Storyline · 1911–1924
Hillsboro fought to be on the Central Highway, and between 1911 and 1924 hard roads were built across Orange County. In 1911 Hillsboro, joined by delegations from Durham and Mebane, pressed its claim, and the trustees chose the route by way of Hillsboro and Mebane. In 1919 the commissioners let the national highway across the county. The 1921 Highway Act, championed by Harriet Morehead Berry of Hillsborough, paid for a state network whose Central Highway ran through the town. The state bridged the Eno at Hillsboro in 1922, and the Durham-Hillsboro highway opened in 1924, after paving had sent traffic through Chapel Hill and onto a private detour whose owner charged drivers.
In June 1911 Hillsboro, joined by delegations from Durham and Mebane, pressed its claim to the Central Highway route, and by July 6 Joseph Hyde Pratt had sent Frank Nash word that the trustees chose the route by way of Hillsboro and Mebane. In December 1913 the Corporation Commission ordered three railroad underpasses on the Durham-Greensboro highway in Orange. In July 1919 the commissioners let the national highway across the county by way of Hillsboro to Walter S. and Lonnie A. Crawford of Mebane, and by October work was moving fast from the Durham line. The 1921 Highway Act, championed by Harriet Morehead Berry of Hillsborough, paid for a state network whose Central Highway ran through the town. A hard-surface road between Chapel Hill and Durham opened on November 24, 1921, and in 1922 the state built a concrete bridge over the Eno at Hillsboro. In 1923 Hillsboro paved its streets, Orange and Chatham crews built a through road to meet near Mount Carmel Church, the commissioners ordered a New Hope Creek bridge on the Blackwood-Durham road, and on December 8 asphalt crews finished the Mebane-Hillsboro road at Efland. In June 1924 the commissioners required a hearing before any new road was built. That summer concrete paving closed Route 10 between Hillsboro and Durham, sending traffic through Chapel Hill, and John T. Johnston charged drivers to use his private detour. The Durham-Hillsboro highway opened on November 24, 1924.
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 the 1 with a known location.
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.
Bridge over the Eno River at the Hillsborough city limits, on a postcard published by the W. A. Hayes Drug Store of Hillsboro and printed by the Albertype Co., dated about 1905 to 1915. Signs on the bridge name the river and the town line, and the caption lists N.C. Highways 10 and 14 and U.S. Highway 70.
Book three of an 1860 map series tracing the North Carolina Railroad through Alamance, Orange and Wake counties. The sheets show the right of way and the property it crossed, providing material for railroad and land tenure history.
Environmental assessment from May 2015 on closing three private railroad crossings on the North Carolina Railroad and Norfolk Southern line in Orange County, at Gordon Thomas Drive, Greenbriar Drive and Byrdsville Road. Prepared by the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration under the National Environmental Policy Act, with maps and plans.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Finding of no significant impact, October 2015, for closing three private railroad crossings on the North Carolina Railroad and Norfolk Southern line in Orange County: Gordon Thomas Drive, Greenbriar Drive and Byrdsville Road. The North Carolina Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration prepared it under the National Environmental Policy Act. 91 images.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Keri Petersen's dissertation on the hired enslaved workers who built the North Carolina Railroad through the Piedmont, Hillsborough included, from 1851 to 1856, and the hundreds more who kept it running through the Civil War.
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.
Circular no. 58 of the North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey, issued from Chapel Hill on 10 September 1910 by State Geologist Joseph Hyde Pratt. It announces the second annual Southern Appalachian Good Roads Convention in Knoxville, Tennessee, on 6 and 7 October 1910. From Duke's Broadsides and Ephemera Collection.
Personal papers of Mary Bayley Pratt, who died in 1929, dated 1856 and then 1899 to 1929. One hundred and sixty items in half a linear foot, part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 3888. The papers concern members of the Bayley family, Joseph Hyde Pratt and women's social life and customs in Chapel Hill.
Joseph Hyde Pratt seated outdoors in an undated photograph, one of the Chapel Hill portraits in the Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection.
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. “Highways through Orange County, 1911–1924.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/highways-orange-storyline-1911/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
