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Town in Orange County

Chapel Hill

The town grew up around the University of North Carolina, chartered in 1789 and opened in 1795, and was incorporated in 1819. Its records run from the college village on the hill to the university town of today.

Source: NCpedia, North Carolina Gazetteer

7,481 indexed works are connected with this place. 101 held at OCPL →

Themes here. The subjects the index files most often under Chapel Hill.

UNC & Campus LifeSchools & EducationBuildings & PreservationBusiness, Shops & CommerceArts, Music & PerformanceBlack Life & Civil RightsLibraries, Archives & Public MemoryLiterature & Publishing

Three views of Chapel Hill. The counts above are the town and community view; the university has its own, and every connection is the third.

Town & community UNC & campus All Chapel Hill connections
Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓

In the chronology

Storylines set here, earliest first. Each has its own page.

Slavery in Orange County1758–2021 · 102 events · Enslaved people worked the county’s farms, households, courts and university from the first settlements, building Old East and South Building, appearing in the 1790 tax list and the 1860 census count of more than 5,000, and passing through the courts in the Kirkland suit of 1804 and State v. Mann in 1829. Emancipation in 1865 freed about 6,000 people; the recovery of their graves and names, from Margaret Lane Cemetery to the university’s list of 119, has continued since 1987. The founding of the University and Chapel Hill, 1789–17951789–1795 · 37 events · The General Assembly chartered the university on December 11, 1789. Meeting at Hillsborough in August 1792, the trustees voted to build within fifteen miles of Cyprett's Bridge, and that November their commissioners chose New Hope Chapel Hill. The Old East cornerstone was laid October 12, 1793, and the first student, Hinton James, arrived February 12, 1795. Black workers and campus labor1795–2021 · 31 events · Enslaved men built and served the university from its first buildings, Wilson Caldwell led its labor force after Reconstruction, and the janitors organized an association in 1930 that became a CIO local in 1942. The university named the laundry for Kennon Cheek and Rebecca Clark in 1998, dedicated the Unsung Founders Memorial in 2005 and published the names of 119 enslaved workers in 2018. Orange County during the Civil War, 1861–18651861–1865 · 42 events · Students left Chapel Hill to enlist from late April 1861, and Hillsborough Military Academy's founder, Charles Tew, left in May to command a Confederate regiment. The university stayed open as enrollment fell to about a dozen. Federal cavalry held Chapel Hill from April 17 to May 3, 1865, as many newly freed people left town or joined the army. Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro1864–2018 · 55 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. Northside, Pine Knolls, and Tin Top1864–2023 · 43 events · Chapel Hill’s historic Black neighborhoods took shape after emancipation around the West End church and school, the Orange County Training School and its Rosenwald campus of 1924, St. Joseph CME and First Baptist, and the tin-roofed houses that named Tin Top. Lincoln High opened on Merritt Mill Road in 1951, residents resisted urban renewal in the 1970s, and as the Black population fell by about 40 percent the conservation districts, the Jackson Center and the 2015 Northside initiative worked to keep the neighborhoods in place.
Show all 37 storylines
The university closes and reopens1868 to 1875 · 46 events · Reconstruction Republicans took control of the trustees in 1868 and dismissed the old faculty; Solomon Pool's presidency drew almost no students, and the university closed in February 1871. The legislature revived it in March 1875, Cornelia Phillips Spencer rang the bell, and it reopened in September under a rebuilt faculty. Segregation and access to medical care1901–1965 · 14 events · Black patients in the county went to Durham’s Lincoln Hospital from 1901, well-baby clinics were held separately in the 1940s, and the new hospitals of the 1950s opened with separate wards. UNC admitted its first Black medical student in 1951, the NAACP picketed Memorial Hospital in 1963, and the hospital ended racial segregation in 1965. Silent Sam1913–2018 · 15 events · On June 2, 1913, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and UNC alumni dedicated a Confederate soldier statue in McCorkle Place, and Julian Carr's dedication speech boasted of whipping a Black woman. The monument drew decades of protest until demonstrators pulled it down on August 20, 2018. Segregated schooling and the rise of Lincoln and Central High Schools1916–1969 · 45 events · In 1916 the Chapel Hill school district bought Louis Hackney's school and renamed it Orange County Training School, later Lincoln High. Hillsborough's Black high