Storyline · 1959–1994
The State Highway Commission approved a northern bypass around Chapel Hill and Carrboro in 1959, and in 1961 Chapel Hill adopted a long-range thoroughfare plan of 32 projects that included one. The plan was amended in 1962 and adopted for the town and its environs in 1965, with a road along Bolin Creek, an outer loop and one-way pairs downtown. That fall the aldermen pressed the state to return to the plan's route for a northwest bypass. From 1973 residents and the University opposed proposed roads through Battle Park, along Bolin Creek and past the Horace Williams House as the plan was revised, and in 1979 the town asked the state for a southern bypass over rural residents' objections. The council withdrew that request in 1980. In 1985 the town and the state made Pittsboro and South Columbia streets a one-way pair, and in 1988 the council endorsed the state's design for widening the U.S. 15-501 bypass to four lanes with a planted median. The state let the first widening contract in 1989 and put off widening South Columbia Street until 1994. From 1990 to 1992 Chapel Hill put off a decision on widening South Columbia Street, made frontage roads along U.S. 15-501 its first federal road request and chose a four-lane design with a median for widening N.C. 86, while the county commissioners opposed widening N.C. 54. In 1993 and 1994 Chapel Hill and Durham studied the U.S. 15-501 corridor, weighing six lanes against light rail, and in November 1994 the council endorsed the state's four-lane plan for N.C. 86.
In December 1959 the State Highway Commission approved a northern bypass of about five miles in an arc from near the Eastgate shopping center on the Durham Road to Highway 54 west of Carrboro, passing just south of Horace Williams Airport. On December 11, 1961 the Chapel Hill aldermen gave final adoption to a long-range thoroughfare plan, first drawn nearly ten years earlier, listing 32 projects for the next 20 to 30 years, among them a north-side bypass. In June 1962 they added a longer northern loop west to N.C. 54, a north-south artery along Pritchard Avenue to Airport Road and an extension of West Franklin Street through Carrboro to Jones Ferry Road. The News of Orange reported that the aldermen ratified a plan of 34 projects in September 1962, that Carrboro and Chapel Hill approved a revised version that November, and that it still awaited the State Highway Commission's approval at the end of January 1963. The plan adopted in 1965 for the town and its environs laid out a road along Bolin Creek, an outer loop, a northern bypass and one-way pairs for Franklin and Rosemary streets. On September 27, 1965 the aldermen voted to press the State Highway Department to return to the plan's route for a northwest bypass from Carrboro to Estes Drive at Airport Road, since the state's new route would take 20 acres of University land.
In September 1973, answering a petition from 440 residents who objected to proposed roads through Battle Park, along Bolin Creek and through the Colony Woods area, the Planning Board let citizens work with the town staff on revising the state thoroughfare plan for Chapel Hill and Carrboro. At the first of its four forums, in January 1974, most of a capacity crowd backed urban development director Kurt Jenne's call to drop seven proposed street extensions, and UNC vice chancellor Claiborne Jones opposed extending Ridge Road past Boshamer Stadium and Boundary Street through Battle Park. At the second, in February, more than 150 people opposed an outer loop roughly parallel to the U.S. 15-501 Bypass that would have divided three housing developments and cut across one end of the North Carolina Botanical Garden. In August 1975 town officials said the state Department of Transportation's revision would carry a Rosemary Street extension through the Horace Williams House; a state engineer replied that the road would pass close to the house but not touch it. At a joint forum of the Chapel Hill and Carrboro aldermen on February 20, 1978, about 30 speakers opposed the state's plan, estimated at $25 million, which would also push Pittsboro Street through Little Fraternity Court to Airport Road and build an outer loop called Burlington Boulevard, and Vice Chancellor John Temple said it should be redone with current data. On February 21, 1979 the Chapel Hill aldermen voted 6 to 2 to ask the state for a southern bypass around Chapel Hill and Carrboro, over a petition from about 330 southern Orange County residents who said it would bring unwanted growth and pollute streams feeding University Lake. In March state Transportation Secretary Thomas W. Bradshaw Jr. told about 375 people that the bypass was worth studying further. On March 24, 1980, reversing its 1979 stand, the Town Council voted 6 to 3 to strike the southern bypass, which residents of southern Orange and Chatham counties had opposed, from its road requests to the state Department of Transportation; former mayor James Wallace, Bill Thorpe and Bev Kawalec voted no, and the University, which wanted the bypass, said the change complicated its plans.
