermen that November, and the new board fired the town manager hired that January. Construction began on the Tar Heel Manor apartments in 1978. Town Manager Richard Knight left in 1980. In 1981 the new Association for a Better Carrboro unseated three Coalition aldermen, and in 1983 its members won the whole board; Town Manager Richard Hunter, cleared of residents' charges in 1982 by Mayor Robert Drakeford's tie-breaking vote, resigned as the new board took office. Hilliard Caldwell won a second term in 1985, Eleanor Kinnaird unseated Mayor Jim Porto in 1987 in a race that turned on the Amberly subdivision and won re-election in 1989, and a citizens' task force set the town's capital priorities in 1989. From 1990 to 1992 the aldermen lost a post office deal over Westwood Cemetery land and later won federal money for a new post office, faced revenue shortfalls, and turned down both a plan to annex five holes in the town and a panhandling ban. Voters returned Kinnaird and three incumbent aldermen in 1991, and Ben Callahan succeeded Sid Herje as police chief in 1992. StorylineCarrboro and the Chapel Hill buses, 1971–19861971–1986 · 46 events · Carrboro shared in Chapel Hill's short-lived town buses of 1971, but its voters turned down bus taxes in 1971, 1973 and 1976. In 1977 the aldermen joined the University in paying for a Chapel Hill bus route past Carrboro's apartment complexes. After a 1978 deadlock over costs, Carrboro and UNC agreed on a lasting formula, and in 1979 the F route reached North Carrboro and service ran year-round. On the fourth try, in November 1980, Carrboro voters approved a property tax for the buses, as ridership on the town's routes grew and a new J route split the crowded C route. In 1984 Chapel Hill chose a builder for Carrboro's bus shelters, and Carrboro won federal money for its first park-and-ride lot. The lot opened at Plantation Plaza in March 1986, with Chapel Hill Transit's C bus stopping there. StorylineChapel Hill, Carrboro and the bicycle, 1971–19921971–1992 · 33 events · Chapel Hill lifted its ban on bicycles on its main downtown streets in 1971 and marked bike routes, and Mayor Howard Lee led about 500 riders on a Bike Day parade. The town began ticketing cyclists, studied licensing and safety, and in 1974 began registering bicycles; Carrboro's aldermen took up the Carrboro Cyclists' safety plan that fall. By 1980 Chapel Hill had built its bond-financed bikeways, and from 1980 to 1982 Carrboro built its own with bonds and a federal grant, opening the Jones Ferry Road lanes in 1981 and a railroad-spur path to Chapel Hill in 1982. From 1985 Chapel Hill fined cyclists on downtown sidewalks, the state funded bike lanes on Airport Road and Carr Street in 1987, and in 1989 Carrboro adopted a safety campaign for cyclists and a townwide sidewalk and bikeway plan. In 1990 and 1991 town and University police began bicycle patrols and Carrboro planned a bike path behind Carr Mill Mall, and Chapel Hill, after sending back a helmet rule for all riders, required helmets for riders under 16. StorylineCondominium conversions in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1973–19841973–1984 · 19 events · Chapel Hill's aldermen approved condominium projects in 1973, with Mayor Howard Lee breaking ties, and turned one down in 1974. From 1980, with rental housing short, the Town Council refused conversions of Graham Court and The Oaks, then approved The Oaks in 1981, and a judge ruled that the town could not stop a realty firm's conversions. Conversions spread in Carrboro and Chapel Hill through 1983. StorylineThe energy crisis in Chapel Hill, 1973–19741973–1974 · 12 events · The fuel shortages of 1973 and 1974 reached Chapel Hill as gas stations closed to protest federal price rules, heating oil dealers stopped taking new customers and stations limited sales. The University cut its energy use and closed nonessential buildings over the 1973 holidays, and Mayor Howard Lee named an energy task force. By late January 1974 nearly every station had run dry; dealers agreed on set pumping hours, the attorney general sued five stations over tie-in sales, and the county's energy coordinator pressed federal officials for more gasoline. StorylineThe ArtSchool and the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, 1974–19941974–1994 · 34 events · Jacques Menache began the ArtSchool in Carrboro in 1974 with painting and drawing classes on East Main Street, and it added a gallery, dance, drama and the Gallery Theatre. It leased space in Carr Mill Mall late in 1978. In 1986 a partnership formed with Menache bought the former Piggly Wiggly shopping center on East Main Street, and the school, renamed The Arts Center, opened its new building there in July 1987. Menache resigned in 1988 and Aubrey Bowie became director. In 1990, behind on its rent, the center sued its landlord, banks foreclosed on a $150,000 loan its guarantors had backed, and a task force cut its debt to $240,000. Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Orange County and Glaxo gave it money in 1990 and 1991, and in 1992 activists charged it with neglecting minority artists. In 1994 the center began a $900,000 drive to buy its building, and Carrboro pledged $15,000 a year for ten years. StorylineThe 1974 apartment foreclosures in Chapel Hill and Carrboro1974 · 5 events · In the fall of 1974 Roberts Associates, builder of most of the apartment complexes around Chapel Hill and Carrboro, left tenants of its new Old Well Apartments without appliances and owed Carrboro back taxes, then filed for reorganization in November as lenders moved to auction five of its complexes. Foreclosure also began that month on the Foxcroft and Chateau apartments. StorylineSaving Carr Mill, 1975–19781975–1978 · 11 events · In 1975 Carrboro residents petitioned against an Atlanta firm's plan to tear down the vacant former Alberta mill, and the firm let its option go. The owner and a Charlotte developer turned instead to reusing the 1898 building, and in February 1976 the aldermen approved a permit for a mall there. Carr Mill Shopping Village opened in 1977, offices opened on the upper floor in 1978, and a weekend farmers' market came to its parking lot. StorylineStudents on the town boards and the student liaisons, 1976–19891976–1989 · 7 events · In 1976 Carrboro's aldermen asked Student Government for students to fill a Planning Board seat. In 1985, pressed by student leaders after Lightning Brown resigned, the Chapel Hill Town Council appointed graduate student Meg Parker to its Planning Board. State law barred a student seat on the council, so Chapel Hill created a Student Government liaison in 1988, and Carrboro followed in 1989. StorylineCarrboro’s farmers’ market and the Town Commons, 1977–19961977–1996 · 9 events · Planning for a Carrboro farmers' market began in 1977, and the market opened in August 1978 in a Carr Mill parking lot, and a permanent open-air shelter was built with a state grant. In 1988 and 1989 Carrboro's aldermen paid to keep the market's leased site and planned a town commons beside Town Hall as its permanent home. A 1993 grant paid for new shelters, Carrboro broke ground beside Town Hall in 1994, and the market moved to the Town Commons in 1996. StorylineThe PTA Thrift Shop and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, 1977–19891977–1989 · 5 events · The PTA Thrift Shop, run by the Chapel Hill and Carrboro PTAs, gave its profits to the local schools. It turned over $61,479 in 1977, opened a second store in its own building on Jones Ferry Road in Carrboro by 1979 and cleared $250,202 in the year ending June 1985. In 1989 it decided to buy the lot beside the Carrboro store for an addition. In 1989 the shops gave the schools $279,000, their largest donation yet. StorylineCarrboro's annexations and census fights, 1979–19901979–1990 · 10 events · Carrboro annexed Barrington Hills and the Tar Heel Manor apartments in December 1979 and won a property owner's suit against the annexation in 1980. Saying the 1980 census, taken as students left town, had missed residents, the town sued the Census Bureau and hired a firm to recount. A special census in September 1981, authorized by the General Assembly, counted 8,264 people, while Chapel Hill declined to seek a recount of its own. In 1990 Carrboro challenged the preliminary census again, saying nearly 1,000 residents had been missed. StorylineCurbing drive-in businesses in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, 1980–19821980–1982 · 9 events · In 1980 Carrboro's aldermen fought a Wendy's drive-in at Main and Greensboro streets, first in court and then with a zone for drive-in restaurants that a judge struck down; the restaurant opened that September under a restraining order. Chapel Hill barred most drive-in businesses that April, repealed the ban in September and then could not agree on standards, and in 1982 it granted Wendy's a drive-in window on the bypass. StorylineCarrboro’s attempts at local historic districts, 1983–19931983–1993 · 4 events · Carrboro's aldermen began studying local historic district zoning in 1983, and its commercial district entered the National Register in 1985. Residents' opposition led the aldermen to table a district in 1989, and in 1993 a proposal for local historic districts failed by one vote. StorylineThe joint Chapel Hill-Carrboro thoroughfare plan, 1983–19841983–1984 · 14 events · In 1983 Chapel Hill and Carrboro took a joint thoroughfare