Storyline · 1920–1929
Fire destroyed the Chapel Hill Country Club's first clubhouse on April 3, 1920, and the club rebuilt on land given by William C. Coker. After a time in the Gorgon's Head lodge, members opened a new clubhouse on Coker's grounds south of the campus on May 17, 1923. The club had broken ground for a golf course that March, and by August it had cleared the first fairway and graded four greens. In January 1929 the club gave up 6 acres and received 29 from Coker, enough to extend the course to nine holes, and in February Coker gave the six-acre hill back so the club could stay open. The land later passed to the university, and the Laurel Hill subdivision was laid out along the course.
On the afternoon of Saturday, April 3, 1920 the Chapel Hill Country Club's one-story clubhouse, partly of log, burned to the ground after a leaking oil stove soaked the floor. The faculty used the Gimghoul lodge as a clubhouse for a time, and that fall the club moved into the Gorgon's Head lodge. By early 1923 William C. Coker had given the club its grounds south of the campus. Members gathered with basket suppers on May 17, 1923 for the opening of the new clubhouse, three years after fire destroyed the first one. That March, with the clubhouse nearly finished, W. C. George had hired a man with a horse and plow to break ground for a golf course on the club's land off the Raleigh road, and grass seeding had begun. In August, with most members away, the club cleared the first fairway and graded four greens. It then had 123 members and had spent about $6,500 on the house, and in October it set aside $500 more for a nine-hole course of about 2,550 yards, hoping for play by spring. By late 1924 the club was clearing the fairways of its golf course. The club's annual meeting on January 31, 1929 approved an exchange in which it gave up 6 acres and received 29 from Coker, enough to extend the golf course to nine holes, and elected Colonel Joseph Hyde Pratt president. On February 9 Coker gave the six-acre hill back to the club so it could stay open. The land later passed to the university and is used for tennis courts and a greenway park, and the Laurel Hill subdivision was laid out along the course.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
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.
Visitor guide to the Coker Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill, issued by the North Carolina Botanical Garden in 2000. It covers the arboretum's history and William Chambers Coker, the botanist it is named for, who died in 1953. A short orientation piece for people walking the grounds.
Portrait of William Chambers Coker, who chaired the UNC Botany Department from 1908 to 1940 and gave his name to the Coker Building, home of the Herbarium. NC ECHO photograph, Chapel Hill, 6 March 2002.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
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.
William T. Alexander (1904 to 1992), in the second of three interviews, describes his schooling in Mecklenburg County, Charlotte and Chapel Hill in the 1910s and 1920s, beginning at the one-room Mallard Creek School. Rural education, corporal punishment, getting children to school, amusements, student life at UNC and the botanist William Chambers Coker come up. About 64 minutes, April 1992, tied to the William Tasse Alexander Family Papers, MS0256.
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. “The Chapel Hill Country Club and its golf links, 1920–1929.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/country-club-storyline-1920/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
