Storyline · 1987–1991
Extending Pittsboro Street through Little Fraternity Court drew opposition from Northside residents, fraternities and University Square at 1987 hearings. The Chapel Hill Town Council dropped it from its capital improvements program in 1989 and from the thoroughfare plan in June 1991, though UNC officials had supported it. That October state highway staff said they would still encourage the road.
On September 22, 1987, more than 150 people came to a hearing of the joint University-Town Committee on Chapel Hill's thoroughfare plan and UNC's land-use plan. Nearly all of the 30 speakers opposed extending Pittsboro Street through Little Fraternity Court to Airport Road, which a Northside Neighborhood Association member said would destroy the century-old neighborhood. At a N.C. Department of Transportation hearing on September 30, speakers for Kappa Alpha and for the owner of University Square opposed the one-way extension, which would have taken three fraternity houses and cost University Square 60 parking spaces.
On March 27, 1989, on Joe Herzenberg's motion, the Town Council dropped the extension from its capital improvements program, ending its consideration for state funding, though the road stayed on the thoroughfare plan. The planning board had voted 6 to 2 to recommend dropping it, and the Alliance of Neighborhoods said it would harm Northside, which its president called the town's oldest Black neighborhood.
At a council hearing on the thoroughfare plan on June 4, 1990, residents and downtown business owners, backed by a petition of about 1,000 names, asked that the extension be dropped, while UNC officials supported it. On June 10, 1991, the council voted 8 to 0 for revisions that removed it from the plan. On October 2 state highway staff told local officials they would still encourage extending Pittsboro Street from the Carolina Inn to North Columbia Street, a road on the 1984 thoroughfare plan that would take Walker's Funeral Home and buildings on Little Fraternity Court. Mayor Jonathan Howes called this a preliminary staff recommendation, and UNC said the road was now a matter between the town and the state.
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.
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. “The Pittsboro Street extension, 1987–1991.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/pittsboro-street-extension-storyline-1987/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
