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University buildings and grounds

Victory Village and Odum Village

Victory Village was the married-student housing the federal government put up on 65 acres of UNC's south campus in 1946 for returning veterans, where about 350 student families lived in prefabricated houses. Brick apartments called Odum Village took its place, and the Baity Hill housing completed in 2005 in turn replaced Odum Village.

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 Victory Village and Odum Village. Each has been reviewed for relevance; materials held at OCPL appear first.

About the site

Victory Village: photographs (Chapel Hill Historical Society)

1948

Victory Village, the postwar student housing at UNC, in five photographs from 1948 to 1950. They show houses among trees, the backs of the houses in winter and a house with a car parked outside. From 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.

CH Historical Society

Victory Village (Chapel Hill Historical Society vertical file)

Victory Village, the University of North Carolina's housing for student veterans and their families after the Second World War, in newspaper clippings and photocopied articles. Undated folder, Chapel Hill Historical Society vertical files.

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

CH Historical Society

Published by or for this institution

Student family housing handbook: Odum Village residents guide

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill · 1995 · The Department

The 1995 handbook for residents of Odum Village, the student family housing of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, issued by the housing department in Chapel Hill, 23 pages with illustrations. It sets out the rules and services of the complex for student families. The following year's edition, retitled a community living handbook, appears separately in this bibliography.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke

Student family housing community living handbook: Odum Village residents' guide

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill · 1996 · The Department

Residents' guide to Odum Village, the student family housing complex of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, issued by the housing department in 1996. An unnumbered illustrated volume of rules and community information for the student families living there. An earlier edition from 1995 is also in this bibliography, and together the two show how the village was run in the mid-1990s.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

NC Cardinal UNC

Student family housing handbook : a guide for Odum Village residents

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Department of University Housing · 1974 · The Department

Odum Village was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's housing for students with families, and this 1974 guide from the Department of University Housing tells residents how it worked. Seventeen unnumbered pages with illustrations.

Included because: Published by or for this institution.

UNC

Surveys and maps of the area

Not about Victory Village and Odum Village 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.

The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1795-1975

Little-Stokes, Margaret Ruth · 2006

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.

NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress CH Historical Society

The town and gown architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975

Little, M. Ruth · 2004 · Preservation Society of Chapel Hill

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 Cardinal NC Digital Collections DPLA

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Chapel Hill historic sites survey : final report.

Gatza, M. B. · 1992 · Chapel Hill Planning Department

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 Cardinal NC Digital Collections DPLA

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Chapel Hill, Orange County, North Carolina.

1925

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.

Library of Congress Digital Collections

Map of Chapel Hill & vicinity.

1933

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.

UNC

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 Victory Village and Odum Village, 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 · NC 975.656 STO Chapel Hill: A Pictorial History Stolpen, Steven · 1978

      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.

    • 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.

    • Foundational · NC 917.56 HIS Historic Buildings and Landmarks of Chapel Hill, N.C Chapel Hill Historical Society · 1973

      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.

    In the chronology

    Storyline about this site, with a page of its own:

