Storyline · 1925–1958
By 1925 growing car traffic was crowding Chapel Hill's streets, and for more than thirty years the aldermen answered with new rules on parking and speed. They changed the parking angle, made Franklin Street a through street in 1930, and in 1934, after complaints of cars racing along the main street, put a motorcycle officer on the traffic laws, and 25 or 30 students were soon fined. After a schoolgirl was struck by a student's car, a boys' safety patrol began guarding crossings near the school. In 1956 businesses opened what the News called the town's first customer parking lot, and in 1958 the aldermen backed a plan for about 437 metered spaces downtown.
By November 1925, facing crowded streets from growing car traffic, the Chapel Hill aldermen required cars in the business section to park at a 30-degree angle to the curb instead of 45 degrees and made the buses from Durham run on through Columbia Street and turn at the Carolina Inn instead of at the Franklin and Columbia corner. In July 1928 the aldermen forbade merchants to serve food or drink to people in cars parked at the curb.
In January 1929 police arrested fifteen students for standing in the street to beg rides, and Mayor Zeb Council fined each $1 and costs, remitted the fines and warned that a second offense would cost $10. After a run of accidents that fall, the town painted crossing bars at each end of the business block and a STOP below the post office corner, and told the police to enforce the 15-mile limit downtown. On October 8, 1930 the aldermen made Franklin Street a through street, with Stop signs at the cross streets and limits of 20 miles in the business block and 30 elsewhere.
On October 10, 1934, after complaints of cars racing along the main street at 50 miles an hour or more, they had Town Manager J. L. Caldwell put a motorcycle officer on the traffic laws, and within three weeks 25 or 30 students had been fined in recorder's court. On October 31 the town cut away the high bank at Rosemary and Henderson streets, and on November 1, two days after a schoolgirl was struck by a student's car, a boys' safety patrol began guarding crossings near the Chapel Hill school.
On June 5, 1935, after weeks of complaints that merchants and clerks stored their cars all day on the Franklin Street business block, the aldermen limited parking there to two hours between 8 A.M. and 7 P.M., Sundays excepted. On October 10, 1949 the aldermen set a 25 mile an hour limit on all town streets outside the state highway system and made it unlawful to leave a car on any street more than 48 hours. On June 2, 1956 an association of 28 East Franklin Street businesses and individuals opened what the News called Chapel Hill's first customer parking lot, at Columbia and Rosemary streets, and on March 17, 1958 the aldermen unanimously backed the planning board's plan for about 437 metered parking spaces downtown and ordered an ordinance drawn.
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.
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. “Traffic, parking and the drive against speeding in Chapel Hill, 1925–1958.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/traffic-speeding-storyline-1928/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
