Storyline · 1901–1992
Telephone service in Chapel Hill grew from one professor's telephone in 1901 to an automatic dial system owned by the University. Bryant lists Professor Eben Alexander as the first in town to have a telephone, number 1 in 1901, and by Battle's account Professor Joshua W. Gore had the first long-distance line set up that session. In 1922 more than eighty citizens protested a rate increase to the state Corporation Commission. In 1925 the University bought the Chapel Hill Telephone Company to keep it from outside buyers. In 1927 it ordered dial equipment to replace the overloaded manual board, and between December 1927 and January 1928 the town changed over to automatic service, with new numbers and higher rates. The University-owned company opened a Campus exchange in 1969 and planned one-party service in the early 1970s, and in 1974 a state commission recommended selling it to Southern Bell. Southern Bell bought the system in 1977. The towns fought its higher installation charges and asked it to pay taxes on the property, and in 1978 residents opposed its plan to enlarge the Rosemary Street exchange beside the Old Methodist Church. In 1981 Southern Bell switched Chapel Hill to an electronic system, Chapel Hill telephone workers joined the 1983 national strike, and in 1984, after the AT&T breakup, UNC replaced its dormitory telephones with modular jacks. In 1988 Bingham Township residents petitioned to join a toll-free Triangle calling region and calls between Chapel Hill and Pittsboro became local, and in 1989 a trial of flat-rate calling across the Triangle began. In 1990 and 1991 the county commissioners and the Town Council pressed for flat-rate and toll-free calling, in 1992 half-price calling across the Triangle began as an experiment, and Southern Bell switched its Chapel Hill office to digital equipment.
Bryant lists Professor Eben Alexander of East Franklin Street as the first in town to have a telephone; in 1901 his number was 1. By Battle's account, Professor Joshua W. Gore had the first long-distance line set up at the university in the 1900-01 session, connecting by way of Durham. In the spring of 1915 the electrical engineering laboratory rebuilt used mill telephones to link offices in the Alumni Building. By March 1922 more than eighty citizens had protested to the state Corporation Commission against the Chapel Hill Telephone Company's increase from $2 to $3 a month for residence telephones, and the commission told P. H. Winston it would hear them. In the spring of 1923 R. O. Cate resigned as president of the Orange Telephone Company at Hillsboro. In April 1925 the University bought the Chapel Hill Telephone Company, reportedly for $25,000 to $30,000, to keep it from outside buyers. On July 2, 1927 a thunderstorm before dawn put 97 telephones out of service. By late July the University's Consolidated Service Plants had ordered dial equipment to replace the overloaded manual board and begun a central office on Rosemary Lane, finished by late November. Between December 23, 1927 and January 13, 1928 the telephones changed over to automatic dial service, with new numbers and higher rates set by the corporation commission. In 1952 the University raised Chapel Hill's telephone rates for the first time in more than twenty years, four-party residence phones going from $1.75 to $2.50 a month. On July 27, 1969 the University-owned Chapel Hill Telephone Company moved its 9,000 University lines to a new Campus exchange on Manning Drive. In 1971 the Utilities Commission ordered toll-free calling between Chapel Hill and Durham, which both telephone companies appealed, the company laid out a $1.5 million plan for one-party service throughout its exchange by the end of 1974, and it raised in-state long-distance rates. The State Bureau of Investigation looked into the company in 1972 after employees made allegations, and in 1973 a student sued it over long-distance billing. When the University put its utilities up for sale, a state study commission voted in September 1974 to sell the telephone system to Southern Bell, though Central Telephone had made the highest bid, and in October Central Telephone threatened to withdraw it.
On March 31, 1977 the University completed the $26 million sale of the Chapel Hill Telephone Company to Southern Bell, the last of its three major utilities to be sold, and the next day Southern Bell took over service to about 30,000 customers in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and southern Orange County. The Federal Communications Commission had approved the sale in February and refused a request from 105 of the company's employees for a public hearing. Single-party rates rose from $6.50 to $7.50 a month and pay-phone calls from 10 to 20 cents. In April the Chapel Hill aldermen asked the town attorney to look into stopping a rise in the installation charge from $7.50 to at least $20, which Alderman Marvin Silver said fell hardest on students, though state utility lawyers saw little room for a challenge. When Southern Bell asked to raise the charge for turning on an installed telephone from $20 to $49 and for a new installation from $24 to $72, the Chapel Hill aldermen voted unanimously on October 10 to intervene before the Utilities Commission. The next night Carrboro's board did the same and asked the commission to stop the company charging for directory assistance until it issued an up-to-date directory. In February 1978 both boards asked Southern Bell to pay taxes on almost $24 million in property it had bought from the University; through a loophole in the tax laws, and by listing most of the property as personal, it had paid 1977 taxes on only $1,873,027 of it.