plan to crowded hearings, and Chapel Hill's boards dropped roads across the University's Mason Farm. The towns then split over extending Estes Drive toward Interstate 40, which Carrboro wanted. A compromise failed in April 1984, each town sent the state its own plan, and that August state transportation officials endorsed Chapel Hill's. StorylineThe Franklin Street extension fight in Carrboro, 19841984 · 5 events · A Carrboro citizens' task force recommended extending Franklin Street into downtown Carrboro in 1984, and the aldermen put $700,000 in bonds for it on the November ballot, choosing a route along Carr Street by the mayor's tie-breaking vote. Residents organized against the road, and voters rejected the extension bonds while approving bonds for streets and bike lanes. StorylineThe Chapel Hill-Carrboro merger study, 1985–19861985–1986 · 4 events · In 1985 Mayors Joe Nassif and Jim Porto asked for an outside study of merging Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and The Chapel Hill Newspaper raised the money from private donors. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce backed the study that fall. In January 1986 the Carrboro aldermen endorsed it 5 to 2, adding that they committed no public money and did not endorse merger. StorylineMoving to middle schools in Chapel Hill-Carrboro, 1986–19891986–1989 · 6 events · As enrollment grew, Chapel Hill-Carrboro elementary schools added temporary classrooms in 1986. In February 1987, after a six-month study and a hearing that backed the change, the school board voted unanimously to turn its junior highs into middle schools for grades six through eight. To relieve crowding it moved Carrboro Elementary's sixth graders to Culbreth Junior High in 1988 and more sixth and ninth graders in 1989. StorylineLGBTQ political firsts in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1980s–1990s1987–1995 · 34 events · Joe Herzenberg's election to the Chapel Hill Town Council in November 1987 made him North Carolina's first openly gay elected official. Carrboro created a domestic partnership registry in September 1994 and Chapel Hill followed in 1995, and in November 1995 Carrboro elected Mike Nelson, the state's first openly gay mayor. StorylineCarrboro’s community recreation center, 1988–19911988–1991 · 6 events · Carrboro's aldermen ordered a study of a community recreation center in 1988, when the recreation director said school buildings could no longer meet demand. Residents divided over the tax increase a 1990 plan needed, and the board asked for a smaller one. In November 1991 voters rejected a $2.15 million bond for the center, 921 to 629. StorylineSister cities of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1988–19921988–1992 · 8 events · Carrboro unofficially adopted Elmenshia, Egypt, as a sister city in 1987. In 1989 Chapel Hill made San Jorge, Nicaragua, its sister city and Carrboro joined the Sister City program, and in 1990 a Chapel Hill delegation watched San Jorge's polls. Soviet visas were refused in 1991, but in May 1992 a delegation signed a protocol of intent in Saratov, Russia, and a Saratov delegation visited that fall. StorylineThe Downtown Commission, the downtown trolleys and Streetscape, 1988–19941988–1994 · 29 events · The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Downtown Commission, incorporated in October 1988 with money from both towns, the University and businesses, hired its first directors, brought back sidewalk vendors and ordered two trolleys. Chapel Hill taxed its downtown merchants to support it in 1989, but Carrboro's aldermen refused money and a tax district. The trolleys began running in Chapel Hill on Labor Day 1989 and first reached Carrboro that December on runs paid for by Carr Mill Mall's owners. After private donations dried up, the commission laid off its two paid staff members in March 1991 and became a volunteer group, and in April 1992 Mayor Ken Broun revived its idle plan committee to draw up a downtown plan. In 1994 the council kept the trolleys for another year while the commission tried to raise ridership, and the town began Streetscape, a $4.8 million plan for downtown sidewalks, lights and buried wires, with a pilot block on West Franklin Street. StorylineCarrboro’s LGBTQ municipal firsts1990 to present · 21 events · From the 1990 equal employment policy and the 1994 domestic partnership ordinance, through Mike Nelson's mayoralty and Lydia Lavelle's, to the 2021 nondiscrimination ordinance: the town acts that made Carrboro a series of firsts. StorylineLatino migration to Carrboro and Chapel Hill1990 to present · 32 events · Latin American families began arriving in Carrboro and Chapel Hill in the 1990s: the neighborhoods