Bank of Chapel Hill: photographs (Chapel Hill Historical Society)
Two 1928 images of the Bank of Chapel Hill: an interior view of the teller desks and a bank advertisement printed alongside one for the telephone directory.
Storyline · 1899–1931
Founded in 1899 with $2,500 paid in, the Bank of Chapel Hill was, in Lefler and Wager's county history, the county's first bank after the Civil War. Julian S. Carr was elected president, and it opened for business that July. It moved into a new building on Franklin Street in 1914. In 1919 it raised its capital to open a bank in the mill town of Carrboro, and the Bank of Carrboro took in more than $30,000 in deposits on its first day. In 1925 it bought the assets of Chapel Hill's second bank, the Peoples Bank. After the bank failures of 1930, the federal government named it depository for postal savings at the Chapel Hill post office in 1931.
The incorporators of the Bank of Chapel Hill met at Chapel Hill on April 12, 1899, elected Julian S. Carr president, C. L. Lindsay vice president and S. T. Peace cashier, and voted to build a brick bank house; the bank opened for business in July. Founded with $10,000 authorized and $2,500 paid in, it was, in Lefler and Wager's county history, the county's first bank after the Civil War. Chapel Hill's second bank, the Peoples Bank, ran from about 1912 under presidents Vernon Howell and J. D. Webb. In 1914, short of room, the Bank of Chapel Hill moved into a new building on Franklin Street just west of Clyde Eubanks's new drugstore, and a barbershop took over the space it left.
By June 19, 1919 the Secretary of State had granted the bank a charter for a branch at Carrboro, and that summer it raised its capital so it could open a bank in the mill town. The Bank of Carrboro opened for business on Saturday, November 29, 1919, and deposits on the first day came to more than $30,000. Its advertisements in early 1920 named A. H. Carr chairman of the board and A. P. Lloyd cashier. In 1925 the Bank of Chapel Hill bought the Peoples Bank's assets. In February 1928 W. O. Lacock opened Lacock's Boot Shop where the original Bank of Chapel Hill had stood.
In March 1931 the federal government named the Bank of Chapel Hill depository for postal savings taken in at the Chapel Hill post office; Postmaster R. D. Herndon said the office had received $8,000 in postal savings in two or three months after the bank failures of 1930, mostly money withdrawn from out-of-town banks, and that deposits had fallen off as fear of the banks eased. By 1953 the bank held $8,500,000 in assets.
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Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 1 with a known location.
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People with a page of their own whom the dated events above name, those named most often first.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Two 1928 images of the Bank of Chapel Hill: an interior view of the teller desks and a bank advertisement printed alongside one for the telephone directory.
Newspaper clippings, photocopied articles and a report with notes on the Bank of Chapel Hill, undated, from the Businesses series of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Vertical File Collection.
Edward G. Danziger's memoir of love and cooking, published by J. F. Blair in 1967. Danziger (1893 to 1972) ran Danziger's Old World Restaurant in Chapel Hill, and the book tells his life as a restaurateur in the town.
William M. Rohe's history of Research Triangle Park and the region around it, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2011. Topics include regional planning and the economic and social conditions of the Research Triangle Park region, one corner of which is Chapel Hill and the university. 298 pages with illustrations and maps.
Herbert G. Gutman's 1976 history of African American families from 1750 to 1925, published by Pantheon Books in New York, 664 pages with 38 leaves of plates. Its Orange County connection is the Bennehan and Cameron family plantations, Stagville and Fairntosh: the book discusses the people enslaved by Richard Bennehan (1743-1825) and the Camerons, and follows family ties among them under slavery and after emancipation. Subjects include African American families and enslaved persons in Orange County.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1977), The William and Mary Quarterly (1977), The American Historical Review (1977), Journal of American History (1977), The History Teacher (1977), Political Science Quarterly (1977), Journal of Black Psychology (1978), Journal of Social History (1978), Civil War history (1978), Signs (1978).
Orvin Lee Shiflett's biography of William Terry Couch, 1901 to 1988, the editor who built up UNC Press at Chapel Hill over four decades in publishing, with a subtitle that calls his career a lightning rod for controversy. Chapters treat culture in the South, a case history in book publishing, objectivity and social science and 'The Sainted Book Burners'. It bears on scholarly publishing and university presses in the twentieth century. McFarland, 2015, 268 pages with illustrations.
Albert N. Link's early history of Research Triangle Park, published in 1995 by the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina. Topics include research parks, research institutes and industrial research in the state, with the park's own history at the center. 149 pages with illustrations and maps.
Annette Marie Council's book about her family and Mama Dip's Country Kitchen, the Chapel Hill restaurant, published by NP Press in 2005. Subjects include African Americans in Chapel Hill, the restaurant's history and family biography. Fourteen introductory pages and 223 pages of text with illustrations, part local history and part family account.
Albert N. Link's history of the Research Triangle Park, the research park founded to draw on the universities at Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh, published in 2002 by the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina in 278 pages with illustrations. Topics include research parks, research institutes and industrial research in North Carolina and the history of the park itself.
Charles X. Larrabee's history of the Research Triangle Institute over its first thirty one years, published in 1991. Topics include research institutes and research parks in North Carolina and the history of Research Triangle Park, the research district that lies between Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh.
Alex Sayf Cummings's 2020 book on the knowledge economy of the Research Triangle, technology research and the history of Research Triangle Park. Chapel Hill and its university form one corner of the Triangle.
A tour guidebook prepared for the 2016 Vernacular Architecture Forum conference in Durham, leading visitors through buildings in Orange and Caswell counties. It takes in the architecture of the bright leaf tobacco economy and the work of Thomas Day, the free Black cabinetmaker of Caswell County who worked in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Account of student protest in 1960s Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007 with illustrations. It draws together the civil rights movement and segregation in the town, discrimination in restaurants, academic freedom and university autonomy, protest against the Vietnam War, Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Student Movement on campus.
Maxine Freeland's biography of James John Freeland (1918-1999), a Hillsborough man of the twentieth century, compiled in 1999.
Each dated event above names its source, the place to start. For finding more on an event across newspapers, records and histories, see the research guide Follow an event across several accounts. Ask at the North Carolina Room of the Orange County Public Library for help with local sources.
Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “The Bank of Chapel Hill, 1899–1931.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/bank-of-chapel-hill-storyline-1899/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
