Storyline · 1914–1933
Kemp Battle's paths through Battle Park were restored from 1931 by volunteers who were then put in charge of the land around University Lake as well. Students cleaned the park's trails during Community Service Week in 1914, and by 1917 an open-air theatre stood on a hillside there. In 1931 a meeting at Colonel Joseph Hyde Pratt's home launched the Battle Park Association, and citizens working without pay under Pratt cleared paths and built bridges, opening about three miles of trail that year. In 1933 the association was incorporated, and the University trustees put it in charge of both Battle Park and the land around the new University Lake, where it ran motorboat rides to pay for more improvements.
During Edward Kidder Graham's first statewide Community Service Week in 1914, about a hundred students worked on Chapel Hill, and one crew cleaned the Battle Park trails under the Rev. W. D. Moss. By May 1917 an open-air theatre with a newly built stage stood on a hillside in the park, where the Community Spring Festival was held; Little's architectural history gives 1919 as the year the Forest Theatre, at the park's western edge, was built. On April 10, 1931 a meeting at Colonel Joseph Hyde Pratt's home launched the Battle Park Association, a volunteer group to restore Kemp Battle's paths and bridges in the park. Working without pay under Pratt, citizens cleared the pathways and built bridges over the brook, and by the end of the year they had opened about three miles of trail. In May 1933 the association was incorporated, and the University trustees put it in charge of both Battle Park and the land around the new University Lake. Since 1931 it had opened nearly six miles of trails, built eight footbridges and a pavilion, and laid out three picnic grounds in the park. That June men paid from federal relief funds cleared a free picnic ground below the University Lake dam, and the association ran motorboat rides at 10 cents to pay for more improvements.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.
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 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.
Lisa Giencke's 2010 conservation report on Battle Park, the university's natural area in Chapel Hill managed with the North Carolina Botanical Garden, with contributions from Alan Weakley, Peter White, Stephen Keith, Dave Vandermast and Elinor Benami. It deals with botany, natural areas and nature conservation, with partial funding from an Institute of Museum and Library Sciences grant.
A 2010 trail guide to Battle Park, the 93 acre Piedmont woodland at Chapel Hill, published by the North Carolina Botanical Garden of the University of North Carolina. The folded sheet carries a map of more than two and a half miles of pedestrian trails together with notes on the park's history. Four unnumbered pages with a color illustration, 22 x 36 cm.
An earlier edition of the North Carolina Botanical Garden's guide to Battle Park in Chapel Hill, printed in 2006, when the trail network was described as more than two miles through 93 acres of forest. The folded sheet gives a trail map with color illustrations and historical notes on the park. Five unnumbered pages, 22 x 36 cm folded to 22 x 9 cm.
Battle Park in Chapel Hill mapped for walkers in 2004, with relief shown by contours on a single sheet of 20 by 34 centimeters. Attributed to the North Carolina Botanical Garden. It guides visitors along the park's footpaths and records the state of the trail network at that date.
Sonya Dowhaluk's 2003 case study of the Forest Theatre in Chapel Hill, looking at what open air staging asks of a production in technical terms. Topics include open air theater and drama at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a bibliography follows on leaves 39 to 42.
A program for the dedication of the Forest Theatre in Chapel Hill, issued by the University of North Carolina in 1943 and marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Carolina Playmakers, 1918 to 1943. Frederick H. Koch, who founded the Playmakers, and university president Frank Porter Graham are both also named for the open-air theater.
Maud Macdonald Hutcheson's article on the natural features of the university at Chapel Hill, taking up three in particular: the Arboretum, the Herbarium and the Forest Theatre. Detached from Nature magazine, volume 35, number 4, April 1942, and issued by the American Nature Association in Baltimore.
Shirley Brimberg of New York, costumed as a mountain sprite for a production of Peer Gynt, stands with another cast member at the Forest Theatre in Chapel Hill. Hugh Morton negative, probably May 1942.
Account ledger of Patterson's General Store in Chapel Hill for 1910 to 1911, recording what customers owed. Accounts run from townspeople and the university Athletic Association to figures such as Kemp Plummer Battle, Edward Kidder Graham, Collier Cobb, Horace Williams and Louis Round Wilson, and firms including the Bank of Chapel Hill, Odell Hardware, Standard Oil and the Southern Railway. Part of North Carolina Memory.
Circular no. 58 of the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey, issued from Chapel Hill on 10 September 1910 by State Geologist Joseph Hyde Pratt. It announces the second annual Southern Appalachian Good Roads Convention in Knoxville, Tennessee, on 6 and 7 October 1910. From Duke's Broadsides and Ephemera Collection.