and workplaces that received them, and the institutions they built. StorylineThe city schools’ multicultural plan, sexual orientation and the gay literature unit, 1990–19941990–1994 · 18 events · The Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools adopted a multicultural plan in 1990. In 1993 parents protested its lessons on sexual orientation, a committee rewrote its mission statement, and Chapel Hill High's principal suspended the gay and lesbian readings in a teacher's literature unit. In August 1994, after a hearing where most speakers backed it, the school board added sexual orientation to the plan. StorylinePlanning and building new Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, 1990–19941990–1994 · 13 events · In November 1990 the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board planned four new schools by 2000. Early in 1992 it contracted to buy about 40 acres between Old Fayetteville and Hillsborough roads, and in April it discussed a middle school there with the Carrboro aldermen. Citing rising enrollment, officials backed a $52 million school bond, which Orange County voters approved on November 3, 1992. The board chose a Weaver Dairy Road site for a second high school in 1993, and McDougle Middle School, which the Daily Tar Heel called the district's first school named for Black people, opened in August 1994. StorylineProtest and support during the Persian Gulf war, 1990–19911990–1991 · 18 events · As war with Iraq neared and began in 1990 and 1991, peace groups held vigils at the Franklin Street post office, about 1,100 people marched down Franklin Street and students protested in Polk Place. The Community Church became a sanctuary church, but Carrboro and Chapel Hill declined the Greens' sanctuary resolution. Smaller rallies backed the troops, and a Peace Village stood in the Pit until after the cease-fire. StorylineChapel Hill's crime and drug task force, 1991–19941991–1994 · 15 events · Council member Roosevelt Wilkerson proposed a task force on violent crime and drugs in December 1990, and Chapel Hill set it up under social work dean John Turner early in 1991. It heard arguments over the downtown shelter and the NAACP's call for jobs for Black youth, and in October 1991 the council began carrying out its 49 recommendations. In 1992 Carrboro joined a joint task force, police planned new patrol districts, and Pine Knolls and public housing residents pressed for action on drug dealing. In 1993 a $30,000 gift from The Village Companies paid for unarmed civilian patrols downtown, and in October 1994 the task force disbanded seven of its nine committees. StorylineThe 1991 town elections in Chapel Hill and Carrboro1991 · 8 events · Mayor Jonathan Howes did not seek a third term in 1991, and on November 5 Chapel Hill elected the UNC law professor Ken Broun mayor over Rosemary Waldorf and Tommy Gardner and put Joe Capowski and the UNC senior Mark Chilton on the council. Carrboro returned its three incumbent aldermen and Mayor Eleanor Kinnaird but turned down a $2.15 million recreation center bond. StorylineThe Midway Development Commission, 1992–19931992–1993 · 5 events · In 1992 the Midway Development Commission asked Chapel Hill for money to revitalize the largely Black business and church district on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro line. The town granted it $6,000 in 1993, and it incorporated that March. A teen center it backed closed that fall after a police memo linked it to a downtown beating, though the chief later said he had no indication anyone from the center was involved. StorylineThe 1993 town elections in Chapel Hill and Carrboro1993 · 12 events · In November 1993 Chapel Hill re-elected Mayor Ken Broun without opposition and chose six council members led by Rosemary Waldorf, while Carrboro gave Mayor Eleanor Kinnaird a fourth term over Hilliard Caldwell. Jacquelyn Gist, Mike Nelson and Hank Anderson won the aldermen's seats, Anderson's after a recount, and the new boards took office on December 7. StorylineLaVonda Burnette and the school board recall, 1993–19941993–1994 · 15 events · LaVonda Burnette won a Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board seat in November 1993 and a month later acknowledged she was not enrolled at UNC. The board asked her to resign and sought a recall law, which the legislature passed in 1994 over NAACP objections. After a recall petition was certified for the November ballot, she resigned in October, and Bea Hughes-Werner took the seat. StorylineBurmese and Karen refugee communities2005 to present · 23 events · Refugee families from Burma began resettling in Chapel Hill and Carrboro in 2005: the schools, gardens and congregations that grew with them.

