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Community centers and organizations

Carrboro Farmers’ Market

The Carrboro Farmers' Market grew out of organizing begun in 1977 and the North Carolina Agricultural Marketing Project that Bill Dow and Laura Heise founded in 1978, and it dates its founding to 1979. In 1996 it moved to its present site on the Town Commons.

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 in its history

People named in events about this site, ordered by number of mentions. Each example links to an entry with a source citation.

Sites linked through the same people

Indexed works

Books, articles, records, and images about Carrboro Farmers’ Market. Each has been reviewed for relevance; materials held at OCPL appear first.

About the site

Carrboro Farmers' Market Guide : cultivating local agriculture and community : Carrboro, North Carolina.

1999 · Carrboro Farmers' Market

Guide to the Carrboro Farmers' Market issued for the summer of 1999, 98 pages under a subtitle about cultivating local agriculture and community. Topics include the market itself, farmers' markets in Carrboro and the marketing of farm produce in North Carolina. A record of how the market presented itself and its growers at the end of the 1990s.

Included because: The site is named in the title, catalog subjects, or description.

UNC

Published by or for this institution

The people's peppers cookbook 2015

2015 · Carrboro Farmers' Market

A small cookbook of pepper recipes from the Carrboro Farmers' Market, published in 2015, 24 pages. According to the cover note the recipes come from the market's 2015 People's Peppers recipe contest, so the collection reflects what contest entrants were cooking with peppers that season.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

UNC

Surveys and maps of the area

Not about Carrboro Farmers’ Market 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.

Carrboro Map [1935]

1935

Hand-drawn map of Carrboro from about 1935, centered on Greensboro Avenue and Weaver Street and marking buildings, lots and the main roads.

Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

DigitalNC DPLA

Map of Chapel Hill-Carrboro, N.C.

Gove, John R. · 1958 · Chapel Hill-Carrboro Merchants Association

Robert J. Ayers drew this folding map of Chapel Hill and Carrboro using data gathered by John R. Gove; the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Merchants Association published it under a 1954 copyright. The 1958 printing shows the towns, the University, streets, creeks and country clubs. On the back is text for the Chapel Hill School Art Guild house tour of 30 October 1960, with eleven houses marked in red.

Included because: A survey or map of the town or county where the site stands.

UNC State Archives of NC

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

Start at OCPL

    Where to look on the shelf

    These books don’t necessarily mention Carrboro Farmers’ Market, 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.

    Histories of the town and county

    • 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 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.

    • 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.

    Buildings and surveys

    • Foundational · NC 720.975 BIS A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina Bishir, Catherine W. · 2003

      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.

    • 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.

