Public buildings and services
In Chapel Hill. 8 dated events, 1938–1990.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.
Books, articles, records and pictures in the index about Chapel Hill Town Hall, found by its names in titles, catalog subjects and the index’s descriptions, and read one by one. Those held at OCPL come first.
Blueprint by Atwood and Weeks, Inc. of Durham, August 1938, showing the basement and first floor plans of the Chapel Hill Municipal Building. The basement plan includes segregated restrooms. Drawing H-1.
Plan of the second floor of Chapel Hill's Municipal Building, sheet H-2 in the August 1938 set from Atwood and Weeks, Inc. of Durham. The back bears the name of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, the New Deal public works agency. The building is remembered as the Old Town Hall.
First sheet of the August 1938 blueprints for the Chapel Hill Municipal Building, a set commissioned by the Durham firm Atwood and Weeks, Inc. It lays out the foundation plan, wall footings and columns, with the building's lot on Rosemary Street. The job also carried Public Works Administration project number N.C. 1123F.
Blueprint dated August 1938 from Atwood and Weeks, Inc., the Durham firm, numbered drawing 2 in its set for the Chapel Hill Municipal Building. The sheet carries plans of the basement and first floor, with framing plans for the first and second floors.
Blueprint from Atwood and Weeks, Inc. of Durham for the Chapel Hill Municipal Building, showing its roof framing, ceiling framing and second floor. Drawing 3 of the set, dated August 1, 1938.
Front and right side elevations of the Chapel Hill Municipal Building, shown on drawing no. 4 of an August 1938 blueprint set that the Durham firm Atwood and Weeks, Inc. commissioned. The tube holding the set was labeled for M. C. Russell and the Old Town Hall.
Drawing no. 5 in the August 1938 plans for the Chapel Hill Municipal Building, a blueprint commissioned by Atwood and Weeks, Inc. of Durham. It gives the rear elevation and the left side elevation of the town's new building.
Blueprint for the Chapel Hill Municipal Building, drawing no. 6 of the project, dated August 1938 and commissioned by the Durham firm Atwood and Weeks, Inc. It shows doorways, the steel stairs, the floor around a well and a section cut through the building. The set arrived in a tube marked 'MC Russell Old Town Hall (1938)'.
Drawing 7 of the August 1938 plans by Atwood and Weeks, Inc. of Durham for the Chapel Hill Municipal Building, the old town hall, detailing the doorway and the exterior and interior steps.
Drawing 8 of the plans for the Chapel Hill Municipal Building, the old town hall, from Atwood and Weeks, Inc. of Durham, dated August 1, 1938. It details the courtroom and its front elevation, the judge's desk and platform, the desk molding, a corner and the gutter.
Correspondence and a report on Chapel Hill's Old Town Hall building, a folder from box 14 of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Vertical File Collection. Undated.
Exterior view of Chapel Hill's Old Town Hall, undated. One print in the Chapel Hill Government binder of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection.
Reports on the Chapel Hill Town Hall building, undated, from the Chapel Hill History series of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Vertical File Collection.
Not about Chapel Hill Town Hall 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.
These books don’t necessarily mention Chapel Hill Town Hall, 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.
Maps, surveys, and the ground itself
Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time
Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further
Other sources to search and local organizations that can help.
