Storyline · 1983–1993
Carrboro's aldermen began studying local historic district zoning in 1983, and its commercial district entered the National Register in 1985. Residents' opposition led the aldermen to table a district in 1989, and in 1993 a proposal for local historic districts failed by one vote.
In 1983 the Carrboro Board of Aldermen named a Subcommittee on Historic Districts, under its Blue Ribbon Downtown Revitalization Task Force, to look into local historic district zoning. On June 20, 1985 the National Park Service listed the Carrboro Commercial Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places. In early October 1989, after strong opposition at a heated public hearing from residents who feared a local district would restrict home improvements, the aldermen tabled a motion to create one. Mayor Eleanor Kinnaird backed a district for the old mill town, while her opponent, former mayor James Porto Jr., proposed a voluntary register of historic homes kept at town hall instead.
On February 9, 1993 the aldermen voted 5 to 2 for a proposal to designate parts of Carrboro as historic districts, one vote short of the six the measure needed, so it failed. Owners would have needed permits for major exterior work and could have faced a 90-day delay. Hilliard Caldwell and Frances Shetley voted no, calling the rules too strict; Kinnaird called it a sad day, and Jay Bryan said the districts would help preserve the town's working-class past.
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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.
Papers of Ellie Kinnaird, born 1931, a North Carolina state senator, spanning 1987 to 2016 and running to roughly 6,400 items across 20.5 linear feet in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 5356. The papers focus on capital punishment in North Carolina and the campaigns against it, health insurance legislation, voting technology, and the work of women legislators in the General Assembly.
Eleanor Kinnaird beside an election campaign poster in an undated candid photograph. Kinnaird served as mayor of Carrboro and in the North Carolina Senate. From the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection (CHHS.002).
Lucile Noell Dula's guidebook to Hillsborough and its historic buildings, published by Pelican in 1989. It pairs a tour of the town with notes on its history, in 128 illustrated pages with a bibliography. Part of the Wall Local History Collection.
Robert Watson Winston's biography of Henry Horace Williams (1858-1940), who taught philosophy at the University of North Carolina for half a century, subtitled gadfly of Chapel Hill. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1942, 309 pages with frontispiece and portraits; this copy is autographed. Topics include educators in Chapel Hill and the university's history.
Reviewed in Social Forces (1943).
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.
Maurice M. Bursey's biography of Francis Preston Venable (1856 to 1934), chemist and president of the University of North Carolina, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1989. It also covers the history of the university's chemistry department. Illustrated, 111 pages, with bibliographies.
Reviewed in Isis (1992).
Architectural and historical inventory of Carrboro by Claudia Roberts Brown, published in 1983 by the Carrboro Appearance Commission and the town. The 48-page survey, with illustrations and maps, documents the town's historic buildings and their conservation.
John V. Allcott's history of the architecture of the University of North Carolina campus across two centuries, from the first buildings of the 1790s to the 1980s, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1986. A 108-page illustrated survey with a bibliography. Allcott taught art history at the university.
A history of the buildings on the University of North Carolina campus by John V. Allcott and JJ Bauer, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 2019. It follows campus construction from the 1790s forward: the plans behind each building campaign, the architects, and the university figures who pushed projects through. 132 pages with photographs, maps and plans.
Jill Ridky-Blackburn's history of Coker Hills, a neighborhood in Chapel Hill, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 2016. Chapters describe the land before the subdivision, the Coker who gave it its name, how the neighborhood began, the architects, builders and houses that shaped it, its legacy, memories of growing up there and the residents' later advocacy. Subjects include historic buildings in Chapel Hill. 242 pages with illustrations, portraits and a map.
Sarah Brandes Madry's history of the Old Well at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, treating both its architecture and the ideas attached to it. It takes in drinking fountains and water use in Chapel Hill and the university's history, with a chapter on Edwin Anderson Alderman, the president under whom the well took its present form in 1897, and one on water at the university. Published by iUniverse in 2003, 399 pages with illustrations.
Allen Alexander Lloyd's history of Hillsborough from the town's founding in 1754 to 1966, published by the author in Hillsborough in 1966. 306 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits, dedicated to the best interest of our town. Topics include Hillsborough's history and biography, its historic buildings and Orange County history.
Brian Burns's collection of lesser-known episodes from Chapel Hill's past, published by The History Press of Charleston, South Carolina, in 2023. Topics include the town's history, its buildings and structures, and the history of civil rights in Chapel Hill. 158 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Kemp P. Battle's University Day address of 1883, delivered as president of the University of North Carolina on the day marking the laying of the Old East cornerstone. Battle goes building by building through the Chapel Hill campus, telling how each was named and why it stands where it does. Fifteen pages. Electronic edition issued 2005 by the UNC University Library for Documenting the American South.
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. “Carrboro’s attempts at local historic districts, 1983–1993.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/carrboro-historic-districts-storyline-1983/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
