Storyline · 1911–1919
By June 1911 Duke's Southern Power Company had carried its line of towers across Orange County, and within a few years it had a generating plant in the county and was bringing electric power to its mills. In 1915 the company built a coal-fired steam plant beside the Eno near University Station as a backup for its hydroelectric stations, and by July 1916, with flooding shutting the river stations, it was sending current as far as Charlotte. That October the company surveyed a line to Carrboro to power the mills and light the town. In West Hillsborough the steam-driven Bellevue mill ran partly on electricity by 1919 and completely by the mid-1920s.
By June 1911 the Southern Power Company had carried its line of towers across Orange County and was next to string the wires for its electric current. Its mortgage to the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company of New York, securing a gold bond issue, took 141 pages to record in the register of deeds' books at Hillsboro. In 1915, with Fiske-Carter Construction Company holding the contract, Duke's Southern Power Company built a coal-fired steam generating plant beside the Eno near University Station as a backup for its hydroelectric stations. By July 1916 the Eno steam plant was sending current as far as Charlotte while flooding shut down the company's river stations, and its power went to Durham's factories. In October 1916 the company was surveying a line from its plant near University Station to Carrboro, to supply power to the mills and electric lights for the town, and the News said the line would be built soon after the survey. In West Hillsborough the Bellevue mill had been built to run belt-driven machinery from a steam engine. By 1919 it ran partly on electricity, and by the mid-1920s it had changed over completely, with individual motors on the machines and the belt-way removed.
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.
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.
University Station, the rail junction on the line serving Chapel Hill, in two undated prints: five men beside the engine and a car, and the station building with a crowd gathered in front.
Stewart E. Dunaway's history of the two mills George Johnston built on New Hope Creek in Orange County, the first in 1793 and the second in 1820, the earlier of which he sold to the Englishman William Robson. Self-published in 2010, 256 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles. Topics include gristmills in Orange County and the Blackwood, Johnston, Robinson and Robson families, so the volume serves both mill history and genealogy.
Jennifer Fleischner's double biography of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley, the dressmaker who had been enslaved, including years in Hillsborough, before buying her freedom and becoming the First Lady's confidante. Published by Broadway Books in New York in 2003, 372 pages with illustrations and a map. Topics include enslaved women in Hillsborough and the United States, dressmakers and women's friendships in the nineteenth century.
Stewart E. Dunaway's 2010 study of Patterson Mill, a gristmill site on New Hope Creek where Orange County meets Chatham County. The book pairs a short genealogy of the Patterson family with a close survey of what remains of the mill on land now inside Duke Forest, supported by maps, facsimile documents and illustrations across 176 pages. Self-published in a second issue dated October 10, 2010.
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.
Albert N. Link's history of the Research Triangle Park, the research park founded to draw on the universities at Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh, published in 2002 by the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina in 278 pages with illustrations. Topics include research parks, research institutes and industrial research in North Carolina and the history of the park itself.
Beverly A. Scarlett's 2024 study of a free community of color in nineteenth-century Orange County, drawing on apprenticeship and freedmen's records among other county sources.
Exhibit publication from the Orange County Historical Museum for its special exhibit on working life, shown in Hillsborough from March to December 2024 and concerned with the county's trades and industrial arts. Produced by the museum in 2024, it documents Orange County and Hillsborough history through the work people did.
Hsi-Chu Bolick's 2010 account of the East Asian collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, printed as an article running from page 280 to page 292 with illustrations and portraits. Topics include East Asian libraries in Chapel Hill, library resources for East Asia, and the university's cooperation with Duke in building the collection.
Mark Chilton's short account of the water mills that once stood on Bolin and Morgan creeks in Orange County, prepared to accompany a talk given to the Chapel Hill Historical Society on January 27, 2008. Seven unnumbered pages with a folded plate, color illustrations and a map.
Account of student protest in 1960s Chapel Hill, published by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2007 with illustrations. It draws together the civil rights movement and segregation in the town, discrimination in restaurants, academic freedom and university autonomy, protest against the Vietnam War, Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Student Movement on campus.
Sara Regan Lachenman's 2005 thesis on how the people living in Carrboro's company built housing altered it to suit themselves. It takes up domestic architecture, working class housing and the social side of the textile industry in the town, with 158 pages of text and illustrations.
Tanya Smith Brice studies how North Carolina's juvenile justice system treated African American girls between 1890 and 1930, naming among its institutions the North Carolina Industrial School for Negro Girls at Efland in Orange County. Health and hygiene, juvenile delinquency and the state's social conditions are among its subjects. A 2003 typescript of 89 leaves with a bibliography on the closing pages.
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. “Southern Power and electric service, 1911–1919.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/southern-power-storyline-1911/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
