Storyline
Chapel Hill’s winter of 1935-36, the coldest since 1899 by the town’s weather records: the snow and ice from before Christmas, the 6-degree morning in January, the foot of snow in February, and the colds and influenza that closed the school.
In briefChapel Hill had not had so cold a winter since 1899, said Clyde Eubanks, who kept the town's weather records, and by February 1936 snow and sickness had put off University events and closed the Chapel Hill school. Snow and ice lay on the ground almost without a break from just before Christmas 1935, and on January 28 the thermometer near Phillips Hall read 6 degrees above zero. The heaviest of six snows, beginning February 6, left about a foot. On February 11, in what Dean Robert B. House called a mild epidemic of colds, the University postponed Parents' Day, the midwinter dances and the week's athletic events, and the school closed on February 13 and 14.
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From three days before Christmas 1935, snow and ice lay on the ground in Chapel Hill almost without a break, including seven or eight inches on December 28 and 29. On January 28, 1936 the Weather Bureau thermometer near Phillips Hall read 6 degrees above zero, and T. R. Harwood reported 2 below at his dairy on the Durham road. Clyde Eubanks, who kept the town's weather records, said Chapel Hill had not had so cold a winter since 1899. The heaviest of the winter's six snows began on the afternoon of February 6 and fell through the night with a fierce wind, leaving about a foot on the ground and drifts that covered rock walls, and the town ran a tractor plow through the streets. On February 11, on the advice of University physician W. Reece Berryhill, University authorities and student leaders postponed Parents' Day, Student-Faculty Day, the midwinter dances and the week's athletic events and barred large student gatherings because of what Dean Robert B. House called a mild epidemic of colds, respiratory infections and occasional influenza. The infirmary held 64 patients on February 12. Freezing weather kept the snow on the ground for days, and the Chapel Hill school closed on February 13 and 14 because of the weather and widespread colds.
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Background reading on Eno & Environment. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Nancy Learned Haines tells the story of the Quaker families who left Pennsylvania around 1750 for the Eno River valley near Hillsborough, where they farmed, traded and built a school, and asks how a community committed to peace fared through the unrest of the colonial years. Published by Pleasant Green Books in 2026, 122 pages with bibliography and index. Subjects include Quakers in North Carolina and the history of Hillsborough, Orange County and the Eno River valley.
David Cook collects the grim side of the Eno River's past in Orange and Durham counties: ghost stories, crimes, train wrecks and accidents, including the hanging of rebels near the river in 1771, a sawmill accident said to have started a run of hauntings, and a dance one Valentine's Day that ended badly. Published by The History Press in 2025, 141 pages with illustrations.
A picture book set in the Eno River valley of Orange County in 1776. Four red wolf pups are born in a woodland den and spend their first summer and fall learning to hunt and howl with their family, while nearby a young widow, Sally Few, keeps her household going as the Revolution unsettles the countryside. Eileen Heyes wrote the story, published in 2025 by the North Carolina Office of Archives and History with color illustrations and maps, 42 pages.
Bland Simpson's memoir of country life in the Clover Garden community of Orange County, in the North Carolina Piedmont, published by UNC Press in 2024. Short chapters take in cabin life, neighbors like the Binghams and Mr. Stacy, hounds, owls and turkeys, an auction, Merritt's and Lewis Allen's store, the sculptor of White Cross School, Maple View, Saxapahaw, the Devil's Tramping Ground, storms and snows, and a carol for Cane Creek. 182 pages with illustrations.
R. Haven Wiley's anecdotes of field work with students at Mason Farm, the university's biological reserve on the edge of Chapel Hill, and at other natural settings in North Carolina. It is natural history and nature anecdotes, personal pieces from a working naturalist. Published in Carrboro by Hickory Woods Press in 2023, 109 pages with illustrations.
William R. Burk's history of botany at the University of North Carolina, from its early natural scientists such as Denison Olmsted and Elisha Mitchell through later figures including George Francis Atkinson, Joseph Austin Holmes and Henry Van Peters Wilson, closing with a chapter on the Department of Botany itself. Published in Fort Worth in 2023.
A short history for young readers of how the Eno River was kept free of a dam. The Eno rises in Orange County and runs through Hillsborough into Durham County. When Durham proposed a dam in the 1960s, Margaret Nygard (1925-1995) and her neighbors formed the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley; Julie J. Thomson tells how they won Eno River State Park instead. Eno River Association, Durham, 2023; 25 illustrated pages.
Collected first-hand and second-hand stories from the Eno River valley as told from the standpoint of African Americans and Native people who have lived along the river in Orange and Durham counties, from prehistory to the present day. Issued by the Eno River Association in Durham as volume 10, number 2 of the Eno Journal, 2021, 106 pages with illustrations.
Emily Lin's small artist's book of haiku and nature photographs from a hike at Occoneechee Mountain near Hillsborough on 28 May 2017. Issued as a zine by Dodo Bookshop that year, nine pages and three unnumbered with color illustrations, 17 centimeters.
Two-page summary from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission's Inland Fisheries Division, July 2017, reporting how fish and crayfish communities in the Eno River responded after hydrilla, an invasive aquatic weed, was removed. With color illustrations and a map. Topics include fishery management and monitoring of fishes, crayfish and hydrilla in the Eno.
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.
Herbert N. Englishman's 2011 history and genealogy of the families of the Eno River valley, including the Cabe, Moreland, Piper and Shields families in Durham County. It also covers the history of the river and its valley. The Eno runs from Orange County into Durham.
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