In September 1978 the aldermen extended their hearing on Southern Bell's request to build an $11 million electronic switching station beside its Rosemary Street exchange, after two engineering firms warned the work could damage the 120-year-old Old Methodist Church next door. In the week the Planning Board recommended the permit, late in November, Southern Bell bought Belk-Leggett's West Franklin Street building for $765,000 as its district headquarters. By early December fourteen residents had formed a group to oppose the addition and urged people to ask the aldermen to deny the permit; their spokesman, UNC professor emeritus Paul Wager, called for a wider setback or an addition at the rear, which Southern Bell had said would cost too much and close Spring Lane.
In July 1981 Southern Bell replaced the 1930s electromechanical switching for about 30,000 lines in its Rosemary and Manning Street buildings with a $12 million electronic switching system, ending the long-distance access code, and the University went to a Centrex system, its administrative 933 numbers becoming 962 numbers. In February 1982 the N.C. Utilities Commission's consumer services division began investigating debt collection at Southern Bell's Chapel Hill office after UNC Student Legal Services attorneys wrote that the office had threatened to cut off students' telephones over old bills run up by their roommates; the company's district manager replied that such methods were improper and met office supervisors on proper procedures. From August 7 to 28, 1983 Chapel Hill members of the Communications Workers of America took part in the national strike against AT&T and its companies, picketing the Southern Bell office on West Franklin Street; local strikers said the company was cutting benefits and job security, pointing to a Chapel Hill test center that had been phased out. In April 1984 the Student Consumer Action Union and Southern Bell settled out of court, before a Utilities Commission hearing, the union's complaints that custom calling services had been added to students' dorm phones without their knowledge; Southern Bell agreed to a signed, itemized sign-up form and confirmation letters for later sales, but not to itemized bills. Between May 9 and 23, 1984 AT&T crews removed 4,092 telephones from UNC residence halls and Granville Towers and installed modular jacks so students could buy or rent their own phones, a change the housing office tied to the AT&T breakup.
In late March 1988 more than 800 Bingham Township residents, served by three telephone companies and often paying long-distance rates to call neighbors, churches, schools and the fire department, presented a petition to the N.C. Utilities Commission asking to be included in a toll-free calling region linking Orange, Durham and Wake counties, a plan the Triangle J Council of Governments had started; Rep. Joe Hackney wrote the commission in support. On July 31 Southern Bell made calls between Chapel Hill and Pittsboro local, after Pittsboro residents had petitioned the commission in June 1987; the change added 5 cents a month to Chapel Hill residential bills, 13 cents to business bills and $1.25 to Pittsboro residential bills, with more than 32,000 Southern Bell customers in Chapel Hill to Pittsboro's 4,000. On April 10, 1989 an 18-month trial of extended area service began, letting GTE South, Centel and Southern Bell customers in Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh pay a flat monthly rate for unlimited calls within the Triangle.
In the week of March 12, 1990 the Orange County commissioners and the Chapel Hill Town Council, meeting jointly, unanimously urged the N.C. Utilities Commission to adopt a flat monthly rate for all calls within Durham, Orange and Wake counties, ending long-distance charges between the four telephone companies serving Orange; Southern Bell opposed the plan, putting the added monthly charge at $9.18 for homes and $25.02 for businesses. The commission turned the request down, and on April 15, 1991 the commissioners asked it for toll-free calling within Orange County, whose residents paid long-distance charges to call between its six telephone exchanges, leaving out the Orange parts of the Durham, Prospect Hill and Timberlake exchanges for the time being; they also backed Southern Bell's discount Triangle calling plan and asked again for flat-rate service among Durham, Wake and Orange counties. On March 8, 1992 Southern Bell, GTE and Centel began an 18-month experiment with reduced-rate calling across the Triangle, letting Chapel Hill customers call Apex, Cary, Creedmoor, Durham, Garner, Hillsborough, Knightdale, Raleigh and Zebulon at half the long-distance rate. Customers had chosen between a Community Caller Plus plan at $10.77 a month with unlimited local calls and a cheaper Thrifty Caller plan, and Chapel Hill residents returned nearly 50,000 ballots. In the week of July 20 Southern Bell finished switching its local office serving the University, Chapel Hill and Carrboro from an analog system to digital equipment, and dormitory telephones joined the University network; UNC took over dormitory phone service on August 1 under a new AT&T long-distance contract.
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 3 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.
The Old Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, in the congregation's own material, newspaper clippings and photocopied articles. Part of the Churches series in the Chapel Hill Historical Society Vertical File Collection (CHHS.001). Undated.