school opened in 1936 and became Central High in 1948. Desegregation closed Lincoln as a high school in 1966, discarding its name and colors, and after 1968 walkouts Central's students moved to Orange High. The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press1918 to 1937 · 20 events · Frederick Koch's Carolina Playmakers, organized in 1918, and the University of North Carolina Press, founded in 1922, made Chapel Hill a place where plays and books were made as well as read. Public health in rural Orange County1924 to 1955 · 26 events · County nurses, clinics, the district health department and sanitation work reached into rural Orange County from 1924: the campaigns against typhoid, diphtheria, tuberculosis and polio through 1955. UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer1924 to present · 31 events · National titles won by Carolina teams other than women's soccer: the 1924 basketball team's later Helms recognition, men's basketball's six NCAA championships from 1957, women's basketball in 1994, and the field hockey, lacrosse, men's soccer and women's tennis titles since 1981. Water for the towns: University Lake, the 1976–77 drought, and OWASA1932–1977 · 31 events · The University dammed Morgan Creek in 1932 to create University Lake. Droughts in 1968 and 1976–77 forced rationing and purchases from Durham, and on February 16, 1977 the Orange Water and Sewer Authority, organized by the county and both towns, took over the university and town systems. A long fight over a Cane Creek reservoir followed. The Hargraves Center and Chapel Hill’s Negro Community Center1939–2022 · 16 events · Chapel Hill’s Black residents bought land for a Negro Community Center in 1939; the Navy finished the building as quarters for the B-1 Band during the war, and it opened for community use in 1945. It gained the A.D. Clark Pool in 1961, was renamed for William M. Hargraves in 1973 and added the Northside Gymnasium in 1998, and its gym was named for Nate Davis in 2022. UNC expansion and neighborhood change1940–2026 · 25 events · The university’s growth pressed on the streets around it, from Victory Village for veterans in 1946 to the main-campus development plan of 2001, the Carolina North agreement of 2009 and the campus extension announced in 2026. Northside and Pine Knolls answered with conservation districts, a building freeze in 2011 and a community plan, while a 2025 state law removed the town’s zoning control over university projects. The Navy Pre-Flight School at Chapel Hill, 1942–1945May 1942–October 1945 · 10 events · Commissioned at UNC in May 1942, the U.S. Navy Pre-Flight School trained 18,700 cadets before it was decommissioned on October 15, 1945. Cadets ate in Lenoir Hall and drilled in a Navy-built armory that opened in 1943. George H. W. Bush trained there as a cadet, Gerald Ford taught there, and Ted Williams played on its baseball team. North Carolina Memorial Hospital and the medical center, from 19521947–2012 · 24 events · The Good Health Plan of 1947 funded a four-year medical school and teaching hospital at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina Memorial Hospital admitted its first patients in September 1952. It ended racial segregation in 1965, became UNC Hospitals in 1989 and the UNC Health Care System in 1998, and with the cancer and neurosciences hospitals made the town a medical center employing about 7,000 people by 2010. Desegregating the University of North Carolina, 1951–19551951–1955 · 14 events · After a 1951 federal court decision in McKissick v. Carmichael, five Black students began law school classes at UNC on June 22, 1951. In September 1955, again under court order, LeRoy and Ralph Frasier and John Lewis Brandon of Durham registered as the university's first Black undergraduates. Binkley Baptist and the Community Church of Chapel Hill1953–1993 · 13 events · The Community Church of Chapel Hill formed in 1953 as an interracial congregation and started an integrated preschool in 1955; Binkley Baptist organized in 1958 under Robert Seymour. The Baptist association refused Binkley membership in 1966 over its open membership, the state and Southern conventions disassociated from it in 1992, and the Community Church joined the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1993. Research Triangle Park and the county’s transformationFrom 1959 · 14 events · The Research Triangle Foundation, formed in 1959, ran the research park planned between Durham and Raleigh around UNC, N.C. State and Duke. That November Orange County commissioners said the park would bring the county mainly new residents and school costs rather than taxable industry, and began discussing county-wide zoning. Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–19641960–1964 · 35 events · Nine Lincoln High students began Chapel Hill's sit-ins at Colonial Drug on February 28, 1960. Through 1963 and 1964 Black residents and UNC students picketed, marched and sat in, and held a Holy Week fast at the post office, but the aldermen narrowly rejected a public accommodations ordinance and many businesses stayed segregated until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1959–19671961–1966 · 24 events · 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. The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–19641963 to 1964 · 16 events · Marches, sit-ins and arrests over segregated businesses from 1963 into 1964, the aldermen's refusal of a public accommodations ordinance, the Holy Week fast, and the Watts Restaurant protests and the Klopfer speedy-trial case that grew out of them. Wall speeches at the campus line, 19661966–2011 · 19 events · In 1966 the trustees barred Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker from the campus under the Speaker Ban law, so each spoke to students across the stone wall at McCorkle Place from the Franklin Street sidewalk. Students and the two speakers sued in Dickson v. Sitterson, a federal court struck the law down in 1968, and a marker went up at the wall in 2011. Black student activism at UNCFrom 1967 · 18 events · Black students founded the Black Student Movement at UNC in November 1967. It presented 23 demands to Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson in December 1968, backed the cafeteria workers' strike of 1969, and in the 1990s pressed for a freestanding Black cultural center, which opened as the Sonja Haynes Stone Center in 2004. Preserving affordable housing1967–2024 · 30 events · Chapel Hill opened its first public housing in 1967, brought it under town control after a rent strike in the 1980s, and with Carrboro and the county built the Orange Community Housing and Land Trust from 1991. Conservation districts for Northside and Pine Knolls, inclusionary zoning in 2010, housing bonds in 2016 and 2018 and the Northside land bank followed, and the land trust marked 30 years with 332 permanently affordable homes in 2021. Chapel Hill and Carrboro music sceneFrom 1969 · 34 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." The Cat’s Cradle and the “Chapel Hill sound” of the 1990s1969–2020 · 27 events · The Cat’s Cradle opened in 1969, Merge Records was founded in 1989, and by 1992 Superchunk, Polvo, Archers of Loaf and the clubs of Franklin Street had national magazines asking whether Chapel Hill was the next Seattle. The Cradle moved to Carrboro in 1993, Ben Folds Five and the Squirrel Nut Zippers followed, and Merge’s anniversary festivals and the Cradle’s 50th year in 2019 marked a scene that outlived the label hunt. UNC food workers’ and housekeepers’ struggles, 1969 to 19961969 · 13 events · UNC cafeteria workers struck twice in 1969 over pay and working conditions. Killing of James Cates, 19701970–2025 · 18 events · James Cates, a Black Chapel Hill man, was stabbed to death in the Pit at UNC in November 1970, and three Durham men were tried and acquitted by an all-white jury in 1971. Memorial marches followed, a remembrance coalition formed, the Justice Department opened a cold-case investigation in 2022, and UNC dedicated a memorial to him in the Pit that year. Rogers Road environmental justice1972–2019 · 54 events · In 1972 officials placed the county landfill on Eubanks Road beside the historically Black Rogers Road community, promising it would run about ten years. It was expanded instead and did not close until 2013, and residents' organizing through the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association helped win a sewer line for the neighborhood, completed in 2019. UNC women’s soccer national dynasty1981 to present · 26 events · Anson Dorrance, the program's head coach from its first varsity season in 1979 through 2023, led the Tar Heels to the 1981 AIAW national title and 21 NCAA titles, and his successor Damon Nahas added the 2024 NCAA title, for 23 national championships in all through the 2025 season. UNC won 22 of the 43 NCAA tournaments held from 1982 through 2024, and its teams went 103 consecutive games without a loss from 1986 to 1990. LGBTQ political firsts in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1980s–1990s1987–1995 · 21 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. Latino migration to Carrboro and Chapel Hill1990 to present · 29 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. Hurricane Fran, September 19961996–1998 · 12 events · Hurricane Fran crossed the county overnight on 5 to 6 September 1996, felling thousands of trees, cutting power to about 29,000 Chapel Hill customers and pushing the Eno at Hillsborough to its highest recorded flow. Chapel Hill declared an emergency, OWASA issued a boil-water advisory, UNC suspended classes for a campus cleanup, and Duke Forest spent two years salvaging timber. Burmese and Karen refugee communities2005 to present · 22 events · Refugee families from Burma began resettling in Chapel Hill and Carrboro in 2005: the schools, gardens and congregations that grew with them.