    1. Victory Village is built to house married veterans at UNC As returning veterans pushed enrollment to about 6,800, the federal government put up the prefabricated metal houses of Victory Village on 65 acres of UNC's south campus in 1946. About 350 student families lived there, and the last units were torn down in the early 1970s for the expansion of UNC Hospitals. People: Terry Sanford, William C. Friday, William B. Aycock UNC A to Z: Victory Village
    2. Orange County reports its first polio case of 1948, in Victory Village In the last week of June 1948 a woman living in the university's Victory Village in Chapel Hill became Orange County's first polio case of the year, as an epidemic centered in Greensboro spread across the Piedmont. The state office of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis said the single case was no sign of a local epidemic. The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 1, 1948, p. 1
    3. The Victory Village Board of Aldermen organizes a day care center The Victory Village Board of Aldermen, the elected council of UNC's married-student housing, organized the Victory Village Day Care Center in 1952, a licensed nursery school it still ran in 1967 as board of directors, caring for about 60 children of student parents and some University staff from 7:45 a.m. to 5:15 p.m., according to the board's secretary writing in the Daily Tar Heel. The Daily Tar Heel, September 16, 1967, p. 2
    4. Peter L. Burch says he will leave the Chapel Hill board of aldermen after 28 years Mayor pro tem P. L. Burch, then manager of the University's Victory Village, announced that he would not seek re-election when his term ran out in May, ending 28 consecutive years as a Chapel Hill alderman. The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 14, 1955, p. 8
    5. UNC tears down the two-story Victory Village buildings UNC began the first large demolition of Victory Village in 1961, tearing down its 96 two-story structures, according to a 1966 Daily Tar Heel series on the married-student village. The Daily Tar Heel, February 8, 1966, p. 1
    6. UNC closes eight Victory Village units as the health affairs campus grows UNC closed eight units of Victory Village, the wooden married-student housing built in 1946, in August 1965; the trustees had allotted the whole village site to the expanding health affairs complex. In February 1966 the Daily Tar Heel reported 13 more units would close in June, with no low-rent housing planned to replace them. People: James E. (James Edgar) Wadsworth The Daily Tar Heel, February 8, 1966, p. 1
    7. The state deeds six acres of Victory Village land for a medical research building The governor and Council of State deeded six acres of the Victory Village married-student tract to Medical Research Properties Inc., a corporation of University friends that planned a 41,000-square-foot research building to rent to faculty with government research contracts and to hand over to the University once its bonds were paid. Business manager J. A. Branch said the rest of the Victory Village units would be torn down as space was needed rather than moved. The Daily Tar Heel, February 24, 1966, p. 1
    8. Fire destroys a Victory Village prefab house on King Street Fire destroyed one of the World War II prefabricated houses in the University's Victory Village housing, at 102 King Street, while the student family living there was away; they lost all their belongings, and neighbors, the Red Cross, a church and a local store gathered help. The house had already been scheduled for demolition on June 10, with 13 other houses and 16 apartments, to make way for the growing health sciences complex. The Daily Tar Heel, March 16, 1967, p. 1
    9. Campus buses begin running through Odum and Victory villages Campus buses began running through the Odum and Victory villages, the married students' housing, at 20 minutes past each hour from 8:20 a.m. to 5:20 p.m. on a Manning-Mason Farm-Hibbard loop, stopping for anyone who signaled. The campus bus system, started by Student Government with the University Traffic and Safety Committee, charged a ten-cent fare. The Daily Tar Heel, December 4, 1968, p. 1
    10. UNC orders twelve student families out of Victory Village for a parking lot Twelve married-student families in University-owned Victory Village received notices to leave by June 7 so their units could be cleared for parking while three medical-center buildings went up. Vice Chancellor Joseph C. Eagles held to the order on April 8 and said the University had no plans for more married-student housing; the families said 92 units had been lost without replacement, and village board chairman Gerd Bartsh spoke of an injunction and a student-built cooperative. People: James E. (James Edgar) Wadsworth The Daily Tar Heel, April 5, 1970, p. 1