A selection of 12 events from Carrboro’s 2,006 chronology entries, including highlights and examples from different years. See all 2,006 dated events in the chronology →

  1. A log house, later the Weaver House, is built beside the Hillsborough wagon road A story-and-a-jump house of hewn logs, one room on each floor, went up a few yards from the wagon road to Hillsborough, whose roadbed could still be traced in 1983. Tradition says it was first a tavern; it is the oldest building standing in Carrboro.Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 29
  2. Elizabeth Cotten composes Freight Train At about age eleven, growing up near the railroad tracks in the settlement that became Carrboro, Elizabeth Cotten wrote "Freight Train." She played a right-handed guitar upside down, and the song became a folk standard after Folkways released her recording in 1958. People: Elizabeth “Libba” CottenSearch the index · NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: Elizabeth Cotten 1893-1987 (G-129)
  3. Influenza epidemic strikes Chapel Hill Spanish influenza swept the University in early October 1918, putting the campus and its student soldiers under a three-week quarantine. By October 23 about 300 students had been ill and three had died, and President Edward Kidder Graham died of influenza and pneumonia on October 26. People: Edward Kidder GrahamThe Tar Heel, October 23, 1918, p. 1
  4. Orange County hires an electrical inspector to enforce the state electrical code A 1975 county planning report says the county took on an electrical inspector in 1952 to enforce the North Carolina State Electrical Code, though the county commissioners had named electrical inspectors and required wiring permits in April 1948. By 1975 the county enforced that code in every township and inside Carrboro and Hillsborough.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 21 · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 8, 1948, p. 1
  5. Braxton Foushee becomes Carrboro’s first Black alderman Braxton Foushee was elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen in 1969, the first Black member of the town's governing board, and served until 1981. He pressed for paved roads and sidewalks in Black neighborhoods and counted bringing bus service to Carrboro as his proudest achievement. People: Braxton FousheeTown of Carrboro: Braxton Foushee to Receive the Order of the Long Leaf Pine (November 14, 2025)
  6. Stage-three water restrictions take effect as University Lake drops When University Lake fell 72 inches below its crest, OWASA's conservation plan moved to stage three and the Chapel Hill and Carrboro boards enacted mandatory limits: no lawn watering or car washing, garden watering only Saturday evenings, water in restaurants only on request, and pool flows cut to the minimum, with violations a misdemeanor.The Daily Tar Heel, September 9, 1977, p. 7
  7. Bob Drakeford is elected mayor of Carrboro Robert "Bob" Drakeford, a Carrboro alderman since 1975 and a Carrboro Community Coalition candidate, won the mayor's race on November 8, 1977, with 57 percent of the vote over John Boone. He was the town's first Black mayor and served until 1983. Also named: Robert Bob Drakeford, John BooneThe Daily Tar Heel, November 9, 1977, p. 1
  8. Orange County Rural Buffer is established Orange County adopted the Orange County-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Joint Planning Area Land Use Plan and map on August 19, 1986, designating a low-density Rural Buffer. The three governments signed the Joint Planning Agreement on November 2, 1987, and the county dates the buffer to 1988.Search the index · Town of Chapel Hill: Joint Planning Agreement (Orange County, Chapel Hill, Carrboro), November 2, 1987, as amended · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, October 28, 1987, p. 3; The Daily Tar Heel, November 11, 1987, p. 3
  9. OWASA begins a three-month program to flush its water mains The Orange Water and Sewer Authority began flushing sediment from its pipes through opened hydrants to improve water quality and cut complaints about discolored or bad-tasting water, while the reservoirs were high; operations engineer Hanif Zurmati said the water had not been flushed in many years and hoped to make it yearly. Also named: Hanif Zurmati · Also mentions: Orange Water and Sewer AuthorityThe Daily Tar Heel, February 16, 1988, p. 3
  10. El Centro Latino serves Latino residents from Carrboro El Centro Latino, incorporated in 1999, provided educational and social services, advocacy and cultural activities for Latinos in and around Orange County from Carrboro. It closed the day before Thanksgiving 2009 after funding losses and eight executive directors in ten years.UNC Graduate School: El Centro Latino y más
  11. Drakeford Library Complex opens Orange County's Southern Branch Library opened in February 2025 in the $42 million Drakeford Library Complex at 203 South Greensboro Street in Carrboro, replacing the Carrboro Cybrary, which had closed on January 31, 2025. The building, named for Robert Drakeford, Carrboro's first Black mayor, also houses town recreation offices and WCOM Radio. Also named: Robert Bob Drakeford, Robert DrakefordThe Local Reporter: Southern Branch Library has a "soft opening" (February 12, 2025)
  12. Carrboro Town Council reaffirms support for immigrant communities and its 4th Amendment status The Town Council passed a resolution by council members Eliazar Posada-Orozco and Cristóbal Palmer condemning discriminatory actions by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and reaffirming Carrboro's status as a 4th Amendment town. The council had voted unanimously for that designation on May 20, 2025. People: Barbara Foushee Also named: Eliazar Posada-Orozco, Cristóbal PalmerTown of Carrboro: Carrboro This Week, Nov. 20, 2025

