University Inn in Chapel Hill
Black-and-white photograph of the University Inn in Chapel Hill on fire in 1921, with a crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the hotel burn. From the Images of North Carolina collection.
Storyline · 1898–1931
From about 1898 a volunteer company fought Chapel Hill's fires, at first with two hand reels and hose lent by the University, and more than once a building burned where no hydrant was near. In 1921 the town built a brick municipal building and fire house and received an American La France motor truck. In June 1922, with the nearest hydrant almost half a mile away, fire destroyed the Orange County Training School, the county's school for Black students. In 1923 the company hosted the state's firemen at a barbecue, and the state association elected Chief John L. Foister its president. After officers missed an alarm, the aldermen put a full-time fireman on duty in 1928. In 1931 the bricklayer John Johnson became, by the Weekly's account, the only Black member of a white fire company in North Carolina.
About 1898 Chapel Hill formed a volunteer fire company under druggist E. S. Merritt, with two hand reels and hose lent by the University; a horse-drawn hook and ladder wagon came about six years later under W. W. Pickard. On November 15, 1905 the company checked a fire in Mrs. M. E. Berry's house. John L. Foister became chief on Pickard's death in 1910, and in 1915 the company added a Ford truck and moved to Columbia Street.
In August 1921 the town let J. T. Squires a $3,988 contract for a two-story brick municipal building and fire house in the middle of Columbia Street and broke ground on August 10. That month the firemen won $225 in prizes at the state tournament, and Foister was elected the association's first vice president. By October an American La France motor truck, bought by the town and the University for about $12,500, had arrived. In November the aldermen authorized bonds for the building and fire apparatus, and fire destroyed the main building of the old University Inn. On December 16 town officials presented the truck and station to the firemen at a banquet; four days later, with no hydrant near, Mrs. C. B. Wills's house on North Street burned.
The town issued $23,000 in improvement bonds on January 1, 1922, and on March 7 the firemen put out a fire in the basement of Old East, and the News credited the new equipment. On June 12, 1922, with no hydrant near, the firemen had to borrow hose from the University and Carrboro to reach one almost half a mile away, and fire destroyed the large school building of the Orange County Training School, the county's school for Black students. In December 1922 the firemen under Foister gave $50 to New Bern's fire victims after a fire there burned some 700 homes. On a call on Saturday night, May 12, 1923, they turned their hose on a crowd pressing close, and some in the crowd threw stones at the men handling the hose; the Weekly said students had jeered the firemen as "Cedar Birds" for a year or two and warned that the friction could slow the company's answer to campus alarms, since the University paid toward its upkeep. On August 7, 1923 Foister and his company were hosts to hundreds of firemen from the state tournament in Durham, who heard welcomes from President H. W. Chase and ate a barbecue on the graded school grounds, and at that tournament the North Carolina State Firemen's Association elected Foister its president, which the Weekly called a tribute to his company's record. After none of the company's officers heard the alarm at the Pickard Hotel fire, the aldermen voted on January 23, 1928 to keep a full-time fireman on duty at headquarters.
On May 15, 1930, at the firemen's hut in the Morgan's Creek valley, J. L. Miller of the North Carolina Firemen's Association gave service certificates to thirteen firemen, led by Foister and J. W. Huskey with 26 years each, and S. W. Andrews, who had succeeded Merritt as chief, recalled the early fire fighters. In January 1931 the Weekly reported that John Johnson, a bricklayer who had first helped the firemen when the Black school building burned about ten years before, had been taken in as a full member, by the paper's account the only Black member of a white fire company in North Carolina, and on March 23 the company answered two fires at fraternity houses that police and firemen believed were set.
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Black-and-white photograph of the University Inn in Chapel Hill on fire in 1921, with a crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the hotel burn. From the Images of North Carolina collection.
R. P. Stephen Davis Jr. of UNC's Research Laboratories of Archaeology spoke to the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1999 on excavations on the campus at the sites of the Eagle Hotel and the poor house. Cassette.
Chapel Hill Hotel and its annex, with their porches, on a PCK Series postcard from Piedmont Supply Co., printed in Germany about 1905 to 1915. The writer's message on the back concerns travel plans: staying over in Shoskie and asking to be fetched with the horse on the afternoon of the 27th.
Portraits of W. W. Pickard and Betty Pickard, owners of the University Inn in Chapel Hill, dated 1900. One photograph in the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection.
A guide for students to Graham Memorial, the union building at the University of North Carolina, issued in 1974 by the union's board of directors in volumes of 19 centimeters with illustrations. It is a periodical about student unions in Chapel Hill. It sets out what the building offered undergraduates in the mid 1970s.
A serial publication of the board of directors of Graham Memorial, the student union at the University of North Carolina, issued in volumes of 19 centimeters with illustrations. The 1966 issue is signed at the end by Mayne Albright as director. Topics include student unions in Chapel Hill and the buildings of the university.
