Storyline
Chapel Hill’s fire protection after the Pickard Hotel burned in January 1928: the full-time fireman, the new water mains and lower insurance rates, then the Kenfield house fire beyond the town limits in 1929 and the neighbors’ meeting on protection outside town.
In briefChapel Hill's fire protection stopped at the town limits, and for years houses just outside them burned with too little water to fight the fires. In 1929 the town truck stopped at the limits while the house tennis coach J. F. Kenfield rented burned, and in 1932 the aldermen ruled that it could not answer fires outside. In 1934 four children of Tom and Bertha Miller died when their house beyond the village burned with no water line near, and in 1938 Howard W. Odum's house burned outside the limits. In May 1944 a new pumper gave the town two trucks, and the town manager said a plan for protection outside the limits might follow.
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On January 7, 1928 a fire that started in the attic destroyed the old Pickard Hotel on Franklin Street at a loss of about $20,000. Because none of the fire company's officers had heard the alarm, the aldermen voted on January 23 to keep a full-time fireman at headquarters. By April 20 new water mains had brought hydrants to every part of town and every outlying colony but Gimghoul, and with two men on duty the state insurance department told the town manager premiums could fall by as much as 25 per cent.
On November 20, 1929 fire broke out in the house tennis coach J. F. Kenfield rented on the Pittsboro highway, just beyond the town limits. The town truck stopped at the limits under the fire company's rule against leaving town until alderman P. L. Burch ordered it out, too late, and the loss came to about $12,000. A bucket brigade, off-duty firemen and a Black neighbor, John Johnson, with a hose saved the house next door, and the fire set off talk of extending the town limits. On December 3 householders of the Pittsboro highway settlement met with Sherwood Brockwell of the state insurance department, who said no real protection was possible without a 6- or 8-inch water main, which the University would lay beyond the limits only at the residents' cost.
In January 1932, since the town's fire insurance rate depended on keeping its equipment inside the corporate limits, the aldermen ruled that the truck could not answer fires outside; talks with suburban residents had produced no plan, and Town Manager Foushee suggested a cheap chemical trailer. After a fire on February 23 destroyed the former Umstead home on Vance Street and showed that the southwest section's 4-inch main could not give the firemen enough pressure, the University Consolidated Service Plants agreed on March 9 to lay about 1,300 feet of 6-inch main from Cameron Avenue to Vance Street, with the town hauling and placing the pipe.
Before dawn on February 11, 1934 four children of Tom and Bertha Miller died when their frame house beyond the southwest edge of the village burned with no water line near, and the Weekly pressed again for fire protection outside the town limits. On Sunday morning, February 20, 1938 fire destroyed Howard W. Odum's $20,000 house just outside the town limits, where low pressure from a hydrant several hundred feet away let the firemen only slow the blaze, and the Weekly pointed out that suburban homes had no water lines but small service pipes and that the town's one fire truck could not pump for fires outside the limits; Brodie Thompson's crew had a new house with walls and roof on the old foundations within 26 days.
On the night of November 6, 1939 a fire that gutted a house on West Cameron Avenue, with a wrong siren signal and a feeble stream from the hydrant, led the town and the University Service Plants to inspect hydrants all over town, and the Weekly pressed for a second engine truck, as fire underwriters also advised that month. In the first week of May 1944 a $4,983 La France pumper, ordered the previous August, gave the town fire department two trucks for the first time, its only other truck having been in service 23 years, and Town Manager J. L. Caldwell said a plan might follow to give fire protection outside the town limits.
Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 15 dated events in the chronology →
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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.
Background reading on Politics & Government. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Willis P. Whichard's biography of David Lowry Swain, governor of North Carolina from 1832 to 1835 and president of the University of North Carolina from 1835 until his death in 1868. The subtitle ties Swain, nineteenth-century North Carolina and the university together, and the book belongs with the lives of college presidents and governors. Published in 2022.
