Storyline · 1971–1989
Federal highway officials favored a route for Interstate 40 through Orange County in 1971. Chapel Hill's aldermen opposed the route proposed in 1973 and in 1974 resolved to join ECOS in a possible suit, and in 1976 county planners favored carrying I-40 traffic on I-85 instead. After the state approved a route through southern Orange County in 1977, the towns and county sued in 1978; Chapel Hill withdrew and a judge dismissed the suit in 1979, and the county appealed. The interstate through the county, named for Harriet Morehead Berry in 1986, was finished south of Hillsborough in 1988. Gov. Jim Martin opened its first section, between U.S. 15-501 and New Hope Church Road, that September, and in 1989 Chapel Hill put money toward landscaping the new interchanges.
In November 1971 the Federal Highway Administration's state division engineer told the Chapel Hill Chamber of Commerce that the agency had apparently settled on the alternate route through Orange County, from Hillsborough to the Research Triangle Park, as the best for Interstate 40. On September 18, 1973 the Chapel Hill aldermen voted unanimously to oppose Alternate I, a route from I-85 west of Durham across U.S. 15-501 to the Research Triangle Park, and in September 1974 they resolved to join ECOS in a possible suit against routes 1 and 1A through Orange and Durham counties. In 1976 the county's planners judged Alternate 4, carrying I-40 traffic on an improved I-85, the least harmful choice, warning that the other corridors would break the farm and forest belt between Chapel Hill and Hillsborough.
On September 6, 1977 a panel of state and federal highway officials formally approved corridor 1B, a 20.4-mile Interstate 40 link from I-85 near Hillsborough, parallel to N.C. 86 and then east between Chapel Hill and Durham to Research Triangle Park, and on September 9 the state Transportation Board confirmed it at High Point. The route would displace 94 families and 11 businesses, and the county commissioners, who had backed a route along I-85, opposed it. On September 13 the commissioners, Chapel Hill officials and more than a dozen citizen groups, among them the League of Women Voters, the Sierra Club, the New Hope Audubon Society, the New Hope Improvement Association, UNC Student Government and both local parties, met to plan public education and possible legal action, with Durham attorney B. B. Olive coordinating. On September 27 the Chapel Hill aldermen voted to enter the town as a plaintiff, and the coalition, meeting at Carrboro Town Hall, planned letter campaigns aimed chiefly at Governor Jim Hunt. At a Student Government forum in Hamilton Hall on October 25, state highway administrator Billy Rose defended the route, which would run between the two sections of Duke Forest, while panelists led by Olive argued it would harm the forest and strain water and energy supplies; Rose granted some harm and said the state would widen N.C. 54 to four lanes from the east end of Chapel Hill to the new corridor.
On August 9, 1978 the Chapel Hill and Carrboro aldermen, the county commissioners, the environmental group Sensible Highways and Protected Environment (SHAPE) and ten landowners sued in Wake Superior Court, charging that the Board of Transportation had acted on a draft environmental impact statement, without guidelines from the legislature and without letting opponents speak, and asking the court to halt further work. By September a shovel-test survey by the N.C. Division of Archives had found several prehistoric sites along the corridor in Orange and Durham counties, used for temporary camps and special tasks, with stone knives or scrapers and a few pieces of pottery, and the remains of a house dated to about 1776 and a farm building of the middle to late 1800s. Most lay beside the road's path rather than in it, and the team recommended deeper testing of several. On February 26, 1979, after two hours of debate, the Chapel Hill aldermen voted 7 to 2 to leave the suit; Mayor James C. Wallace had argued that leaving might win state help for a southern bypass and a larger northern planning area, and Olive objected. Two days later Judge E. Maurice Braswell dismissed the suit, holding that state agencies are immune from suit. On April 23 the commissioners voted 4 to 0 in closed session to appeal alongside SHAPE, sharing about $2,000 in costs, while Commissioner Norman Walker walked out, saying the vote had not been on the agenda; Carrboro chose not to appeal.
The Board of Transportation named I-40 through Orange County the Harriet Morehead Berry Freeway in 1986. On September 22, 1988 Gov. Jim Martin, with the Orange High School band, opened the link from the U.S. 15-501 interchange to New Hope Church Road, the first part of the road between Chapel Hill and Interstate 85 near Hillsborough; the state said the last four miles were due by November 15, and the highway was finished south of Hillsborough that year. County planners said the joint planning agreement and rural buffer would keep most land at the new N.C. 86, New Hope Church Road and Old 86 interchanges residential. On February 13, 1989 the Chapel Hill Town Council put $25,000 from the 1986 parks and open space bonds toward landscaping the new interchanges at U.S. 15-501 and N.C. 86, to draw a state Department of Transportation matching grant, while Appearance Commission chairwoman Cassandra Sloop sought $12,500 from private donors toward a $75,000 total; the N.C. Botanical Garden offered advice and possibly plants.
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 the most widely held histories of the theme it is filed under, so they may not discuss it. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
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. “Choosing the I-40 route through Orange County, 1971–1989.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/i-40-route-storyline-1971/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