A single sheet folded to three unnumbered pages with one illustration, issued by the University of North Carolina and dated January 29, 1932, on the Graham Memorial Student Union at Chapel Hill. Topics include student unions in the town and the buildings of the university. Brief as it is, the leaflet marks a date in the building's early life.
Printed material on the Graham Memorial Building at the University of North Carolina, issued at Chapel Hill in 1924. Topics include college buildings, memorials and university planning in the town. One of several pieces surviving from the years when the student building was under discussion on the campus.
A portfolio of programs from the opening ceremonies of the University of North Carolina bicentennial, staged in Chapel Hill on October 11 and 12, 1993. It includes the program for the rededication of Old East, the university's first building, and the citations for the 1993 distinguished alumna and alumnus. Illustrated, and published by the university itself.
Edward K. Graham, president of the University of North Carolina, wrote to Grand Master Alexander Boyd Andrews asking him to appear in Masonic regalia at University Day in 1916. At that ceremony the Grand Lodge of North Carolina gave back to the university the brass plaque taken from the East Building cornerstone.
Wootten-Moulton Studio postcard of Old East, the oldest building and a men's dormitory on the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill, made between about 1915 and 1940. A single photomechanical print in postcard format, 9 by 14 cm.
Hugh Morton's color view of Old East, the dormitory on the UNC campus in Chapel Hill, made about 1973. Old East is the oldest building of a state university in the United States. One 4 x 5 inch color sheet film transparency.
Thomas E. Ross's geographic study of American Indians in North Carolina. It examines Native peoples' history, cultural assimilation, and social and economic conditions across the state, with statistics. Published by Karo Hollow Press in 1999, eleven preliminary pages and 242 pages with illustrations and maps.
Deed transcripts for the town lots of Chapel Hill and adjoining land from 1790 to the 1930s, compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway. Each transcript keeps only the working facts: grantor and grantee, price, acreage and the metes and bounds of the parcel. Self-published in 2014 as Issue 1G, 702 pages with maps and facsimiles.
Stewart E. Dunaway worked through Hillsborough, N.C., lot by lot, giving each town lot a synopsis of its history, a plat showing where it sits and transcripts of the deeds he could locate for it. The second issue runs to 720 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.
Stewart E. Dunaway's 2015 addendum to his history of Hillsborough's town lots, adding deed records arranged by lot number and further town history, with the expansion of the 1890s covered for the first time. Self-published in North Carolina as version 1.0, 446 pages with illustrations, facsimiles and maps. Topics include deeds, court records, land titles and real property in Hillsborough.
Stewart E. Dunaway's abstracts of civil suits over land heard in the Hillsborough District Superior Court between 1778 and 1806. The district covered Orange, Wake, Granville, Caswell, Person, Chatham and Randolph counties, and the papers concern boundaries, ownership and disputed tracts. Published through Lulu in 2011, 337 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.
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.
Stewart E. Dunaway's two-volume edition of the Orange County land entry book, the register in which settlers first claimed vacant land from the state before a grant was surveyed and issued. Volume one covers the first thousand entries, all made in 1778; volume two runs from 1779 to 1795. Each entry is reproduced from the original in the State Archives with an abstract of its contents. Self-published through Lulu in a second version dated 2010, two volumes at 28 cm with facsimiles and maps.
Edward J. Kaiser's history of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1945 to 2012, published by the department in 2013. The title nods to John A. Parker, 1909 to 2001, who figures in the book. One hundred eighty-six pages with illustrations and portraits at 28 cm.
Mark Chilton's short history of transportation planning in the North Carolina Piedmont, drawing lessons from earlier projects. Subjects include the Cape Fear Navigation Company and river navigation, and the railroads of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, including the State University Railroad Company whose spur brought trains to the two towns. Chilton was mayor of Carrboro when the book appeared. Published by Hand Made Books, Carrboro, 2012, 92 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits.
Stewart E. Dunaway's four-volume set of ejectment cases from Orange County, reproducing the original documents and maps from the North Carolina State Archives with partial transcriptions. The volumes cover 1778 to 1814, 1817 to 1832, 1833 to 1849 and 1850 to 1902. Ejectment suits contested title and possession of land, and the cases include surveys and plats. Self-published in 2010.
Stewart E. Dunaway's transcription of letters exchanged between Jesse Benton and Thomas Hart from 1780 to 1790, concerning Hart's affairs at Hartford, his place at Hillsborough. The letters concern the economic and social conditions of Hillsborough in the eighteenth century and the Revolution in North Carolina. Self-published through lulu.com in 2009, 68 pages with illustrations and facsimiles, and part of the library's Wall Local History Collection.
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.
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. “Chapel Hill's volunteer fire company, 1898–1931.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/chapel-hill-fire-company-storyline-1898/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
