Skip to content

Businesses, mills and venues

Central Hotel (Chapel Hill)

In Chapel Hill. 8 dated events, 1804–1912.

This site has no map location yet.

People in its history

Indexed works

Books, articles, records and pictures in the index about Central Hotel, found by its names in titles, catalog subjects and the index’s descriptions, and read one by one. Those held at OCPL come first.

About the site

Central Hotel: photographs (Chapel Hill Historical Society)

Left front view of the Central Hotel in Chapel Hill with people standing outside and a church steeple rising behind. Undated, from the Chapel Hill Historical Society's photographs of town businesses.

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

In the chronology

  1. James Hogg builds a large house on Franklin Street James Hogg acquired the eastern half of Lot #11 from William R. Davie when his son Gavin entered the university, and built a ten-room house there. Debts forced him to sell in 1806, though he kept living in it; the house later passed to merchants and became the core of the Central Hotel.
  2. Jones Watson buys Barbee's old store and house for a drugstore Jones Watson acquired Sidney Barbee's former house and store on the south side of the street, the old James Hogg property, and probably ran his drugstore from the store before remodeling both buildings. By 1858 they had become his Central Hotel. People: Jones Watson
  3. Jones Watson opens the Central Hotel Watson remodeled and enlarged the old James Hogg house and the Barbee store beside it into the Central Hotel, which had several shops on the ground. It appears on the maps through 1868. People: Jones Watson
  4. Dr. Abner B. Roberson buys the Central Hotel and moves his drugstore into it After the hotel's owner, Jones Watson, died, Dr. Roberson bought the Central Hotel, moved his drugstore into it with Clyde Eubanks as druggist, and leased the hotel's management to 'Bunn' Patterson. Adam A. Kluttz opened a store called the Glass Front in the many-windowed west end of the building. People: Jones Watson, Abner Benton Roberson, Clyde Eubanks, Adam Alexander Kluttz
  5. Dr. Roberson adds a ten-room annex to the Central Hotel Roberson enlarged the Central Hotel with a ten-room wing facing the campus. After his death in 1897 Kluttz ran the hotel for a short time before 'Bunn' Patterson took back its management. People: Abner Benton Roberson
  6. Clyde Eubanks buys Dr. Roberson's drugstore When Dr. Roberson died, his druggist Clyde Eubanks bought the drugstore and kept it in the Central Hotel until 1901. People: Abner Benton Roberson, Clyde Eubanks
  7. Clyde Eubanks moves his drugstore into a building of his own Eubanks left the Central Hotel and set up his drugstore in a new building he had put up on the west corner of the Tankersley property on Franklin Street. People: Clyde Eubanks
  8. The university razes the old Central Hotel to build dormitories The university bought the old Central Hotel from Dr. Roberson's estate, tore it down in 1912, and built the Vance, Battle and Pettigrew dormitories on the site. People: Abner Benton Roberson

Open these in the chronology →

Research sources

Read contemporary evidence 7

Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

Show all 7

Ask locally 5

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

Additional research sources

Other sources to search and local organizations that can help.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026