Houses, farms, parks and cemeteries
Battle Park is a wooded park in Chapel Hill whose paths and bridges were laid out by Kemp Battle, dated by the state survey to about 1880. The Forest Theatre was built at its western edge in 1919, and in 1931 the volunteer Battle Park Association reopened about three miles of its trails and rebuilt the bridges.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.
People named in events about this site, ordered by number of mentions. Each example links to an entry with a source citation.
Books, articles, records, and images about Battle Park. Each has been reviewed for relevance; materials held at OCPL appear first.
A Lassie James mystery by John Bare, set in Chapel Hill with Battle Park and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill among its settings, and alumni among its subjects. Wisdom House Books of Chapel Hill published it in 2024, 248 pages with facsimiles, and the copy described is a presentation copy from the author.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Lisa Giencke's 2010 conservation report on Battle Park, the university's natural area in Chapel Hill managed with the North Carolina Botanical Garden, with contributions from Alan Weakley, Peter White, Stephen Keith, Dave Vandermast and Elinor Benami. It deals with botany, natural areas and nature conservation, with partial funding from an Institute of Museum and Library Sciences grant.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
A 2010 trail guide to Battle Park, the 93 acre Piedmont woodland at Chapel Hill, published by the North Carolina Botanical Garden of the University of North Carolina. The folded sheet carries a map of more than two and a half miles of pedestrian trails together with notes on the park's history. Four unnumbered pages with a color illustration, 22 x 36 cm.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
An earlier edition of the North Carolina Botanical Garden's guide to Battle Park in Chapel Hill, printed in 2006, when the trail network was described as more than two miles through 93 acres of forest. The folded sheet gives a trail map with color illustrations and historical notes on the park. Five unnumbered pages, 22 x 36 cm folded to 22 x 9 cm.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Battle Park in Chapel Hill mapped for walkers in 2004, with relief shown by contours on a single sheet of 20 by 34 centimeters. Attributed to the North Carolina Botanical Garden. It guides visitors along the park's footpaths and records the state of the trail network at that date.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Winter bird counts at two Chapel Hill sites, the Mason Farm Biological Reserve and Battle Park, set side by side by Melissa Saunders in 1996. Forty-two leaves with illustrations, maps and a three page bibliography.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
J. Marshall Bullock's short history of Battle Park, the wooded tract beside the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill, published by the author in 1990. Maps and revisions came from John Sanders, and a bibliography fills leaves 26 through 30. Thirty pages with five leaves of maps.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Ralph McCoy Trimble drew this blueprint map of Battle Park in 1933 for the Battle Park Association, oriented with north at the bottom. Paths, streets and the shape of the wooded park appear on a large sheet.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Battle Park, the wooded university tract in Chapel Hill named for UNC president Kemp Plummer Battle, in a newspaper clipping, photocopied articles, notes and maps. Undated folder from box 33 of the UNC series, Chapel Hill Historical Society Vertical File Collection.
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Battle Park, the wooded tract beside the UNC campus, shown in an undated photograph of trees and a stone wall. From the UNC Campus binder of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection (CHHS.002).
Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.
Not about Battle Park alone: the architectural surveys that cover its town or the county, and maps drawn while it stood. Several of the surveys can be read free online at NC Digital Collections.
Margaret Ruth Little-Stokes's survey of Chapel Hill's town and campus buildings from 1795 to 1975, published by the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill in 2006. Chapters run from the first campus buildings through David Swain's romantic campus to midcentury modernism, followed by area surveys of the campus, east and west Chapel Hill, downtown, Northside and the suburbs.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
M. Ruth Little's 2004 architectural history of Chapel Hill and the university campus from 1795 to 1975, written for the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill. A 99-page survey with a bibliography.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
M. B. Gatza's final report of the 1992 Chapel Hill historic sites survey for the town Planning Department, with contributions by Beverly C. Kawalec and Catherine Bishir. It covers historic buildings and districts in Chapel Hill in 80 pages.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Kelly A. Lally's October 1992 final report on the architectural survey of Chapel Hill township, including Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Besides the report and a bibliography, most of its 56 pages form an annotated index of the historic buildings surveyed.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Cornelia Spencer Love's recollections of Chapel Hill as a village, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1976 with drawings by John V. Allcott. Love lived from 1892 to 1981, and the book covers Chapel Hill biography, the town's social life and customs, and the faculty of the university before 1962. viii and 87 pages with illustrations.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Bernard Lee Bryant's compilation of who occupied each structure on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill at five-year intervals from 1793 to 1998, issued by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1999 as a photocopy of his original computer printout on cotton paper. 191 leaves.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Pen-and-ink manuscript map of Chapel Hill dated 1852, with a table of measurements, showing the University campus, the village around it, street widths and layout, and the town limits. Later notes attributed to Kemp P. Battle give the longitude and latitude of landmarks as measured from atop New East Hall in 1880.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Sanborn Map Company fire insurance map of Chapel Hill, June 1925, on eleven sheets, with Carrboro also drawn. Sanborn maps recorded the outline, construction and use of each building for fire insurers, so the set shows both towns block by block in the mid 1920s.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Street and property map of Chapel Hill and the surrounding country, revised to 1 January 1933 and printed in the town. Topics include streets, real property and the historical geography of Chapel Hill along with maps of the University of North Carolina in its 1793 to 1962 period. A useful sheet for tracing lot lines and street names as they stood at the start of the 1930s.
Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.
Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.
These books don’t necessarily mention Battle Park, but they cover where it stands, its kind of building and the land, family and burial records behind it, and they are where a search for a place like this usually goes next. All are at OCPL, most in the Wall Collection.
Steven Stolpen's pictorial history of Chapel Hill, one of the Donning Company's photographic town histories, published in Norfolk, Virginia in 1978. Photographs and portraits carry the story of the town and the university, including references to Thomas Wolfe's years as a student at Carolina. 156 pages with illustrations.
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.
Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern's field guide to the historic buildings of the North Carolina Piedmont, arranged county by county from Wake and Franklin in the east to Mecklenburg and Gaston in the west. The Orange County section takes in Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro along with the rural county, with entries on individual buildings and maps for finding them. Published 2003, 596 pages with illustrations and maps.
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.
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.
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