    In the chronology

    1. Farm women open the Orange County curb market in Carrboro A curb market run by Orange County farm women opened in the former McCauley store in Carrboro, selling vegetables, fruit, chickens, eggs, sausage, preserves and canned goods. It was organized with the county home demonstration agent, with thirteen women signed on as sellers before opening. People: Grace E. Holcombe Chapel Hill Weekly: Curb Market Tomorrow (September 10, 1937) · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, January 14, 1938, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, August 18, 1939, p. 1
    2. The Orange County women's curb market marks seven years with $30,280 in yearly sales The farm women who sell at the curb market in Chapel Hill held a seventh-birthday luncheon and heard that the year's sales came to $30,280.68, up from $7,132.73 in 1938, with fourteen sellers past $1,000. Home agent Woodward Byars gave the county commissioners the same report on October 2. People: Woodward Byars The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 28, 1944, p. 3
    3. Black farm families open a curb market on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill The Orange County Negro Curb Market opened on May 26 in the Scarborough Building on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. In its first three weeks, 13 of its 26 member farm families sold $208.79 worth of produce. R. M. Edwards was president, and the market worked with the vocational agriculture department of the Orange County Training School and the county's Black farm and home demonstration service. The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 28, 1945, p. 4
    4. Planning begins for Carrboro’s farmers’ market UNC organizing and town funding efforts supported a formal market. Carrboro Farmers’ Market — Mission & History
    5. Bill Dow and Laura Heise found the North Carolina Agricultural Marketing Project Physician and farmer Bill Dow and Laura Heise founded the North Carolina Agricultural Marketing Project, modelled on the farmers' markets Dow had helped start in Tennessee. The project led directly to the Carrboro Farmers' Market. UNC Libraries: William W. Dow Papers, 1940s-2016
    6. Carrboro amends the Carr Mill permit to allow a weekend farmers' market in its parking lot At the town's request and with the developers' consent, Carrboro amended the permit to let a farmers' market use the mill's second parking lot on weekends. A permanent open-air shelter was built with a $25,000 state matching grant, with the town supplying the site. Margaret A. Thomas, Carr Mill, Carrboro, North Carolina: A Rehabilitation Project under the Tax Reform Act (1979), scan p. 12
    7. Carrboro Farmers’ Market is established After organizing and planning in 1977, the Carrboro Farmers' Market began business in 1978, once the town amended its permit in February 1978 to allow the market at Carr Mill. The Daily Tar Heel reported that the Carrboro Farm and Craft Market opened on Saturday, August 5, 1978, with local produce, arts and crafts, open Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. behind the Sidetrack and next to the rescue squad. Carrboro Farmers’ Market — Mission & History · Also: Margaret A. Thomas, Carr Mill, Carrboro, North Carolina; The Daily Tar Heel, July 27, 1978, p. 2; The Daily Tar Heel, August 24, 1978, p. 10
    8. Carrboro aldermen pay more rent to keep the farmers' market site another year The Carrboro Board of Aldermen agreed to a $1,000 rent increase, doubling the town's $1,000 yearly lease, in return for a one-year extension on the property where the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Farmers' Market met, and moved the money from its contingency fund while the town planned a town commons as the market's new home. Alderman Hilliard Caldwell objected that the landowner should give the site to the community. People: Hilliard Caldwell, Ellie Kinnaird The Daily Tar Heel, March 2, 1989, p. 3
    9. Grant supports new farmers’ market shelters In 1993 the N.C. General Assembly gave the Town of Carrboro a $236,000 grant for the new farmers' market on the Town Commons, a project long held up for lack of money. The first phase covered site preparation, two shelters and a parking area. Carrboro Farmers’ Market — Mission & History · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, September 26, 1994, p. 3; The Daily Tar Heel, September 26, 1994, p. 4
    10. Carrboro breaks ground for a new farmers market beside its town hall Carrboro held a community celebration and a short groundbreaking on the town hall lawn on September 25 to raise money for a new farmers market on a 1.7-acre town site on West Main Street next to the town hall. The plan called for 36 vendor spaces, two shelters, a bandstand, a playground and 52 more parking spaces, replacing the market's leased site off Roberson Street, used for about 10 years; the town had a $236,000 state grant from 1993 and had raised $48,250 more. People: Ellie Kinnaird, Mike Nelson The Daily Tar Heel, September 26, 1994, p. 3
    11. Farmers’ Market moves to Town Commons The market opened at its new town-center site. Carrboro Farmers’ Market — Mission & History
    12. Orange County Public Library adds Spanish-language classes and bilingual storytimes Beginning in the 2021–22 fiscal year the library offered Spanish-language computer basics classes with the Family Success Alliance and UNC's Community Workshop Series. By 2023–24 it held storytimes in English and Spanish at Carrboro's Century Center, added Spanish interpretation to free computer classes and ran a health series for Spanish speakers with El Centro Hispano, and in 2024–25 it added bilingual storytimes at the Carrboro Farmers' Market and monthly conversational Spanish programs. Orange County FY 2024-25 Manager Recommended Budget (Library Services, FY 2023-24 highlights, pp. 185-186 of PDF)

    Open these in the chronology →

    Research sources

    Sources cited in this site’s history, National Register documents, and places to get research help. Research guide: Investigate a school or community institution.

    Background

    Historic sites, markers, and maps

    Records of the time 9

    Show all 9

    Collections and databases

    Local help 5

    Nearby

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