Other dated events here: sixteen of 3,090, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 3,090 dated events in the chronology →

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

16 dated events

  1. George Moses Horton begins selling poems to UNC students

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    By about age twenty, George Moses Horton, enslaved on a Chatham County farm, was carrying fruit to the UNC campus on Sundays, and students began paying him to compose love poems and acrostics. His first printed poem appeared in April 1829, the year The Hope of Liberty was published.

  2. UNC reopens

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    The university resumed classes on Monday, September 6, 1875, after more than four years closed, with Charles Phillips as chairman of the faculty, and held a public celebration on September 15. Kemp P. Battle, then secretary of the trustees, was elected president in 1876.

    People: Kemp Plummer Battle

  3. Sallie Walker Stockard becomes UNC's first woman graduate

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    Sallie Walker Stockard, a Guilford College graduate, entered UNC's senior class in the fall of 1897, the first year the university admitted women. She became the first woman to graduate from UNC when the class of 1898 received its degrees on June 1, 1898, and she earned a master's degree there in 1900.

  4. The Carolina Playmakers are organized

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Frederick H. Koch organized the Carolina Playmakers at UNC.

    Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 20 events

    People: Frederick H. Koch

    Subject: Carolina Playmakers

  5. Influenza epidemic strikes Chapel Hill

    Disaster or outbreak · Carrboro

    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.

    Part of The 1918 influenza pandemic in Orange County

  6. The University of North Carolina Press is founded

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    On June 12, 1922, university librarian Louis Round Wilson, nine other faculty members and three trustees founded the University of North Carolina Press, the first university press in the South. Its first book, William C. Coker's study of water molds, appeared in 1923, and William T. Couch became director in 1932.

    Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 20 events

    People: William T. Couch · Louis Round Wilson

  7. The Carolina Inn is built

    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill

    John Sprunt Hill built the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill.

    People: John Sprunt Hill

    Subject: The Carolina Inn

  8. District health department holds midwife classes across Orange County

    Health or relief action · Orange County

    Classes for midwives were held at Efland and Hillsboro and began for those in and near Chapel Hill at the health department offices, with attendance required before a permit to practice would be issued. Health officer W. P. Richardson said 17 percent of births in the county were attended by midwives, against 31 percent statewide.

    Part of Public health in rural Orange County · 26 events

  9. The Navy B-1 Band serves at Chapel Hill

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    The B-1 Band, 44 Black musicians sworn in at Raleigh on May 27, 1942 as the first African Americans to serve in the Navy at general rank, played for the Navy Pre-Flight School at UNC from July 1942 to April 1944. Barred from campus housing, they lived in the new Black community center on Roberson Street, now the Hargraves Center.

