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Storyline

Rural electrification and Piedmont Electric, 1933–1964

Farm power lines from 1933, the Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation formed in 1938, its lines and members, its Hillsborough headquarters, and the share of Orange farms with electricity.

In briefRural power in Orange County began in 1933 with a three-mile federally funded line from Chapel Hill to Calvander, carried on to Orange Grove with farmers' donations. The Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation, a cooperative formed under the Rural Electrification Administration, was incorporated in 1938 and energized its first lines from a Hillsborough substation in 1939. It took bids for 150 miles of new lines in 1945, had 1,271 members in 1947, when its manager reckoned that 65 percent of Orange farms had electricity, and built its Hillsborough headquarters in 1949 with an REA loan; by 1953 it ran about 1,100 miles of line. At its silver anniversary meeting in June 1964 Piedmont Electric reported 6,300 members in six counties, against 356 in three counties in 1939.

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  1. A three-mile rural power line from Chapel Hill to Calvander is built with federal money Built in the winter of 1933-34 as a Civil Works Administration project, the line ran about three miles out the Hillsboro road from Chapel Hill to Calvander, connected at Carrboro to the University Consolidated Service Plants, which supplied part of the material. Henry Hogan, who farmed near Calvander with his brother, and his friends gave the cedar trees for its 107 poles, and the book says the Hogan brothers supplied the poles when funds ran short. In late February 1934 the Chapel Hill Weekly expected current to reach 22 families within about a month. The book says it was the first rural electric line in the United States built with federal funds. People: George H. Lawrence, Henry S. Hogan, Don S. MathesonSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 249 · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, February 23, 1934, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, July 13, 1934, p. 4; Chapel Hill Weekly, December 21, 1934, p. 2; Chapel Hill Weekly, February 12, 1937, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, November 3, 1939, p. 4
  2. Orange County commissioners order a study of power lines for farm homes After the success of the Civil Works power line to Calvander, the commissioners asked farm agent Don Matheson, county accountant G. W. Ray and relief administrator George H. Lawrence to study a network of rural power lines with D. S. Weaver of State College. The officials ruled out a Public Works loan, judging that so few customers could not carry the debt, and hoped for direct federal aid. People: George H. Lawrence, Gilbert W. Ray, W. P. Berry, John Hodge Hanner, Henry S. Hogan, Carl T. Durham, Don S. MathesonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, July 6, 1934, p. 1
  3. Farmers at an Orange Grove Grange gathering form committees to bring electricity to their homes At the Orange County Grange assembly at Orange Grove, D. S. Weaver of the governor's rural electrification committee told farmers that Orange and Hoke were the only counties with a CWA power line and that Orange might be chosen as the state's demonstration county. The farmers pledged to cooperate and formed local committees to map routes and estimate use; by late July thirteen committees were at work. People: George H. Lawrence, Don S. MathesonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, July 20, 1934, p. 1
  4. Federal relief engineers weigh Orange as the state's test county for rural electrification Col. Joseph Hyde Pratt, consulting engineer for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration in the Southeast, met in Chapel Hill with state and county leaders on August 21, 1934, to advance a plan to make Orange the demonstration county for rural electrification as a relief project. Thirteen farmers' committees organized a few weeks before had canvassed thirteen proposed routes house to house, recording each home's size, whether owner or tenant lived there, and the likely uses of current. People: Joseph Hyde Pratt, George H. Lawrence, Don S. MathesonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, August 24, 1934, p. 1
  5. Rural electrification surveyors for fourteen counties are trained in Chapel Hill FERA field agents assigned to survey the demand for electric lines in fourteen north-central counties, Orange among them, met in Chapel Hill on August 28, 1934, for instructions from D. S. Weaver of State College, the state director of the inquiry. They were to map the homes along every proposed line and report which routes could justify construction with relief aid; the Weekly said North Carolina was the first state to attempt such an extension of electric lines as a relief enterprise. People: Don S. MathesonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, August 31, 1934, p. 1
  6. Orange commissioners approve the county's rural electrification plan On November 5, 1934, the Orange County commissioners approved the rural electrification plan that George H. Lawrence, the county relief administrator, had prepared, and a visiting district engineer approved it the same week before it went to Washington. The farm agent's year-end report said 125 miles of proposed line had been surveyed and the project was pending there. People: George H. Lawrence, Don S. MathesonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, November 9, 1934, p. 3