In the first week of September 1985 town crews began work on the streets around the Carolina Inn under the thoroughfare plan, with the N.C. Department of Transportation paying at least $75,000, to make Pittsboro Street one way south and South Columbia Street one way north between Manning Drive and Cameron Avenue and to widen corners and add traffic lights; planning director Stephen Sizemore said the work would ease congestion between Cameron Avenue and Raleigh Street. In this first part of the plan to be carried out, Pittsboro Street became one way southbound on October 16, and from October 20 southbound South Columbia Street traffic turned onto Pittsboro at Cameron Avenue, leaving South Columbia one way northbound; Chapel Hill Transit had to move three major stops, including its southbound stop at the Carolina Inn. At a public hearing on November 30, 1987 the state outlined an $18.2 million plan, to start in 1989, to widen the U.S. 15-501 and N.C. 54 bypass to four lanes with a 24-foot planted median and shoulders for bicycles; the Chapel Hill Greenways Commission asked for pedestrian crossings and overpasses, and three families faced relocation. On January 25, 1988, after 17 residents spoke, mostly against a wide median, the Town Council endorsed the design, asking for narrower medians where possible, buffers for neighbors, a say in the final plans and a guarantee that the road would never be widened past four lanes.
On December 8, 1988 state planners took public comment on four proposals to widen the two-lane South Columbia Street to four or five lanes for about half a mile from its Pittsboro Street intersection to U.S. 15-501 near Manning Drive, a $5.1 million project in the state's 1988–1996 Transportation Improvement Program; residents raised the future of Merritt's Store, the stone walls along the street and the homes and land that would be taken. By February 6, 1989 the N.C. Board of Transportation had put off the widening until the 1994 fiscal year, at an estimated $5.5 million, to give the state time to buy land at the intersections. On October 13 the board awarded Nello Teer Co. of Durham, the low bidder, $5.8 million to add two lanes on the east side of the bypass for 3.5 miles, from south of Chapel Hill to the Franklin Street interchange, and resurface the old lanes, the first of three contracts to widen the bypass to Old Fayetteville Road in Carrboro; work was to start November 1 and end in November 1991.
On January 23, 1990 the Town Council voted unanimously to put off for a year its decision on widening the two-lane stretch of South Columbia Street between Manning Drive and Purefoy Road, to study alternatives and find money for bike lanes and sidewalks; James Wallace's motion to accept the state Department of Transportation's $3 million plan failed 6 to 3. On February 6 the Carrboro aldermen voted 5 to 2 to delete from the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Thoroughfare Plan both proposed routes for a road connecting Old N.C. 86 and Homestead Church Road, though planning director Roy Williford and the state favored one of them; Alderman Tom Gurganus said demand did not justify the road. On March 26 the Chapel Hill council put frontage roads along U.S. 15-501 between Franklin Street and the Interstate 40 interchange first on its list of federally funded road priorities, moving the widening of 15-501 toward the Chatham County line down the list for fear it would draw more Chatham traffic; Art Werner and Wallace voted against the list. On February 19, 1991 the Orange County commissioners told state transportation planners they opposed the state's $48 million plan to widen 20 miles of N.C. 54 from Burlington to the N.C. 54 Bypass in Carrboro, which the state's own study said would displace 96 homes and eight businesses and could affect the Cane Creek and University Lake watersheds; Commissioner Alice Gordon asked that it be dropped, and the Carrboro aldermen and the county planning board had already passed resolutions against it.
On March 16, 1992 the Chapel Hill council unanimously sent the state its Transportation Improvement Program, asking for more projects than before because a new federal law opened extra funds, among them widening N.C. 86 from Homestead Road to Interstate 40, two bikeways and new bike lanes. On May 26 the council voted unanimously to widen N.C. 86 (Airport Road) between Homestead Road and Interstate 40 to four lanes with a 24-foot landscaped median, bike lanes and sidewalks, rejecting a five-lane design, after neighbors asked for the median for safety on a road carrying more than 23,000 vehicles a day. On July 13 the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Transportation Advisory Committee unanimously approved a compromise with the state Department of Transportation, which had threatened to withhold $56 million because the committee had left the widening of U.S. 15-501 south toward Pittsboro off its project list; the compromise added a feasibility study of Jack Bennett Road in Chatham County and a planning study of the widening, leaving the committee another chance to decide. The state offered to pay only for a five-lane N.C. 86, and on August 31 the council looked for ways to cover the $738,850 difference.
On August 30, 1993 the Chapel Hill Town Council and the Durham City Council met together to hear a study of traffic on U.S. 15-501 and Old Durham-Chapel Hill Road that projected up to 115,000 vehicles a day by 2010 if the corridor were fully developed; the engineers urged transit, park-and-ride lots and limits on development, and Mayor Ken Broun asked whether more highway would only draw more traffic. On October 19, 1994 residents divided at a hearing on the first phase of the consultants' corridor study over widening the road to six lanes, which council member Joyce Brown said would displace 28 businesses, and at a forum that day on a state offer to study South Columbia Street between Purefoy Road and Mason Farm Road most speakers, the Orange County Greens among them, opposed four or five lanes and asked for sidewalks and bike lanes. On November 14 the council approved, with Durham and the state, a second study of the corridor weighing six lanes, which council member Joe Capowski put at $80 million to $120 million, against a light rail line at about $360 million, and asked the state for a feasibility study of turn and bike lanes on South Columbia Street. On November 28 the council voted 6 to 3 to endorse the state's plan to widen N.C. 86 to four lanes from Homestead Road to Interstate 40, with a raised median, turn lanes, bike lanes and sidewalks.