Old Methodist Church in Chapel Hill in eleven undated photographs and a negative, including a front view and one where trees and shrubs screen the building. Part of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Prints and Photographs Collection.
Alumni Hall is put forward in this report as a grand memorial of the university centennial, printed at Chapel Hill about 1895. DigitalNC's North Carolina Yearbooks collection includes the report.
North Carolina ECHO project photograph of 25 July 2002 taking the front of the Alumni Building at a slight angle. The Chapel Hill building houses the university's Research Laboratories of Archaeology.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Carol M. Highsmith photographed the Alumni Building on the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill on 15 November 2017. Color digital photograph from the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.
Real photo postcard of the Alumni Building on the UNC campus in Chapel Hill, about 1918 to 1930. Someone has written 'Our office' in ink beside the building.
Howard N. Lee (born 1934) tells his own story, from a farm childhood in Lithonia, Georgia, through college, army service in Korea at Camp Casey and the move from Savannah that planted him in Chapel Hill, to his election as mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969 and his later run for Congress and years in the state legislature. Published by Cotton Patch Press of Chapel Hill in 2008, 199 pages with plates.
Edwin Caldwell, Jr. reviews a life in Chapel Hill politics in a three-hour Southern Oral History Program interview recorded March 2, 2001, by Oliver White. A skilled organizer, Caldwell worked in the campaign that made Howard Lee the town's first Black mayor in 1969, ran for office more than once without winning, and became a local political power. The conversation also covers race relations, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board and the Church of Reconciliation. Published online in 2006 in Documenting the American South.
Interview recorded June 21, 2000 with Rebecca Clark (1915-2009), a Black Chapel Hill resident, for the Southern Oral History Program at UNC. Clark, educated in Chapel Hill's segregated schools, describes working life under segregation and the economic discrimination she met in it. Topics also include Lincoln High School, school integration, and Howard Lee, elected mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969. Interview K-0536 in collection #4007.
Howard N. Lee's account of his own career, published in 2021 by the North Caroliniana Society with the society award given to him that year, together with tributes from Angela Lee, Valerie Foushee and others. Lee became mayor of Chapel Hill in 1969, the town's first Black mayor.
Edward G. Danziger's memoir of love and cooking, published by J. F. Blair in 1967. Danziger (1893 to 1972) ran Danziger's Old World Restaurant in Chapel Hill, and the book tells his life as a restaurateur in the town.
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.
Herbert G. Gutman's 1976 history of African American families from 1750 to 1925, published by Pantheon Books in New York, 664 pages with 38 leaves of plates. Its Orange County connection is the Bennehan and Cameron family plantations, Stagville and Fairntosh: the book discusses the people enslaved by Richard Bennehan (1743-1825) and the Camerons, and follows family ties among them under slavery and after emancipation. Subjects include African American families and enslaved persons in Orange County.
Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1977), The William and Mary Quarterly (1977), The American Historical Review (1977), Journal of American History (1977), The History Teacher (1977), Political Science Quarterly (1977), Journal of Black Psychology (1978), Journal of Social History (1978), Civil War history (1978), Signs (1978).
Orvin Lee Shiflett's biography of William Terry Couch, 1901 to 1988, the editor who built up UNC Press at Chapel Hill over four decades in publishing, with a subtitle that calls his career a lightning rod for controversy. Chapters treat culture in the South, a case history in book publishing, objectivity and social science and 'The Sainted Book Burners'. It bears on scholarly publishing and university presses in the twentieth century. McFarland, 2015, 268 pages with illustrations.
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.
Annette Marie Council's book about her family and Mama Dip's Country Kitchen, the Chapel Hill restaurant, published by NP Press in 2005. Subjects include African Americans in Chapel Hill, the restaurant's history and family biography. Fourteen introductory pages and 223 pages of text with illustrations, part local history and part family account.
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.
Charles X. Larrabee's history of the Research Triangle Institute over its first thirty one years, published in 1991. Topics include research institutes and research parks in North Carolina and the history of Research Triangle Park, the research district that lies between Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh.
Alex Sayf Cummings's 2020 book on the knowledge economy of the Research Triangle, technology research and the history of Research Triangle Park. Chapel Hill and its university form one corner of the Triangle.
A tour guidebook prepared for the 2016 Vernacular Architecture Forum conference in Durham, leading visitors through buildings in Orange and Caswell counties. It takes in the architecture of the bright leaf tobacco economy and the work of Thomas Day, the free Black cabinetmaker of Caswell County who worked in the middle of the nineteenth century.
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.
Maxine Freeland's biography of James John Freeland (1918-1999), a Hillsborough man of the twentieth century, compiled in 1999.
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. “Telephones in Chapel Hill, 1901–1992.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/telephones-chapel-hill-storyline-1901/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