    11. UNC evicts twelve Victory Village families for a construction parking lot The University evicted 12 married-student families from Victory Village in June to clear ground for a parking lot for hospital construction equipment, and the houses came down in mid-July. In September residents said the lot had gone unused, and one quoted Vice Chancellor Joe Eagles as saying it was not the University's responsibility to house students; a parking official said cars had parked there all summer. The Daily Tar Heel, September 18, 1970, p. 1
    12. UNC tells 34 Victory Village households their apartments will be razed for hospital parking The Department of Residence Life announced that 34 Victory Village married-student apartments on Polk Street, Bagley Drive and Jackson Circle would be torn down in summer 1972 for a parking lot needed by the planned bed tower addition to North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Families still enrolled were promised priority for new apartments; the frame buildings, put up in 1948 to last seven years, had dwindled from 456 apartments to 133. The Daily Tar Heel, February 18, 1971, p. 1
    Show all 30 dated events
    1. UNC's traffic committee approves zoned parking for Odum and Victory villages The University Traffic and Parking Committee approved a residents' petition, presented by Odum Village mayor Gerd Bartsch, to zone the married-student villages' parking with an M sticker and set aside visitor spaces, ending a year-and-a-half campaign. The plan still needed the chancellor's approval. The Daily Tar Heel, April 22, 1971, p. 1
    2. UNC nursing students open a health service in Odum Village The UNC School of Nursing began the Odum Village Community Health Service, staffed by student nurses above the housing office, offering health information, counseling, home care and referrals to the University's student-family housing. The Daily Tar Heel, January 25, 1975, p. 2
    3. Brick Odum Village apartments replace Victory Village married-student housing The surplus military frame units that the university had set up on Manning Drive after the war as Victory Village lasted until about 1977, according to M. Ruth Little, when brick married-student apartments called Odum Village took their place. The News of Orange reported in July 1964 that the university trustees had recently named a 306-unit brick development for married students "Odum Village," near the home of the late university sociologist Howard W. Odum. NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 70 · Also: The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 9, 1964, p. 1
    4. UNC shelves converting Odum Village from married to single student housing The Department of Student Affairs set aside, for the time being, a plan to turn Odum Village, the campus's only married student housing, over to single students, after its housing study warned that displacing about 400 married students would only tighten the Chapel Hill-Carrboro rental market, where no new apartment complexes had been built since 1974. The Daily Tar Heel, November 2, 1978, p. 1
    5. UNC cuts Odum Village rents after residents expose years of utility overcharges Associate Vice Chancellor James Cansler announced that rents in Odum Village, UNC's married-student housing, would drop about 10 percent ($12.50 to $14.50 a month) from December, retroactive to November, after the residents' Board of Aldermen, led by Philip Williams, showed that a 1969 steam-cost formula had charged them twice for hot water. University officials had agreed on November 7 that residents were overcharged about $38,000 over ten years, but Vice Chancellor John Temple ruled out rebates. The Daily Tar Heel, November 29, 1978, p. 1
    6. UNC Housing ends the after-school day care program for Odum Village families Housing director James D. Condie announced that the Community Service Building would no longer be provided for the year-old after-school program serving 10 to 15 children of married students, citing the room's condition and the department's need for the space; parents protested the short notice. The Daily Tar Heel, August 25, 1980, p. 11
    7. Odum Village residents organize against a plan to send Smith Center traffic through their homes About 20 residents of Odum Village, UNC's married-student apartments, met with their Board of Aldermen and formed committees to write to University officials and circulate a petition against a Rams Club consultant's proposal for event exit driveways through the village. The Rams Club said the report was only a recommendation, and the town's transportation planner said such exits would need a change in the Smith Center's special-use permit. The Daily Tar Heel, January 21, 1987, p. 1
    8. Victory Village day care supporters march to South Building About 35 parents, children, students and faculty members marched with signs from the Pit to South Building to call attention to child care needs at the University, presented flowers and balloons to Vice Chancellor Garland Hershey, who spoke for the center, and heard a Student Congress resolution backing its expansion. Victory Village, in a World War II barracks building used for child care since 1953, served 64 children, three-fourths of them students' children, and its director said the University had agreed to put in a new floor after the center spent $25,000 on upkeep in five years. The Daily Tar Heel, April 10, 1989, p. 1
