University buildings and grounds
In Chapel Hill. 13 dated events, 1789–1971.
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 Smith 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.
A 2005 study by Robin S. D. Chen tracing the principal library buildings of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1853 to 1984: Smith Hall, the Carnegie Library, the Louis Round Wilson Library and the Walter Royal Davis Library. Academic library architecture is the subject throughout, set against buildings elsewhere in the United States. 65 leaves.
A philatelic souvenir from the University of North Carolina bicentennial: a single printed sheet cut to hold the nineteen cent Playmakers Theatre postal card, which the Postal Service issued in its historic preservation series. The card was designed by Bob Timberlake and cancelled with a bicentennial postmark dated September 15, 1993. Playmakers Theatre itself stands on the university campus in Chapel Hill.
Program for the September 14, 1993 ceremony dedicating a United States Postal Service postal card picturing Playmakers Theatre at the University of North Carolina, together with a card bearing the first day of issue postmark from Chapel Hill. Designed by Bob Timberlake, the card marked the university's bicentennial in the Postal Service's Historic Preservation series. One folded sheet in color.
Program for the rededication of Playmakers Theatre at the University of North Carolina on the evening of September 11, 1982, after the restoration finished the year before. The title gives the building's dates: a national historic landmark put up in 1851 and remodeled in 1924. Six unnumbered pages with two illustrations and a portrait.
John V. Allcott's article on Alexander Jackson Davis and the library and ballroom he designed for the University of North Carolina, the building known since as Playmakers Theatre. An offprint from the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians for May 1974, pages 145 to 154, with illustrations and plans of the Chapel Hill building.
Transcript of the forum held on March 29, 1969 at Playmakers Theater for the fiftieth anniversary of the Carolina Playmakers, the theatre company of the University of North Carolina. Reported by Elizabeth Overby across 52 leaves. The proceedings cover the company's first half century and the Chapel Hill building it performed in.
Limited-edition set of commemorative North Carolina postal cachets from 1993, a postal card and five envelopes in a leather portfolio, signed by the artists and numbered 20 of 200. Artists include Bob Timberlake, Jeff MacNelly, Maud Gatewood and Bart Forbes, with images of Playmakers Theatre and teaching and learning at UNC.
Samuel Selden spoke to the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1974 about the Playmakers Theatre on the UNC campus, long the home of the Carolina Playmakers. Cassette recording in the Society's Audiovisual Materials Collection, CHHS.012.
Bayard Wootten's view of the inside of the Playmakers Theatre on the Chapel Hill campus, home of the Carolina Playmakers, on a hand-colored postcard sold by the university's Student Supply Store. A sender in August 1938 wrote that after the fire the room might never look this way again.
Three actors seated around a table on stage, in a 1920 photograph given as the first performance at the Playmakers Theatre. From the Carolina Playmakers group of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection.
Eleven photographs of Playmakers Theatre in Chapel Hill taken between 1920 and 1981, showing the building from the front, the north and east sides and a front corner. Part of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection, CHHS.002.
The university's Law Building in Chapel Hill, later the Playmakers Theatre, on an Albertype postcard published by Foister. It was mailed on 21 December 1917 to Dr. Caroline Osborne of Worcester, Massachusetts, carrying Christmas wishes from the Chases.
Real photo postcard of the Law Building at the University of North Carolina, dated 1915. Irene wrote to her mother, Mrs. A. F. Drake of Union City, Michigan, that she was in Chapel Hill for a week studying law with Joe and found the unpaved town hot and dusty.
Night view of Playmakers Theatre on the UNC campus, printed on a black and white Graycraft Card Co. postcard of about 1915 to 1930. Built in 1850 as Smith Hall, the building is now a National Historic Landmark. From the Ellen Payne Odom Genealogy Library Postcard Collection.
Papers of Margaret Vale (1878-1947), dating from 1878 to 1955 with undated material, in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 70150. The papers concern theater, women and the Playmakers Theatre in Chapel Hill. The materials are in English.
Circular addressed in 1870 by the university librarian to the trustees and friends of the University of North Carolina, announcing that the library collections were being returned to Smith Hall, the building raised on the Chapel Hill campus to house them. The notice also reports on the makeup of the collection, including 267 new titles relating to North Carolina.
Promotional image of the Playmakers Theatre in Chapel Hill: an exterior view of the building framed by headshots of actors around the border. Undated. Part of the Carolina Playmakers photographs in the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection.
A night view of the Playmakers Theatre in Chapel Hill, credited to Bayard Morgan Wootten and printed by the Graycraft Card Company of Danville, Virginia.
Smith Hall on the UNC campus, captioned as the library, in one undated photograph from the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection (CHHS.002).
Sold by the Student Supply Store at the University of North Carolina, a postcard of the Playmakers Theatre in Chapel Hill.
Not about Smith 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.
Cornelia Spencer Love's recollections of Chapel Hill as a village, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1976 with drawings by John V. Allcott. Love lived from 1892 to 1981, and the book covers Chapel Hill biography, the town's social life and customs, and the faculty of the university before 1962. viii and 87 pages with illustrations.
John Daniel, a surveyor employed by the university trustees, made this pen and ink map of the future university site in 1792. It shows the tracts of land, the springs and creeks, nearby mills and the roads running from Fayetteville to Hillsborough, Pittsborough to Petersburg, Hillsborough to Newberne, and on to Raleigh. William S. Powell describes the map in First state university.
Dated June 1, 1795, this pen and ink plan lays out the University of North Carolina site in its earliest years: the village, the cleared ground, the avenue, the ornamental ground, the lands belonging to the trustees and the springs. Archibald Henderson reproduced it in The campus of the first state university and identified it as the lost 1795 map by Charles W. Harris. Manuscript map, 30 x 36 cm.
Early hand-drawn plan of the University village at Chapel Hill and the lands around it, which Archibald Henderson dated to between 1797 and 1812. It shows town lots with owners' names, Main Building (South Building), the steward's and president's houses, the chapel, Franklin Street and a Grand Avenue, plus a partial list of buyers at the 1793 lot sale.
An early manuscript plan of Chapel Hill drawn at 200 yards to the inch, dated 1812, with a note on the verso reading September 4, 1817. It copies an earlier pen and ink plot in the possession of William Pannill, taken in turn from one by John Craig, and it marks boundary lines, town lots with some owners named, the University buildings, the president's lot, the chapel and the preparatory school.
Henry Dennis Carter's reconstruction, drawn as a blueprint in 1934, of Chapel Hill as it stood between 1875 and 1885, showing the buildings of the village. A note on the map says the information came from old residents who gave it to Mary L. Thornton.
Dating from 1888 and attributed to Hunter Lee Harris, a map of Chapel Hill and its vicinity, reproduced as a photocopy measuring 22 by 37 centimeters. Harris died in 1893, which brackets the drawing to the late nineteenth century. An early depiction of the streets of the village and the land around it.
Pen-and-ink manuscript map of Chapel Hill dated 1852, with a table of measurements, showing the University campus, the village around it, street widths and layout, and the town limits. Later notes attributed to Kemp P. Battle give the longitude and latitude of landmarks as measured from atop New East Hall in 1880.
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 Smith 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.
Background from selected state and local sources
Maps, surveys, and the ground itself
Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time
Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching
Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further