  7. Rural power lines reach four more Orange County communities During 1935 about 30 miles of rural electric lines were built into four Orange communities, bringing current within reach of more than 100 families, who bought more than 25 electric refrigerators and other appliances, county farm agent Don Matheson reported. He cited the state director of rural electrification for the claim that the 10-mile Orange Grove line, built by the FERA and its consumers together, was the first so financed in the United States. People: Don S. MathesonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, December 13, 1935, p. 1
  8. Federal relief approves $165,000 for rural electric lines in Orange County The Emergency Relief Administration approved an allotment of $165,000 to build rural electric lines in Orange County, to be spent once Congress voted new work-relief money. The plan rested on a county canvass of farmers sent to Raleigh on November 1, 1934; the lines were to be repaid from the sale of current over as long as 35 years, with the county buying power from the Southern (Duke) Power Company and reselling it to farmers. People: George H. Lawrence, Joseph Hyde Pratt, Gilbert W. Ray, Don S. MathesonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, March 15, 1935, p. 1
  9. Farmers along the Antioch road pledge $3,500 toward a rural power line Farmers south of highway 54 between Chapel Hill and Antioch Church met on April 6 and within days had pledged $3,500 toward a ten-mile electric line out the Antioch road to near White Cross, to be built with Emergency Relief Administration money. The Weekly named Paul Lloyd and his sons among the leaders. People: John S. BennettThe Chapel Hill Weekly, April 12, 1935, p. 1
  10. Farmers and the relief administration build a ten-mile power line to Orange Grove After the Civil Works Administration built the power line from Chapel Hill to Calvander in the winter of 1933-34, five farmers paid $200 each to have it carried 2 1/2 miles beyond Calvander along the Saxapahaw road, the Weekly reported in July 1934. The Orange Grove line came the next year. At a meeting at White Cross School on April 1, 1935, Emergency Relief Administration officials laid out a ten-mile extension from near Calvander by Dodson's crossroads to Orange Grove and on toward Teer, estimated at $15,510, of which the farmers along the route were to raise $3,000; most of it was pledged within a week. Work began that spring under the engineer Archie Davis, the line was nearly done at the end of May, and in early September the Weekly reported it built. The county agent's report for 1935 called it the first line in the country paid for jointly by the federal relief administration and its users. The 1993 survey form describes the farmer-funded line as running from Calvander to Orange Grove.Search the index · NC Digital Collections: Historic Resources of Orange County, National Register multiple property documentation form (1993), p. 45 · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, July 6, 1934, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, July 13, 1934, p. 4; Chapel Hill Weekly, April 5, 1935, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, April 12, 1935, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, May 31, 1935, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, September 6, 1935, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, December 13, 1935, p. 1
  11. Duke Power begins a rural electric line from Hillsboro to Cedar Grove Duke Power Company began building an extension of the Hillsboro system about 12 miles out highway 14 toward Danville and then three miles north to Cedar Grove, after 24 farmers along the route agreed to install electric refrigerators, the condition the company set. Current was expected in three or four weeks.The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 16, 1935, p. 1
  12. Duke Power agrees to build rural lines to Cedar Grove farms and St. Mary's school The Duke Power Company authorized two rural lines in northern Orange: a three-mile extension of the Cedar Grove line from McDade's filling station east to Route 14, and a seven-mile line from Hillsboro to St. Mary's school, toward which farmers along the route gave $1,000. The company promised both within two months, bringing current to about fifty families.The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 28, 1936, p. 1
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  1. Rural power lines in Orange County reach 111 miles and about 425 farm families A survey by county farm agent Don Matheson found that rural electric lines outside the towns had grown from 28 miles before 1933 to 111 miles built or under construction, serving about 425 farm families, with the Duke Power Company building most of the new mileage. New lines ran along route 64 from the Alamance line to White Cross and on to Antioch church and Chapel Hill, from Hillsboro along route 14 to Calvander, and from Cedar Grove to Efland, the last serving the county home; when the approved lines were done, every public school in the county but one would have power. People: Don S. MathesonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, November 20, 1936, p. 1