    9. A chancellor's committee recommends UNC buy Glen Lennox Apartments to replace Odum Village In a confidential report, the committee Chancellor Hardin named in February to find a replacement for Odum Village, the married-student housing in the path of the planned South Loop road, chose buying Glen Lennox Apartments as its first choice. The owners said the complex was not for sale. The Daily Tar Heel, November 16, 1990, p. 1
    10. Odum Village residents oppose the South Loop at a council hearing and the council delays its vote At a Chapel Hill Town Council public hearing, Odum Village residents attacked UNC's plan to realign Manning Drive as a South Loop that would tear down six Odum Village buildings. The council put off its decision on adding the road to the thoroughfare plan until Jan. 11 to hold a work session. The Daily Tar Heel, November 26, 1990, p. 1
    11. Vice Chancellor Donald Boulton says UNC will not buy an apartment complex to replace Odum Village After weeks of complaints from town officials that buying Glen Lennox or another complex would shrink Chapel Hill's tax base and affordable housing, Vice Chancellor Donald Boulton said the University would not buy existing apartments to replace Odum Village if the proposed South Loop road displaced it, though Vice Chancellor Ben Tuchi would not rule a purchase out. A University study later put rent in a new $23 million family housing complex at nearly double Odum Village's. The Daily Tar Heel, November 29, 1990, p. 1
    12. Victory Village Day Care Center raises its monthly fees The board of the Victory Village Day Care Center, where 70 percent of the children's parents were UNC students, voted to raise monthly fees from July 1 to $395 for infants and $381 for children 2 to 5, citing food and wage costs. The Daily Tar Heel, April 18, 1991, p. 3
    13. The Orange County Housing Coalition campaigns against tearing down Odum Village The Orange County Housing Coalition began a petition drive and letter-writing campaign asking the Chapel Hill Town Council and town manager to oppose UNC's South Loop Road, which under the University's land-use plan would run through Odum Village, the married student housing complex. Members warned that losing it would push student families into a supply of low-income housing that had dwindled over 20 years. The Daily Tar Heel, June 6, 1991, p. 1
    14. UNC's facilities planning committee rejects an Odum Village alternative to the South Loop Road In a letter to three residents of Odum Village, the University's student family housing, Vice Chancellor Ben Tuchi said the Facilities Planning Committee still preferred the South Loop Road, a realignment of Manning Drive from the U.S. 15-501 Bypass to South Columbia Street, over the residents' May proposal to route it around the Health Affairs parking deck to Mason Farm Road at Hibbard Drive. Tuchi wrote that the University meant to settle on replacement housing for Odum Village, which the South Loop would partly destroy, before building the road. The Daily Tar Heel, October 4, 1991, p. 1
    15. UNC lifts its ban on home day care in Odum Village A memorandum to Odum Village residents from the student family housing office and the University's dependent care coordinator let residents care for up to three children, counting their own, in wing apartments that registered with the state, and up to two elsewhere, reversing the ban administrators had begun enforcing in December. One resident said the change came only after faculty members complained. The Daily Tar Heel, February 6, 1992, p. 1
    16. Mary Bridgers retires as director of Victory Village Day Care Center Mary Bridgers, who had directed the University-affiliated Victory Village Day Care Center for nearly 30 years, retired in June 1992. Vice Chancellor Donald Boulton credited her with building it into one of the area's finest child care centers. The Daily Tar Heel, July 2, 1992, p. 3
    17. Baity Hill graduate and family housing opens on former Baity land UNC completed the Baity Hill housing complex in 2005 on land once owned by Herman G. and Elizabeth Chesley Baity, whose family home stands on the grounds. It replaced Odum Village. UNC A to Z: Baity Hill Graduate and Family Housing
    18. UNC's Campus Master Plan update is approved The update to the 2001 Campus Master Plan found about half of the 2001 plan's sites under construction or in design, with over six million square feet of new buildings under way, and put remaining main-campus capacity at about 4.5 million square feet; it planned residence halls to replace Odum Village on South Campus. UNC Facilities Services: Campus Master Plan Update (approved March 22, 2006)

    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

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    Records of the time 30

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