Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood

In the chronology

1. 1889 Students found the Order of Gimghoul after hearing the Dromgoole story Five undergraduates founded a secret society after hearing university president Kemp Battle tell the Dromgoole story. They first called it the Order of Dromgoole and later shortened the name to Gimghoul. People: Kemp Plummer Battle
2. 1898 The Order of Gimghouls builds its first lodge on Rosemary Lane The Gimghouls, a junior-class order at the university, were building their own lodge in the spring of 1898 on a lot at Rosemary Lane and Boundary Street. By late 1899 the order was holding dances in the new lodge.
3. 1915 The Order of Gimghouls buys a 95-acre tract east of campus The land took in the Prospect Point overlook prized by 1880s member Edward Wray Martin, who had dreamed of a stone castle there. The order traded about a third of it to the university, sold 35 acres, kept a wooded site for the castle and developed the rest as the Glandon subdivision, now the Gimghoul neighborhood.
4. late 1920s Anatomy professor Wesley George builds a Colonial Revival cottage in Gimghoul George Watts Carr of Durham designed Wesley George's small front-gabled, shingled house with an entrance portico at 208 Glandon Drive, a sign of the Colonial Revival taking over the Gimghoul neighborhood after its first Craftsman houses.
5. 1923 The Order of Gimghouls plats its Chapel Hill subdivision with racial deed restrictions The Junior Order of Gimghouls subdivided its land east of campus into house lots, with a plat recorded in Orange County Plat Book 1, page 51. The original deed covenants carried the racial restrictions standard for the period, along with setbacks and a requirement that the order review house plans. People: Thomas F. (Thomas Felix) Hickerson
6. 1924 Commerce dean Dudley D. Carroll and Eleanor Carroll build a house on Ridge Lane in Gimghoul Dudley DeWitt Carroll, dean of UNC's commerce school, and his wife Eleanor Elliott Carroll had a Chatham County contractor named Barber build a two-story Colonial Revival house with a garage on Ridge Lane, among the first houses in the new Gimghoul subdivision.
7. 1924 Daniel L. Grant, UNC's first alumni secretary, builds a house on Glandon Drive Daniel L. Grant, the first secretary of the UNC Alumni Association, builds a two-story Colonial Revival house in the new Gimghoul subdivision, one of the five houses finished there in 1924. People: Daniel Lindsey Grant
8. 1924 University architect Thomas C. Atwood builds a duplex on Ridge Lane for his firm's workers Thomas C. Atwood, supervising architect for the 1920s campus building program, built a one-story frame duplex in the Gimghoul subdivision to house employees of Atwood and Nash. It stayed a duplex until the 1970s, when it became a single-family house.
9. 1924 W. E. Atkins of the Atwood and Nash firm builds a Craftsman cottage on Gimghoul Road W. E. Atkins, who worked for the university architects Atwood and Nash, has a Chatham County contractor named Barber build a one-and-a-half-story Craftsman cottage, said to be the first house on Gimghoul Road. He soon sold it to economics professor Earl Peacock.
10. September 1924 Engineering professor Ralph Trimble and his wife Hazel move into their new Gimghoul house Ralph M. Trimble, the UNC engineering professor who surveyed the lots of the Gimghoul subdivision, and his wife Hazel move into one of its first houses, built by contractor Charlie Martindale on Glandon Drive.
11. November 1924 The Gimghouls sell their old lodge lot on Rosemary Lane W. S. Roberson bought the Gimghouls' lot at Rosemary Lane and Boundary Street, with the old lodge to stand until the order finished its new building at Piney Prospect. The old lodge had been torn down by July 1926, and John Lasley's family had moved into a new house on the lot by that September. People: W. S. Roberson
12. 1925 Charles Martindale builds a bungalow in the Gimghoul colony for attorney L. J. Phipps Contractor Charles Martindale nears completion of a Craftsman bungalow in the Gimghoul colony for Chapel Hill attorney L. J. Phipps and his wife Vivian. Its floor-length windows and front terrace are noted in later surveys.
13. 1925 to 1926 The Order of Gimghouls begins building its castle Work on the Gimghouls' castle off the end of Gimghoul Road began in 1925: some 1,300 tons of stone were hauled to the site, stonemasons came from the Waldensian settlement at Valdese, and Chapel Hill builder Charlie Lee Martindale was general contractor. The order held its first gathering there in May 1926.
14. 1926 The Order of Gimghoul completes its castle at Piney Prospect The Order of Gimghoul completed a gothic castle at Piney Prospect, the spot where legend placed Dromgoole's fatal duel and burial.
15. September 1927 Professor Ernest R. Groves buys the Marshall house in the Gimghoul colony Ernest R. Groves, newly come to UNC's school of public welfare, buys the Marshall house in the Gimghoul colony. He and his wife Gladys Groves, both writers on marriage and the family, lived there into the 1930s and added a small stone library.
16. about 1939 A Cape Cod house is built at 698 Gimghoul Road The story-and-a-half house with gabled dormers and a stone end chimney, dated to about 1939, sits at the head of the south side of Gimghoul Road.
17. 1939 Architect William Van Sprinkle designs a brick house on Gimghoul Road for Benjamin Edkins The two-story brick Colonial Revival house with a one-story side wing at 739 Gimghoul Road was built for salesman Benjamin Edkins and his wife to a design by Durham architect William Van Sprinkle.
18. 1987 The Trimble house, one of the first in the Gimghoul subdivision, is torn down The 1924 house built for Ralph and Hazel Trimble on Glandon Drive, one of the first in the Gimghoul subdivision, is demolished, leaving a vacant lot.
19. October 19, 1989 The Gimghoul neighborhood joins the Study List The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Gimghoul neighborhood in Chapel Hill as a historic district on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
20. August 5, 1993 The Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District is listed in the National Register On August 5, 1993 the National Park Service listed the Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

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