See all 2,006 dated events in the chronology →

Maps of Carrboro

Dated maps that show this place, oldest first: town plans, county, road and soil maps, fire insurance sheets and the U.S. Geological Survey’s topographic maps, each linked to the library or archive that holds it. The USGS maps are free to download.

  1. Map of Orange County UNC
  2. School map, Orange County, North Carolina. UNC
  3. Carrboro Map [1935 DigitalNC
  4. USGS topographic map, Chapel Hill quadrangle (1:24,000) U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)
  5. USGS topographic map, Chapel Hill quadrangle (1:31,680) U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)
  6. Map of Chapel Hill - Carrboro, N.C. (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  7. Map of Chapel Hill-Carrboro, N.C. UNC
  8. Highway maintenance map of Orange County, North Carolina DPLA
  9. Federal-Aid Systems map of Orange County, North Carolina DPLA
  10. Chapel Hill, Carrboro & Environs Zoning Map (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  11. 1967 map of Chapel Hill-Carrboro. UNC
  12. Orange County, North Carolina (Highway culture map) DPLA
Show 18 more maps
  1. Orange County, North Carolina (Highway maintenance map) DPLA
  2. Soil map and interpretations : Town of Carrboro, North Carolina : provided in assistance to Orange Soil and Water Conservation District through the North Central Piedmont Resource Conservation and Development Program, project no. 149. UNC
  3. Map of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and the Univ. of North Carolina UNC
  4. Highway maintenance map of Orange County, North Carolina DPLA
  5. Thoroughfare plan : Chapel Hill, Carrboro, North Carolina. UNC
  6. USGS topographic map, Chapel Hill quadrangle (1:24,000) U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)
  7. FIRM, flood insurance rate map, town of Carrboro, North Carolina, Orange County UNC
  8. Floodway, flood boundary and floodway map, town of Carrboro, North Carolina, Orange County UNC
  9. Highway maintenance map of Orange County, North Carolina DPLA
  10. Maps of Orange County, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library of Congress
  11. USGS topographic map, Chapel Hill quadrangle (1:24,000) U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)
  12. Map of Chapel Hill - Carrboro : including school districts with University of North Carolina, Orange County, Hillsborough, Research Triangle Park. UNC
  13. Powell bill map, 1984 : town of Carrboro, N.C Library of Congress
  14. Maps of Orange County with Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. UNC
  15. Map of Orange County with Chapel Hill & Carrboro, North Carolina with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus map UNC
  16. USGS topographic map, Chapel Hill quadrangle (1:24,000) U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)
  17. Map of Orange County with Chapel Hill & Carrboro, North Carolina : with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus map UNC
  18. Map of Orange County with Chapel Hill and Carrboro, North Carolina : with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus map. UNC

Indexed works

Works about Carrboro from library and archive catalogs. The most widely held appear first; novels are not shown here. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.