    Part of The Navy Pre-Flight School at Chapel Hill, 1942–1945 · 10 events

    Subject: Hargraves Community Center · Navy Pre-Flight School

  10. Journey of Reconciliation comes to Chapel Hill

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    Interracial riders testing segregation on interstate buses reached Chapel Hill on April 12, 1947. The next day police arrested four of them at the bus station and a white cab driver struck rider James Peck. Convicted in Orange County, Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko and Joe Felmet surrendered at the Hillsborough courthouse on March 21, 1949 to serve chain-gang sentences.

    Part of Journey of Reconciliation in Chapel Hill, 1947

    People: Bayard Rustin · George Houser · Igal Roodenko · Joseph A. Felmet

    Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

  11. Morehead Planetarium is dedicated

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Morehead Planetarium was dedicated at UNC on May 10, 1949.

    People: John Motley Morehead III

    Subject: Morehead Planetarium

  12. North Carolina Memorial Hospital opens

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    North Carolina Memorial Hospital opened to patients on Tuesday, September 2, 1952, without a formal ceremony, as the core of the new University Medical Center. Its opening allowed the UNC School of Medicine to grow from a two-year program into a four-year school.

    Part of North Carolina Memorial Hospital and the medical center, from 1952 · 24 events

    Subject: UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital) · UNC School of Medicine

  13. WUNC-TV begins broadcasting

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    WUNC-TV began broadcasting from Chapel Hill on January 8, 1955.

    Subject: WUNC radio and television

  14. UNC men’s basketball wins the 1957 NCAA national championship

    Competition or sporting achievement · Chapel Hill

    UNC defeated Kansas, 54–53 in triple overtime, to win the national title.

    Part of UNC national championships beyond women’s soccer · 31 events

    People: Frank McGuire

  15. Chapel Hill Public Library opens

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Chapel Hill's first public library held its formal opening on December 15, 1958 in the east wing of the Hill House on West Franklin Street, with about 4,500 books, 2,000 of them lent by state and regional libraries. It moved to its own building at 523 East Franklin Street in 1967 and to Pritchard Park in 1994.

    Subject: Chapel Hill Public Library

  16. UNC food workers' strike

    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill

    On February 23, 1969 food service workers at UNC's Lenoir Hall left their counters and sat down at the cafeteria tables, and by the next morning nearly 100 dining hall employees had refused to report for work. The strike ended on March 21 when the University agreed to raise the hourly minimum from $1.60 to $1.80, pay roughly $180,000 in back wages, and appoint a Black supervisor.

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

    People: Mary Smith · Elizabeth Brooks · J. Carlyle Sitterson · Robert W. Scott · Julius L. Chambers