Personal papers of Mary Bayley Pratt, who died in 1929, dated 1856 and then 1899 to 1929. One hundred and sixty items in half a linear foot, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 3888. The papers concern members of the Bayley family, Joseph Hyde Pratt and women's social life and customs in Chapel Hill.
Joseph Hyde Pratt seated outdoors in an undated photograph, one of the Chapel Hill portraits in the Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection.
Jean Bolduc's collection of oral history interviews with Black residents of Durham and Orange counties, published by The History Press in 2016, 125 pages with photographs and portraits. The narrators are the poet Jaki Shelton Green, civil rights lawyer Floyd McKissick, Walter Jackson, Nate Davis, Brenda Stephens, Diane Wright, Jackie Wagstaff and Michelle Johnson, and a closing chapter deals with the Ku Klux Klan. The interviews document Black life and race relations in the two counties across the twentieth century.
Jean Bolduc's 2016 collection of interviews with African American residents of Durham and Orange counties, presented as short biographies. The subjects are Floyd McKissick (1922-1991), the first African American admitted to UNC's law school, Walter Jackson, Brenda Stephens, Nate Davis, poet Jaki Shelton Green, Jackie Wagstaff, Diane Wright and Michelle Johnson, with a closing chapter on the Ku Klux Klan. 125 pages with illustrations.
Robert E. Seymour, a Baptist pastor in Chapel Hill associated with Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church, looks back on segregation and race relations in the South from the pulpit. A clergyman's memoir covering church history in the town, Baptists in North Carolina and the segregation of African Americans. Published by Chapel Hill Press in 2011, 204 pages.
Chapter history of Epsilon Beta of Chi Omega at the University of North Carolina, covering 1923 to 1999 and written by Blanche Clark with Ann Thornburgh. Twenty nine unnumbered leaves with illustrations and a portrait, issued in Chapel Hill in 1999. Guion Griffis Johnson is among the people discussed.
Joint resolutions of the House of Commons from April 17 to May 2, 1782, with messages, petitions and depositions. Among them are thanks to Thomas Burke, the Hillsborough lawyer who had been governor, a land dispute involving James Taylor and Edmund Pendleton of Virginia, and a poll tax exemption for Francis Falkner. 87 images.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
From the 1782 session of the General Assembly, joint select committee reports and papers of 8 to 18 May, in 134 images. Captain James Reed, James Houston of Rowan County and George Meek are among those whose cases came before the committees. Other matters include State Legion officers, disabled veterans, price regulation, Cherokee affairs, Thomas Burke, and Hillsborough and Orange County.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Resolutions of the North Carolina Senate from 16 to 18 May 1782: naming Thomas Davis public printer, favoring Joseph Pitman of Edgecombe County, obtaining clothing for Continental officers and soldiers, and answering a memorial of John Huske. Nathanael Greene, Jethro Sumner and the Battle of Eutaw Springs are among the names. 51 images, with Hillsborough tied to the session.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Reports and messages of joint select committees from August and September 1780, when the General Assembly met at Hillsborough after the defeat at Camden. Committees worked on supplies and provisions for the army and the adjustment of public claims. Horatio Gates, Richard Caswell, Abner Nash, William Hooper, hospitals, surgeons, cavalry and wagons all appear. 88 pages.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Oral histories recorded between 1974 and 1978 for the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Generations of Carrboro Mill Families project, forty items across 1.5 linear feet in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 4205. The interviews concern textile workers and mill families in Carrboro, African American life in Carrboro and Chapel Hill, schooling, the depression that began in 1929, and women's work and family customs.
Mailings and publications of the Eno River Association, beginning in 1973. Subjects include the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley, citizens' associations and community organizing in Durham, conservation of natural resources with citizen participation, and local environmentalists. Part of the North Carolina Collection at Durham County Library.
The activist John Kenyon Chapman left papers covering 1969 to 2009, about 11,200 items across 21.5 linear feet in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 5441. The papers document civil rights and community organizing in North Carolina, African American life in Chapel Hill, student political activity at the university, anti-apartheid work, and the Greensboro Massacre of 1979.
Institutional records of the Chapel Hill Historical Society from 1966 onward, filling six crates: the Society's own files as an organization, collection CHHS.000.
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. “Battle Park and the Battle Park Association, 1914–1933.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/battle-park-storyline-1914/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