Stewart E. Dunaway's life of Edmund Fanning (1739-1818), the colonial officeholder in Hillsborough whom the Regulators singled out and who left North Carolina as a loyalist, together with the Fanning family's genealogy. Self-published through Lulu in 2011, 223 pages with illustrations, facsimiles, genealogical tables and maps. Topics include American loyalists and Hillsborough and Orange County biography and genealogy.
Howard E. Covington Jr.'s biography of Albert Coates (1896-1989), the law professor who founded the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina and led it through its early years. Topics include Coates as a law teacher and the institute's history as a center for the study of public administration in Chapel Hill. Published in 2010 by the University Library at Chapel Hill, 322 pages with 32 pages of plates.
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.
A longer Southern Oral History Program interview with Presbyterian minister Charles M. Jones (1906-1993), recorded November 8, 1976, by Joseph A. Herzenberg. Jones traces his civil rights work in Chapel Hill from the 1930s into the 1960s. He characterizes town and university leaders, Frank Porter Graham among them, as cautiously liberal on race, willing to allow a little integration at performances and student activities, and describes the church's place in the town's social conflicts. Published online in 2008 in Documenting the American South.
Seventh of nine Southern Oral History Program interviews with Daniel H. Pollitt, a professor at the UNC School of Law. Recorded April 5, 1991, by Ann McColl, this session of just under an hour is devoted to the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 act of the General Assembly that barred Communists and certain other speakers from state campuses, and to the fight over it at Chapel Hill in the mid-1960s, in which Pollitt took part. Published online in 2008 in Documenting the American South.
Race, sports and student protest at UNC are the subjects of this fourth interview with law professor Daniel H. Pollitt, recorded February 15, 1991, by Ann McColl for the Southern Oral History Program. Pollitt discusses the integration of Carolina athletics, including basketball player Charlie Scott, the university's first Black scholarship athlete, the discrimination Black athletes met, student activism from the late 1950s through the 1960s, and the Campus Y. Published online in 2008 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
Pat Cusick, a civil rights worker in Chapel Hill during the 1960s, was interviewed by Pamela Dean in June 1989. He explains how his schooling and military service changed his thinking about race, his frustration with campus liberalism at UNC, and his turn to civil disobedience as a student organizer in the town. Topics include civil rights workers, college student political activity and race relations in Chapel Hill. About two and a half hours; electronic edition issued by the UNC library in 2008 through Documenting the American South.
Quinton E. Baker, a Black gay man who took part in the Chapel Hill civil rights protests of the 1960s, was interviewed by Chris McGinnis in February 2002. He describes growing up under segregation with little contact with white people, an early awareness of his sexuality, and the way race and sexual identity together shaped his activism as a college student. About two and a half hours; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2008, through Documenting the American South.
Catalog of an exhibit mounted by the Manuscripts Department of Wilson Library from January 23 to May 31, 2007, on student protest in Chapel Hill during the 1960s. Topics include civil rights demonstrations, the Speaker Ban Law, the Black Student Movement, restaurant strikes and Vietnam War protests at the university. Compiled by Biff Hollingsworth, 59 pages with illustrations and facsimiles, published by the university library.
Second of two Southern Oral History Program interviews with Anne Queen (1911-2005), who came to Chapel Hill after years as an industrial worker and went on to direct the Campus YWCA-YMCA, a center of student activism. Recorded November 22, 1976, by Joseph Herzenberg, this hour-long conversation covers how Queen saw politics in the South and the nation change through the mid-twentieth century, and student political activity at UNC. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
Ashley Davis, who entered UNC in 1968 and joined the Black Student Movement, recalls the 1969 strike by the university's cafeteria workers and the BSM's decision to stand with them when the workers asked. Recorded April 12, 1974, by Russell Rymer for the Southern Oral History Program, the hour-and-a-half interview touches on Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson, the Southern Student Organizing Committee and race relations among students on campus. Published online in 2007 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.
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