Filter these works by material or period. Counts refer to works, not individual copies. A work may appear under more than one period.

Material

Maps 119Histories 104Periodicals 91Photographs & portraits 54Directories 35other types 102

Period

18th century 119th century 1520th century 44World War II era 2321st century 3

Widely held

Chapel Hill in Plain Sight

Athas, Daphne · 2010 · Eno Publishers

Twelve essays by novelist Daphne Athas (1923-2020) on the Chapel Hill she knew across the twentieth century. Subjects include Carrboro as 'the Paris of the Piedmont', philosopher Horace Williams, Betty Smith writing in Chapel Hill, Junius Scales, Ab Abernethy and the Intimate Bookshop, Richard Wright's visit, and a set of Chapel Hill murders. Published 2010, 243 pages with illustrations.

Included because: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Athas, Daphne, 1923-.

✓ Held at OCPL · 975.656 ATHAS NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress CH Historical Society

Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small

Cook, John · 2009 · Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

John Cook's history of Merge Records, the independent label that Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance of Superchunk built in Chapel Hill. Chapters follow the label year by year from 1987 to 2009 and pause for profiles of Butterglory, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Magnetic Fields, Spoon, Lambchop and the Arcade Fire, ending on how it managed to stay small. Advance reading copy of the first edition, published in Chapel Hill in 2009, 289 pages with twelve pages of plates.

✓ Held at OCPL · 338.761 COOK UNC Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress

Francis Preston Venable of the University of North Carolina

Bursey, Maurice M. · 1989 · Chapel Hill Historical Society

Maurice M. Bursey's biography of Francis Preston Venable (1856 to 1934), chemist and president of the University of North Carolina, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1989. It also covers the history of the university's chemistry department. Illustrated, 111 pages, with bibliographies.

Included because: The record names this place alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

Reviewed in Isis (1992).

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State Chapel Hill PL Durham Library of Congress CH Historical Society

Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Popular Music

Menconi, David · 2020

David Menconi's history of popular music in North Carolina, from the working-class roots of the state's traditions to the Chapel Hill and Carrboro rock scene of recent decades. Menconi, who covered music for the Raleigh News and Observer for nearly thirty years, builds the book on interviews and reporting, and Black musicians' contributions run through it. First issued in print by UNC Press in 2020; this is the online edition, 329 pages with illustrations.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (2022).

✓ Held at OCPL · 781.64 MENCONI Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU

Orange County Trio: Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, North Carolina, Histories and Tour Guides

Ryan, Elizabeth Shreve · 2004 · Chapel Hill Press

Elizabeth Shreve Ryan's combined histories and tour guides for Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the three towns of Orange County, with the University of North Carolina treated alongside Chapel Hill. Each town gets a narrative history and a tour of its streets and buildings. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2004, 369 pages with illustrations and maps.

Included because: Catalog heading in the Library of Congress record: Carrboro (N.C.) -- Tours.

✓ Held at OCPL · 975.656 RYAN NC Cardinal UNC Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress CH Historical Society
Show 2 more

Rogers Road

Pearce, Emily Eidenier · 2009

Emily Eidenier Pearce's history of Rogers Road, the historically African American neighborhood on the edge of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and of what happened to it after Orange County opened its landfill next door in 1972. Drawing on interviews with residents, the book records the neighborhood's origins, family life, churches and customs, and then the environmental and social burdens of decades beside the landfill. Privately issued in 2009, 298 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits.

✓ Held at OCPL · 975.656 EID NC Cardinal UNC Durham Chapel Hill PL CH Historical Society

Farewell forever, old road to Durham : lessons from the history of transportation planning in the North Carolina Piedmont

Chilton, Mark · 2012 · Hand Made Books

Mark Chilton's short history of transportation planning in the North Carolina Piedmont, drawing lessons from earlier projects. Subjects include the Cape Fear Navigation Company and river navigation, and the railroads of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, including the State University Railroad Company whose spur brought trains to the two towns. Chilton was mayor of Carrboro when the book appeared. Published by Hand Made Books, Carrboro, 2012, 92 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits.