    Subject: Lenoir Hall

Maps of Chapel Hill

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. John Daniel Survey of University lands with annotations, 7 November 1792-8 November 1792 DPLA
  2. Later copy of the John Daniel map of Nov. 7, 8, 1792 DPLA
  3. Map of the site of the University of North Carolina and Chapel Hill UNC
  4. Plat of lands donated to the University with names of donors and size of gift DPLA
  5. A plan of the situation of ye University, ye ornamental ground, ye adjacent village : the lands belonging to ye trustees together with ye springs : June 1st, 1795. UNC
  6. Plan of the village at the University with the adjoining lands belonging to the institution. UNC
  7. Plan of the village of Chapel Hill on a scale of 200 yards to an inch. UNC
  8. Plan of the Village of Chapel Hill on a scale of 200 yards to an Inch--Copy from a Plot in the Possession of William Pannill which was taken from the Plot of John Craig, Esq. DPLA
  9. Map of Orange County UNC
  10. Chapel Hill town layout about 1818 (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  11. Map of Chapel Hill and vicinity UNC
  12. Map of Chapel Hill business district in 1892 DPLA
Show 36 more maps
  1. Map of Chapel Hill UNC
  2. Chapel Hill & Vicinity topo map (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  3. Map showing rural free delivery routes nos. 1 & 2 from Chapel Hill, Orange Co., N.C. UNC
  4. Map showing rural free delivery route no. 3 from Chapel Hill, Orange County, N.C. UNC
  5. Orange County soil map (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  6. Topography, Chapel Hill and vicinity, Orange County, North Carolina. UNC
  7. The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C. sketch plan, revised : redesign of paths & location of future buildings UNC
  8. Rosemary Street Residence for Dr. J.B. Bullitt Basement Plan DigitalNC
  9. Map of University Heights, Chapel Hill, 1922 DigitalNC
  10. School map, Orange County, North Carolina. UNC
  11. Soil map UNC
  12. University Heights (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  13. Map of Westwood (partial), Chapel Hill, 1924 DigitalNC
  14. Map of the J.E. Smith Property, Chapel Hill, 1924 DigitalNC
  15. Davie Woods (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  16. Forest Hills (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  17. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Chapel Hill, Orange County, North Carolina. Library of Congress Digital Collections
  18. Strowd Place (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  19. Merritt Land (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  20. Vance Street lot (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  21. Map of Westwood (partial), Chapel Hill, 1928 DigitalNC
  22. Site Plan (Glenn Lennox?) (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  23. Map of Battle Park UNC
  24. Map of Chapel Hill & Vicinity (map, Chapel Hill Historical Society) CH Historical Society
  25. Map of Chapel Hill & Vicinity, January 1933 DigitalNC
  26. Map of Chapel Hill & vicinity. UNC
  27. Chapel Hill about 1875 to 1885 : a map UNC
  28. Map of Chapel Hill as it was in 1875 to 1885 UNC
  29. North Carolina County Road Survey of Orange County DPLA
  30. Map of a Survey of a Portion of the Corporate Bounty of the Town of Chapel Hill, N.C., 1939 DigitalNC
  31. Aerial map of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina. UNC
  32. USGS topographic map, Chapel Hill quadrangle (1:24,000) U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)
  33. USGS topographic map, Chapel Hill quadrangle (1:31,680) U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)
  34. USGS topographic map, Chapel Hill quadrangle (1:24,000) U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)
  35. USGS topographic map, Chapel Hill quadrangle (1:24,000) U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)
  36. USGS topographic map, Chapel Hill quadrangle (1:24,000) U.S. Geological Survey (PDF)

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this place. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.

Material

Photographs & portraits 1,476Histories 973Periodicals 876Biography 604Maps 447other types 1,645

Period

18th century 85Revolution (1775–1783) 1819th century 276Civil War (1861–1865) 4820th century 397World War I era 23World War II era 7121st century 24

Widely held

The Free Men

Ehle, Jr., John Marsden · 1965

John Ehle's account of the civil rights demonstrations in Chapel Hill in 1963 and 1964 and the young people who led them, first published by Harper & Row in 1965. This reprint from Lewisville, North Carolina adds an afterword by Wayne King. Civil rights and race relations in Chapel Hill are its subjects. 340 pages with illustrations and portraits.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 323.4 EHL NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress UNCSA CH Historical Society

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.

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

What it means to be a Tar Heel: Roy Williams and North Carolina's greatest players

Fowler, Scott · 2010 · Triumph Books

Scott Fowler gathers recollections from Carolina basketball players, decade by decade from the 1950s to the 2000s, organized around Roy Williams and the question in the title. Contributors include Lennie Rosenbluth, Larry Brown, Billy Cunningham, Charlie Scott, Phil Ford, James Worthy, Brad Daugherty, Eric Montross, Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Raymond Felton and Sean May, each entry giving position and playing years. Published 2010 by Triumph Books of Chicago, 270 pages, here as an e-book.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Methodist Wingate UNCSA

The Woman Who Rang the Bell: The Story of Cornelia Spencer Phillips

Russell, Charles Phillips · 1949

Charles Phillips Russell's biography of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), the Chapel Hill writer remembered for ringing the bell of South Building when the university reopened in 1875 after its closure during Reconstruction. It doubles as a history of Chapel Hill and the university. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 293 pages with illustrations.

