Storyline · 1975–1991
Chapel Hill set aside its first greenway money in 1975 and by 1977 had approved a seven-mile path around town. Volunteers built the Tanyard Branch greenway in 1985, the year the town created a Greenways Commission, and in 1986 residents called a plan for stream easements vague and hurried. The council funded new trails in 1986 and 1988 while the county dropped a rural trails project, and in 1989 Chapel Hill joined a study of the New Hope Corridor greenway. In 1990 neighbors objected to paving the Bolin Creek greenway, whose first phase the council approved in 1991, and that fall the towns and the county heard comment on the New Hope Corridor open space plan.
In January 1975 Chapel Hill set aside its first money for a greenway system, $7,500 under its capital improvement program for walking and jogging paths along the town's streams, one part of a larger recreation plan that the town only partly accepted. By September the planning director said about seven miles of paths would link the town's major parks, and gifts and leases of land might let paving start in 1976 instead of 1979. On September 12, 1977 the aldermen approved the four remaining links of a seven-mile bicycle and pedestrian greenway around Chapel Hill, a system begun in 1976, over the objection of a Dickerson Court resident whose land one link would cross.
In 1985 volunteers built the Tanyard Branch greenway along a branch of Bolin Creek in a single day at little cost, with the town public works department doing some steps. On July 8, 1985 the Town Council voted unanimously for an ordinance setting up a Greenways Commission. The Greenways Task Force's final report of February 11, 1986 proposed a greenway plan that would require developers building near streams to give 100-foot public easements along Bolin, Booker and Morgan creeks, Cedar Fork and Battle and Tanyard branches. At a council forum on March 17 about 30 people, most from the Morgan Creek area, called the plan vague and hurried; council members David Godschalk and Jonathan Howes said the concept was sound but the plan needed more work before adoption. On November 10 the council voted unanimously for a $25,000 Greenways Commission project: $5,500 to improve the Tanyard Branch trail and $19,500 for building and design work on new trails at Battle Park and along Bolin Creek.
In late March 1988, reviewing its Capital Improvements Plan for 1988 to 1993, the council voted at Art Werner's suggestion to add $100,000 for the Greenways Commission from money set aside for open space and parks; Werner said smaller projects could be lost to overruns on big ones. That month the Orange County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to remove from the Recreation and Parks Master Plan a $1 million project reserving land for walking and bicycling trails in rural Orange County, after a public hearing drew heavy concern. Chairwoman Shirley Marshall said the presentation had confused residents about when land would be taken, and parks director Marianne Black said the plan covered 20 years. On September 25, 1989 the Chapel Hill council voted unanimously to take part in a $20,000 study of the New Hope Corridor Greenway, an open-space corridor of about 18 miles and 1,800 acres meant to link the Eno River State Park and Jordan Lake, with Orange and Durham counties and the cities of Chapel Hill and Durham sharing the cost. Chapel Hill's $5,000 came from its planning budget, and Werner said the vote did not commit the town to buying land.
On November 29, 1990, at a meeting held by the Parks and Recreation Department and its designers, residents near Bolin Creek criticized the proposed Middle Bolin Creek Greenway, a $200,000 asphalt bicycle and pedestrian path eight to ten feet wide along a sewer easement between Airport Road and Elizabeth Street, the first phase of a three-phase project. Neighbors in Hidden Hills and Village Green said they had given land for a woodland trail and feared motorbikes and trespassers, while a cycling advocate said the path would ease traffic. On September 23, 1991 the Town Council unanimously approved the first phase of the Bolin Creek Greenway, a 10-foot-wide paved trail of about 4,200 feet from Airport Road near the police station toward Franklin Street, at a cost of $366,100, most of it from a state grant; council members also said OWASA should answer for sewage that overflowed from manholes along its Bolin Creek line beside the trail. On October 10 the council, the Carrboro aldermen, the county commissioners and the county planning board heard comment at Carrboro Elementary School on the New Hope Corridor Open Space Master Plan, which would link Eno River State Park, New Hope Creek and Corps of Engineers land at Jordan Lake as protected wildlife corridors with unpaved trails. The plan was put at $14.9 million to $26.4 million over 20 years, 85 percent paid by Durham, and residents near landfill candidate Site 4 asked that the creek's headwaters be protected too.
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.
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 greenways, 1975–1991.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/greenways-storyline-1975/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