Included because: Catalog heading in the UNC record: North Carolina -- Carrboro.

NC Cardinal UNC Durham

Recently indexed: The 100 best art towns in America : a guide to galleries, museums, festivals, lodging, and dining (2005) · Capt. and Mrs. Fred Smith to celebrate 50-year romance in railroading today : popular railroad conductor is fondly remembered by thousands of university students he has hauled from University Junction to Chapel Hill : has seen 43 years of service (1931) · El Kanil, man of lightning : a legend of Jacaltenango, Department of Hueheutenango, Guatemala (1984) · Francis Preston Venable, Ph.D. : a brief sketch (1900) · The University of North Carolina, 1900-1930 : the making of a modern university (1957) · The use of economic incentives and public education to increase seat belt use in a community (1984)

Search all 952 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this place. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.

  • Foundational · 975.656 RYAN Orange County Trio: Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, North Carolina, Histories and Tour Guides Ryan, Elizabeth Shreve · 2004

    Elizabeth Shreve Ryan's combined histories and tour guides for Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the three towns of Orange County, with the University of North Carolina treated alongside Chapel Hill. Each town gets a narrative history and a tour of its streets and buildings. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2004, 369 pages with illustrations and maps.

  • Start here · NC 720.975 BRO Carrboro, N.C: An Architectural & Historical Inventory Brown, Claudia Roberts · 1983

    Architectural and historical inventory of Carrboro by Claudia Roberts Brown, published in 1983 by the Carrboro Appearance Commission and the town. The 48-page survey, with illustrations and maps, documents the town's historic buildings and their conservation.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 975.656 OTTO Carrboro Otto, David · 2015

    Second Images of America volume on Carrboro by David A. Otto and Richard Ellington (Arcadia, 2015). Chapters follow the town from mill village to growing urban center, then turn to its merchants, the arts, festivals, changing demographics and changing architecture, in 95 illustrated pages.

Show 3 more
  • Rebecca Wall Collection · 975.656 OTTO Carrboro Otto, David · 2011

    Pictorial history of Carrboro in Arcadia's Images of America series by David A. Otto and Richard Ellington, published in 2011. Its 127 pages of photographs, maps, facsimiles and portraits cover the town's history, social life and African American community, with a bibliography and index.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 975.656 WYA Many Things Never Before Remembered in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough, North Carolina: The Amazing History Calendar 1999 Wyatt, Lesley · 1998

    Lesley Wyatt's history calendar for 1999, subtitled the amazing history calendar, a wall calendar with local history notes on Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough. Published by the author in Carrboro in 1998, 28 unnumbered pages with illustrations in a large 28 by 44 cm format. Topics include the history of all three towns and of Orange County.

  • Start here · 362.85 GILL Going to Carolina Del Norte: Narrating Mexican Migrant Experiences Gill, Hannah · 2006

    Stories of Mexican migrants told through a collaboration of the anthropologist Hannah Gill, the artist Todd Drake and migrant communities in Carrboro and Celaya, Guanajuato, subtitled narrating Mexican migrant experiences. It deals with migrant labor and Mexican workers in Carrboro and emigration from Celaya. Published by the University Center for International Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2006, 78 pages with color illustrations.

Research sources

Sources and research tools for this place. Research guide: Research a neighborhood or rural community.

Background

National Register files

Historic sites, markers, and maps

Records of the time 5

Show all 5

Collections and databases

  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Carrboro Library card Search NC LIVE for this subject and Orange County. You can change the search terms. Sign in through your North Carolina library to access the materials.

Local help 5

Show all 5
  • Local History Help Hours and request formOCPL Local History Liaison Meet with the Local History Liaison at the Main Library, usually Mondays from noon to 3 p.m., or send a question using the online request form

Related themes

Arts, Music & Performance →Chapel Hill and Carrboro music scene →Growth, Land & Planning →From West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town, 1882–1913 →Roads, Rail & Transportation →Schools & Education →

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