Theme
Main Street merchants, general stores, banks, hotels, and the local economy from tavern days to downtown revivals.
In briefTaverns and general stores, the Hillsborough tobacco market, banks, hotels and Main Street merchants make up the county’s commercial record, and Research Triangle Park remade its economy after 1959. The works here trace that local economy from tavern days to downtown revivals.
890 indexed works are connected with this theme. 10 held at OCPL →
Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.
Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this theme. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.
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.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Restaurants -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill.
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.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Research Triangle Park (N.C.) -- History.
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.
Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.
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.
Why this is here: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.
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.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Chapel Hill PL record: Research Triangle Park (N.C.) -- History.
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.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Restaurants.
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.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Research Triangle Park (N.C.) -- History.
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.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Research Triangle Park (N.C.) -- History.
Recently indexed: 'Varsity banking (1959) · The Bull's Head Book Shop (1928) · Every book for rent or sale (1938) · The Franklin Street gourmet (1986) · A guide to automotive repairs in Chapel Hill (1973) · Mr. Merchant, here is vital information : the University of North Carolina program to aid retailing (1949)
Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this theme. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this theme itself.
Large-format pictorial volume marking the turn of the millennium in the Triangle, compiled by Charlie Gaddy and published in 1999 by Towery of Memphis. Its 399 pages of illustrations, many in color, cover the Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh regions, with profiles of area business enterprises and an index. Topics include the civilization and pictorial record of all three regions.
H. Trawick Ward and R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr. present the archaeology of Siouan-speaking communities on the North Carolina Piedmont from about A.D. 1000 to 1700, including sites along the Eno near Hillsborough, with attention to trade, social change and the spread of cultural practices. Published by the Research Laboratories of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina in 1993, 466 pages with illustrations and maps.
A history of North Carolina's textile industry by Brent D. Glass, published in 1992 by the state Division of Archives and History; xiv and 119 illustrated pages with a bibliography and index. Glass, a public historian with a doctorate from Chapel Hill, later directed the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
General stores of Macon County and neighboring counties in the mountains of southwestern North Carolina, described by Londa L. Woody with illustrations by Gail Wood. Published by Parkway Publishers of Boone in 2000, 79 pages.
Charles Richard Sanders's short history of the Cameron plantation in central North Carolina from 1776 to 1973 and of its founder Richard Bennehan, whose lands became Stagville and Fairntosh. It covers the Bennehan and Cameron families and their connection with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Published by the author in Durham in 1974, 79 pages with a plate and illustrations.
Shirley Carter Hughson's study of piracy along the Carolina coast and of colonial trade from 1670 to 1740, in both North and South Carolina. It appeared in 1894 as numbers 5 to 7 of the twelfth series of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, edited by Herbert B. Adams; 134 pages.
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.
Ann Prospero profiles Research Triangle cooks and restaurants, including recipes from each kitchen. Combining biography and cookbook, it covers a region that includes Chapel Hill. Published by John F. Blair in 2009, 224 pages with illustrations.
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.
Storylines in this theme, earliest first. Each has its own page.
Dated events connected with this theme: sixteen of 503, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 503 dated events in the chronology →
The Indian route that Virginia traders had used since the 1670s crossed the Flat and Little rivers, forded the Eno at the place where the county town was laid out, and crossed the Haw near Swepsonville. After colonists reached the Piedmont in the mid eighteenth century the path was widened into a wagon road, and it is drawn on the colonial maps of Moseley, Collet and Mouzon.
Orange County's 1790 tax list returned 2,272 polls and 406,106 acres across its eight districts, with a separate list for Hillsborough town showing 36 white polls against 82 black polls. William Hooper was charged for 22 of them, John Taylor for 10 and Francis Childs for 5.
People: William Hooper · Walter Alves
Legal proceedings brought by William Kirkland, Catlett Campbell, Jacob Greer and Isaac Mordecai against Robert Bell placed Hannah and her children Jenny and David in the hands of the sheriff. Sheriff Samuel Turrentine sold the three at public auction at the Hillsborough Market House to Duncan Cameron for 200 pounds.
People: Duncan Cameron · William Kirkland
Lucy Watts sold the hotel and the land beside it to Nancy Hilliard, already known as a Chapel Hill hotel keeper. A year later Hilliard enlarged it for President Polk's commencement visit.
People: Nancy Hilliard
Subject: Eagle Hotel (Chapel Hill)
The General Assembly chartered the North Carolina Railroad in 1849, after Senate speaker Calvin Graves cast the deciding vote. The state built the 223-mile line from Goldsboro to Charlotte between 1851 and 1856, running it through Hillsborough, and the first train ran its full length in January 1856.
Subject: North Carolina Railroad
The Hillsboro Tobacco Warehouse, run by E. H. Pogue & Co., held its opening sale on Tuesday, January 5, 1886, and the Observer reported a heavy break with good prices. Three days earlier Pogue and fourteen other men had incorporated the Orange County Tobacco Association to buy and sell leaf tobacco.
Lloyd built the Alberta Cotton Mill beside the railroad in West End in 1898 and 1899, the brick mill that later became Durham Hosiery Mill No. 4 and then Carr Mill Mall.
Part of From West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town, 1882–1913 · 47 events
People: Julian S. Carr · Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)
Subject: Carr Mill
Dwight Ray and Seaton Lloyd, both from families of the White Cross and Carrboro communities, opened their hardware and furniture store in April 1922. Over the next 37 years it became the place where Carrboro talked over town and county politics.
On June 12, 1922, university librarian Louis Round Wilson, nine other faculty members and three trustees founded the University of North Carolina Press, the first university press in the South. Its first book, William C. Coker's study of water molds, appeared in 1923, and William T. Couch became director in 1932.
Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 20 events
People: William T. Couch · Louis Round Wilson
Allen A. Ellis built a new crossroads store.
John Sprunt Hill built the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill.
People: John Sprunt Hill
Subject: The Carolina Inn
Julian started out selling shoes at 167 East Franklin, in the space James R. Ellis's dress shop had left.
Dr. S. A. Nathan and Dr. L. L. Vine dissolved their partnership, and Vine, who had worked with Nathan for some years, took over the animal hospital on the Durham road as the Vine Veterinary Hospital.
Stewart's 1971 credit union building on Pittsboro Street uses stone walls and roof planes that seem to float above them, a mild form of modernism.
Chantal dropped up to 10 inches of rain on Orange County on the night of July 6, 2025. Chapel Hill crews made more than 50 water rescues around Camelot Village and Eastgate Crossing, Carrboro's Weatherhill Pointe flooded, and the Eno at Hillsborough set a record crest on July 7. The county declared an emergency that day.
Dual Supply, the downtown hardware store at 115 West King Street, began a closing sale set to run until the shop closed at the end of September 2026.
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 55 with a known location.
Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.
Background from selected state and local sources
Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching
Other catalogs to search and local organizations that can help.
Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this theme; they may not discuss the Orange County theme directly.
Howard E. Covington Jr. tells the first hundred years of the Belk department store chain, from the store William Henry Belk opened in Monroe in 1888 as the New York Racket, renamed Belk Brothers when his brother, Dr. John Belk, became his partner, to the local partnerships through which the business grew. Published by UNC Press in 1988; 308 pages, illustrated, with an index.
Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Belk Stores Services -- History; Department stores -- United States -- History; Retail trade -- United States -- History OCPL call number: NC 381 COVPicture: Farm Security Administration photographs, 1939–1940, Library of Congress; public domain. Image credits →
More to discover
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