Storyline
How Hillsborough came to treat its sewage instead of emptying it raw into the Eno River: the 1958 engineer’s study that found mill dye wastes in the river, the state’s order, the 1962 bond vote and federal grant, and the plant that opened in 1964.
In briefIn 1958 engineer Thomas D. Rose found that dye wastes from the Belle Vue mill gave the sewage in the Eno River its main character, and he proposed a treatment plant east of Hillsboro for the town and the Belle Vue and Eno mills. In 1960, under a state order to submit treatment plans, the town met with the mills, but no one committed to a plan. In 1962 Hillsboro voters approved $190,000 in sewer bonds, 293 to 7, and a federal grant was approved. On May 19, 1964 the new $240,000 plant on the Eno just east of town went into operation, able to treat 400,000 gallons a day.
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No works in the index are currently linked directly to this storyline. The works below provide background on Eno & Environment.
In May 1958 Mayor Ben Johnston made public engineer Thomas D. Rose's study of Hillsboro's sewage, which proposed a 400,000-gallon-a-day treatment plant east of town for the town's sewage and the wastes of the Belle Vue and Eno mills, at about $130,575. Rose found that dye wastes from Belle Vue gave the sewage in the river its main character. On June 27, 1960, under a State Stream Sanitation Committee order to submit treatment plans, the town commissioners met with representatives of Cone Mills and Belle Vue Manufacturing Co.; the town and the two mills were the three main sources of raw sewage in the Eno River. No one committed to a plan. On April 24, 1962 Hillsboro voters approved $190,000 in sewer bonds 293 to 7 for the plant and enough new mains for every house to tap on. By December a $51,690 federal grant had been approved, and the plant was to stand east of town on land provided by Orange Speedway owners Bill France and Enoch Staley. The town called for bids in March 1963. In August the board set rules for the new system, among them removal of outhouses within two years and tap fees of $100 in town and $200 outside. On May 19, 1964 Mayor Fred Claytor pulled the lever that started sewage into the new $240,000 extended-aeration plant on the Eno just east of town. It could treat 400,000 gallons a day, enough for 4,000 people.
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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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