Reviewed in Journal of American History (1949).

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU Wingate CH Historical Society Library of Congress
Show 2 more

PlayMakers Repertory Company: a history

2021

Fifty-year history of PlayMakers Repertory Company, the professional theater founded in 1975 by Tom Haas with Arthur Housman on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill. Chapters by Bobbi Owen, Cecelia Moore and Gregory Kable follow the company leader by leader: Haas, David Rotenberg and Gregory Boyd, Milly S. Barranger and David Hammond, Joseph Haj and Vivienne Benesch. Appendices list productions, Department of Dramatic Art faculty, MFA graduates and administrators since 1975. Published by the department in 2021, 168 pages, online edition.

NC Cardinal Duke NC State NCCU UNC Library of Congress Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Chapel Hill and Elisha Mitchell the Botanist

McVaugh, Rogers; McVaugh, Michael R.; Ayers, Mary · 1996

Elisha Mitchell, the University of North Carolina professor for whom Mount Mitchell is named, as botanist and as observer of early Chapel Hill, in a study by Rogers McVaugh, Michael R. McVaugh and Mary Ayers. It covers Mitchell's botanical knowledge, the plants of Chapel Hill and the town's historical geography. Published by the Botanical Garden Foundation in Chapel Hill in 1996, 122 pages with illustrations and maps.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 580.92 MCV NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State Durham Davidson CH Historical Society Library of Congress

Recently indexed: The ... report of the North Carolina Memorial Hospital (1981) · The '56er's '66 "Yackety Yack" : (plagerized and misquoted from various and sundry 1956 editions of The daily Tar Heel) (1966) · 150th anniversary alumni gift (1924) · 1894-'95 : the centennial year of the university : some features of the North Carolina University magazine for 1894-'95 (1894) · 1924 class gift (1924) · 1937 in memoriam, World War II (1948)

Search all 7,481 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.

  • Start here · NC 975.656 SCHWARTZ Remembering Chapel Hill: The Twentieth Century as We Lived It Schwartz, Valarie · 2009

    Valarie Schwartz's recollections of Chapel Hill, subtitled the twentieth century as we lived it, gathering memories of the town and its people across the 1900s. Published by the History Press of Charleston in 2009, 126 pages with illustrations.

  • Start here · 975.656 VIC Chapel Hill, An Illustrated History Vickers, James · 1985

    An illustrated history of Chapel Hill by James Vickers with Thomas Scism and Dixon Qualls, published in Chapel Hill by Barclay Publishers in 1985. It treats the town and the University of North Carolina together. First edition, 208 pages with illustrations, some in color, and a bibliography.

  • Foundational · 975.656 TWENTY 27 Views of Chapel Hill: A Southern University Town in Prose & Poetry 2011

    Twenty-seven writers contribute essays, short stories and poems about Chapel Hill to this 2011 anthology from Eno Publishers of Hillsborough, issued under Daniel Wallace's name. Among them are Wells Tower, Jock Lauterer, Mildred 'Mama Dip' Council on a life of cooking, Paul Cuadros on the cooks of Franklin Street, William Leuchtenburg on presidential visits, Karen L. Parker, Bland Simpson, Elizabeth Spencer, Daphne Athas and Lawrence Naumoff. 235 pages with illustrations.

Show 6 more
  • 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.

  • Foundational · NC 975.656 GID Who's Gonna Cover 'em Up?!: Chapel Hill Uncovered--1950-1985 : Featuring the Newsman's Notepad Giduz, Roland · 1985

    Roland Giduz, a Chapel Hill newsman, gathers anecdotes and humor about the town from 1950 to 1985 in this 1985 book, subtitled Chapel Hill uncovered and featuring the newsman's notepad. Illustrated, with an index. Part of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection.