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.
A house tour booklet from the Chapel Hill School Art Guild for 14 to 19 April 1973, held as a benefit for the public school art program and featuring the Horace Williams home. Sixty pages with illustrations and advertising matter from local businesses. Topics include buildings and historic buildings in Chapel Hill and the Horace Williams House itself.
Amelia L. Gallo's 2010 paper on the historic house museum in North Carolina and the part it plays in presenting shared history and culture. The Horace Williams House in Chapel Hill is among the subjects, along with historic buildings and their conservation and restoration, so the study draws on Chapel Hill for its material.
An account of the Horace Williams House in Chapel Hill and of Henry Horace Williams, the university teacher whose home it was. Published in the town in 1989, it concerns historic buildings in Chapel Hill, university faculty biography and novelist Thomas Wolfe.
A 1977 poster reproducing a color photograph of the quilt that hangs in the Horace Williams House in Chapel Hill. The quilt depicts twenty two historic buildings in the town, and a typewritten key identifying them accompanies the sheet.
Jonathan Howes, a former mayor of Chapel Hill who served in Governor Hunt's cabinet and later worked in the UNC chancellor's office on urban planning, gave this illustrated talk on the past and future of the Chapel Hill campus. Cassette, 1998.
Stewart E. Dunaway's compilation of Orange County road and bridge papers concerning county bridges between 1787 and 1865. It reproduces documents in facsimile, with maps and partial transcriptions, and provides names useful for genealogical research. First compiled in two volumes in 2008, then combined and updated, this 2013 edition has 253 pages, 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.
Three volumes of historic Orange County road records compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway and self-published through Lulu.com in 2008, with maps. The documents, reproduced as facsimiles and sometimes transcribed, include petitions for new roads, requests for road upkeep, bridge records and papers explaining why roads were rerouted. Road petitions name the householders along a route. The third volume also gathers records connected with Cyrus Guy's lynching in Orange County in 1869.
Three volumes of Orange County road records assembled by Stewart E. Dunaway from the original petitions, orders and maps at the North Carolina State Archives, reproduced in facsimile with partial transcriptions. Volume 1 covers 1786 to 1820, volume 2 1820 to 1849 and volume 3 1850 to 1883. The papers document the laying out and upkeep of county roads and name the residents involved. June 2009 update, distributed through Lulu, 28 cm.
Stewart E. Dunaway's 2013 compilation of Orange County deed records outside the regular deed books, covering 1752 to 1769 and 1793. The loose papers include road petitions and cartway orders, providing material for county history, genealogy and the history of roads.
Stewart E. Dunaway's first volume of Orange County road records, reproducing documents and maps from the North Carolina State Archives for the years 1786 to 1820, with partial transcriptions, an index and a list of overseers. Road papers name the landowners along each route. Self-published in 2010, 348 pages.
Raymond Arsenault's history of the 1961 Freedom Rides and the campaign against segregated interstate travel in the South. Published by Oxford University Press in 2006. Its North Carolina material reaches Chapel Hill, Durham, Greensboro and Charlotte, which is where the Orange County connection lies, and the wider subject is African American civil rights work, segregation in transportation and race relations through the twentieth century.
Community cookbook from Cross Roads Baptist Church in Hillsborough, printed by Morris Press Cookbooks in 2005 in a three-ring binder. Recipes are credited to their contributors. The book includes Southern cooking, church history and material on the Family House of Chapel Hill. 124 pages of recipes plus front and back matter, with color illustrations.
Joe Liles's interviews with longtime residents of Fish Dam Road, an old rural road in Durham County, recorded in 2004, with subjects tied to both Durham and Orange counties. The interviewees are Charles Scott Harkey, Mary Scarlett Jones, Boyce Link and John Scarlett, all born between 1912 and 1920, and the topics include country life, the road's history and the Duke Power Company.
Franklin Street through two centuries, gathered in a 24 page illustrated supplement the Chapel Hill News published on April 10, 1994 for the town's bicentennial. Topics include the street itself, town history and social life and customs. It belongs with the other bicentennial publications of 1993 and 1994 that treat the commercial center of Chapel Hill.
Bernard Lee Bryant's compilation of who occupied each structure on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill at five-year intervals from 1793 to 1998, issued by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1999 as a photocopy of his original computer printout on cotton paper. 191 leaves.
Glenn Holder's 1931 profile of Captain Fred Smith, who spent forty-two years as skipper of the train known as the 'Carrboro Limited' between Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Detached from the March 1931 issue of the university's Alumni Review, the piece recounts Chapel Hill railroad history. Smith lived from 1858 to 1939.
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 thoroughfare plan, road widenings and bypasses, 1959–1994.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/chapel-hill-thoroughfare-plan-storyline-1959/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
