Storyline
How a Texaco station at Franklin and Columbia streets cost the south side of Franklin Street its old elms in 1930: the aldermen’s conditions, the lowered sidewalk and its grass strip, the station’s building, and the sugar maples planted in 1931.
In briefLowering the sidewalk for a Texas Company service station on the southeast corner of Franklin and Columbia streets meant cutting the old elms along that stretch, nine on Franklin Street and four on Columbia by the Weekly's count. The aldermen agreed in July 1930 on condition that a planting strip be kept for new trees under W. C. Coker's direction, and the elms came down at the end of August. The sidewalk was regraded and paved at the abutting owners' expense. The Weekly called the station recently built by late January 1931, and by February 27 sixteen sugar maples had been set out on the south side of Franklin Street.
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No works in the index are currently linked directly to this storyline. The works below provide background on Growth, Land & Planning.
To put a service station on the southeast corner of Franklin and Columbia streets, the Texas Company needed the sidewalk lowered, which meant cutting the old elms along that stretch, nine on Franklin Street and four on Columbia by the Weekly's count. The aldermen agreed in July 1930, with reluctance, on condition that a planting strip be kept for new trees under W. C. Coker's direction, and the elms came down at the end of August. By October 3 Cobb and Homewood had finished regrading and paving the south Franklin Street sidewalk from Columbia Street past the bakery at about $1,500 assessed on the abutting owners. In early October grass was planted in the strip between the curb and the new sidewalk, and stores along the block rebuilt their fronts to meet the new grade. Work on the station was to begin October 15, and the old frame Roberson store building on the corner was torn down by early November. The Weekly had described the planned station as Colonial, white with green trim, with a lattice fence and shrubbery, and by late January 1931 it called the station recently built. By February 27, 1931, under Coker's direction, sixteen sugar maples from a Mebane nursery had been set out on the south side of Franklin Street between Columbia Street and the Methodist church.
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Background reading on Growth, Land & Planning. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Stewart E. Dunaway's 2015 addendum to his history of Hillsborough's town lots, adding deed records arranged by lot number and further town history, with the expansion of the 1890s covered for the first time. Self-published in North Carolina as version 1.0, 446 pages with illustrations, facsimiles and maps. Topics include deeds, court records, land titles and real property in Hillsborough.
Ejectment suits were the legal route for disputing who held title to a tract of land, and the case files often include plats and drawings of the property. Stewart E. Dunaway gathered Orange County's ejectment cases from the state archives and reproduced them in facsimile, with maps, in a self-published volume issued through Lulu in 2015 (issue 2).
Deed transcripts for the town lots of Chapel Hill and adjoining land from 1790 to the 1930s, compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway. Each transcript keeps only the working facts: grantor and grantee, price, acreage and the metes and bounds of the parcel. Self-published in 2014 as Issue 1G, 702 pages with maps and facsimiles.
Comprehensive transportation plan for Orange County prepared by Sarah Lee for the Transportation Planning Branch of the N.C. Department of Transportation, October 2013. It covers highway planning, roads and their environmental effects, and traffic engineering, with color maps, some folded.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Strategic plan for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library covering 2013 through 2018, issued by the university libraries in July 2013. A 12-page pamphlet with color illustrations. Its title ties the library's plans to the mission of the university as a whole.
David R. Godschalk and Jonathan B. Howes describe the ten-year building program that reshaped the UNC campus in Chapel Hill, when some six million square feet in new buildings went up and a million more of historic buildings were restored. Chapters treat the campus master plan, siting and design decisions, the historic north campus, the southeast and health-sciences precincts and the planned Carolina North research campus, with contributions by chancellors James Moeser and Holden Thorp. Published by UNC Press in 2012, 175 pages.
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.
J. Ronald Oakley's pictorial history of Mebane, the railroad town on the Orange and Alamance county line, from Arcadia Publishing in 2012, 127 pages of photographs. Chapters cover the railroad, industries, businesses, the Depression and war years, profiles past and present, churches and civic clubs, recreation and sports, school days, and preserving the past. Topics include Mebane's history, economy, buildings and railroads.
A group of materials combining a county planning document with a highway map of Orange County, dated 2012. The planning piece, issued in Raleigh by a state commission, lays out a planning and management process for the county with recommendations on land development. The map, based on the statewide highway planning survey, shows roads, bridges, utilities, public property, businesses and industries across Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough; one copy carries red-pencil notes naming the county's voting precincts.
Stewart E. Dunaway's abstracts of civil suits over land heard in the Hillsborough District Superior Court between 1778 and 1806. The district covered Orange, Wake, Granville, Caswell, Person, Chatham and Randolph counties, and the papers concern boundaries, ownership and disputed tracts. Published through Lulu in 2011, 337 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.
Stewart E. Dunaway's four-volume set of ejectment cases from Orange County, reproducing the original documents and maps from the North Carolina State Archives with partial transcriptions. The volumes cover 1778 to 1814, 1817 to 1832, 1833 to 1849 and 1850 to 1902. Ejectment suits contested title and possession of land, and the cases include surveys and plats. Self-published in 2010.
Stewart E. Dunaway's two-volume edition of the Orange County land entry book, the register in which settlers first claimed vacant land from the state before a grant was surveyed and issued. Volume one covers the first thousand entries, all made in 1778; volume two runs from 1779 to 1795. Each entry is reproduced from the original in the State Archives with an abstract of its contents. Self-published through Lulu in a second version dated 2010, two volumes at 28 cm with facsimiles and maps.
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