  • Start here · NC BIO GREEN ADA Paul Green of Chapel Hill Adams, Agatha Boyd · 1951

    Biographical study of the playwright Paul Green by Agatha Boyd Adams, edited by Richard Walser and issued by the university library in 1951 in its Library Extension Publication series. Topics include his drama at Chapel Hill and his writing on slavery. A slim book of 116 pages with a portrait.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 975.656 PRO Bill Prouty's Chapel Hill Prouty, William W. · 1979

    Columns by William W. Prouty gathered by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1979. The pieces first ran in the Chapel Hill Weekly and the Chapel Hill Newspaper between 1957 and 1978 and take up the town's social life, its people and its passing scene. 116 pages with illustrations and a portrait.

  • Foundational · NC 333.3 DUNAWAY Chapel Hill, N.C. History of Town Lots (1790-1930s) Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2014

    Deed transcripts for the town lots of Chapel Hill and adjoining land from 1790 to the 1930s, compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway. Each transcript keeps only the working facts: grantor and grantee, price, acreage and the metes and bounds of the parcel. Self-published in 2014 as Issue 1G, 702 pages with maps and facsimiles.

  • Foundational · NC 917.56 HIS Historic Buildings and Landmarks of Chapel Hill, N.C Chapel Hill Historical Society · 1973

    A pocket-sized guide to the historic buildings and landmarks of Chapel Hill, prepared by the Chapel Hill Historical Society and printed by Creative Printers in 1973. Forty pages with illustrations and maps, 14 by 22 cm. Topics include architecture, historic buildings and historic districts in Chapel Hill, and the guide is useful for a walking tour of the older parts of town.

Research sources

Places to visit 20

Maps, surveys, and the ground itself

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Read contemporary evidence 10

Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

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Ask locally 5

Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further

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Additional research sources

Other catalogs to search and local organizations that can help.

Background reading at OCPL

Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this place; they may not discuss the Orange County place directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Essays on William Chambers Coker, Passionate Botanist Joslin, Mary Coker · 2003

    Mary Coker Joslin's essays on her uncle, William Chambers Coker (1872 to 1953), the University of North Carolina botanist who began the Coker Arboretum in Chapel Hill in 1903 and chaired the botany department for 36 years. She presents him as scientist, teacher, landscape designer and editor. Published in Chapel Hill by the Botanical Garden Foundation in 2003, the arboretum's centennial year, with drawings by Sandra Brooks-Mathers and eight pages of plates.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Coker, William Chambers, 1872-1953; Botanists -- North Carolina -- Biography OCPL call number: NC 580.92 JOS
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The Descendants of Matthew McCauley Neville, David Lindsay · 2001 Subjects in the OCPL catalog record: McCauley family; Neville family; Lloyd family OCPL call number: NC 929.209 NEV
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The Federal Convention of 1787: North Carolina in the Great Crisis Craige, Burton · 1987

    North Carolina's part in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, told by Burton Craige (1875 to 1945) with biographical sketches of the state's delegates: William Blount, William R. Davie, Alexander Martin, Richard Dobbs Spaight and Hugh Williamson. Archibald Craige published it in 1987, the Convention's bicentennial; 200 pages with portraits, a bibliography and a folded color facsimile map in a back pocket.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: United States Constitutional Convention (1787); Constitutional history -- United States; Constitutional history -- North Carolina OCPL call number: NC 342.73 CRA
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection The Governor Roberts, Nancy · 1972

    Nancy Roberts wrote the text and Bruce Roberts took the photographs for this large-format book about Robert W. Scott, governor of North Carolina from 1969 to 1973. McNally and Loftin of Charlotte published it in 1972, while Scott was still in office; 141 pages.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Scott, Robert Walter, 1929-2009 OCPL call number: NC 975.604 ROB

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