  2. Orange County's rural electric lines reach 150 miles and more than 500 families The Weekly reported 150 miles of rural lines in the county, 78 of them built in 1937 by the power companies with county help, against 32 miles in 1932. Current reached every consolidated school, nearly all the commercial dairies and many poultry farms, and the county had done it without bond issues or debts on neighborhood groups.The Chapel Hill Weekly, December 10, 1937, p. 1
  3. Duke Power agrees to bring electricity to Caldwell School The Duke Power Company decided in February 1937 to build a line to Caldwell School, the last rural consolidated school in Orange County without electricity; in 1933 none had been on a power line. The county then had about 140 miles of rural lines built or authorized, serving more than 500 families, and Duke Power had agreed to build the whole 30-mile system proposed for a cooperative between Hillsboro and Chapel Hill and around White Cross, not just its better miles. People: Don S. Matheson, Carl T. DurhamThe Chapel Hill Weekly, February 12, 1937, p. 1
  4. Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation is incorporated and energizes its first lines Piedmont Electric, a rural electric cooperative formed under the federal Rural Electrification Administration loan program, received its North Carolina incorporation papers in 1938. In 1939 its first substation, in Hillsborough, energized lines to members' homes for the first time.Search the index · Piedmont Electric: Our History · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, January 20, 1939, p. 1; Chapel Hill Weekly, August 4, 1939, p. 6; Chapel Hill Weekly, November 3, 1939, p. 4
  5. The federal government approves the Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation's application Figures from the state's REA engineer, J. M. Grainger, gave November 22, 1938 as the date the Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation applied to the federal government and January 19, 1939 as the date of approval. The cooperative built its Orange lines with a government loan and set a $2.45 monthly minimum, for 25 kilowatt-hours, so it could repay it.The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 4, 1939, p. 6
  6. The Rural Electrification Administration approves $200,000 for about 150 more miles of rural lines in Orange and neighboring counties The REA approved an allotment of $200,000 for rural lines in Orange, Caswell and Alamance counties, assuring Orange about 150 more miles of line to be built in 1939 through the newly formed Piedmont Electric Membership Cooperative. County farm agent Don Matheson told the commissioners that the county would then have about 300 miles of rural lines and be one of the most completely electrified rural counties in the South. People: Don S. MathesonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, January 20, 1939, p. 1
  7. Rural power lines approved in Orange County reach 271 miles and 1,157 customers State Rural Electrification Authority figures showed 271 miles of rural lines approved in Orange from July 1, 1935 to July 1, 1939, serving 1,157 customers: 130.5 miles and 589 customers on public utility lines and 140.5 miles and 568 on the Piedmont Electric cooperative. When all authorized lines were built a little more than 30 percent of the county's farms would have current; Orange ranked 31st in customers and 23rd in miles.The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 4, 1939, p. 6
  8. Orange County counts 1,157 rural electric customers on 282 miles of line A Raleigh News and Observer article reprinted in the Weekly credited farm agent Don Matheson for Orange County's progress: 282 miles of rural power line built or nearly finished, 150 of them for the Piedmont Mutual Electric Corporation, and 1,157 rural customers where 47 farm homes had electricity in 1935. The county ranked 23rd in the state in rural electrification and in tractors (275 in use), and its terracing unit had terraced 6,000 acres on 400 farms since July 1935. People: Don S. MathesonThe Chapel Hill Weekly, November 3, 1939, p. 4
  9. Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation lets a contract for rural lines in northern Orange Manager John T. Alderman announced a contract for 124 miles of rural line, 30 of them in Orange County in the New Bethel Church and Rougemont sections, which would bring the cooperative to 326 miles. He also planned a line along route 54 past University Lake to the Damascus church section once rights of way and $5 membership fees came in.The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 22, 1940, p. 1
  10. Piedmont Electric members hear Gregg Cherry at their annual meeting in Hillsboro The Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation, the REA cooperative based in Hillsboro that served rural Orange, Alamance, Caswell, Person and Durham counties, held its annual membership meeting in the Hillsboro High School auditorium. Gubernatorial candidate R. Gregg Cherry reviewed rural electrification since the 1920s and spoke on farmers' part in feeding the world after the war; members chose A. P. Dabbs of Yanceyville as the one new director, and the board kept H. G. Laws of Hurdles Mill as president. People: Hubert G. LawsThe News (Chapel Hill), February 17, 1944, p. 5
  11. The Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation holds its annual meeting at Hillsboro About 200 members of the Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation, the REA cooperative serving some 980 rural members in Orange and four neighboring counties, met at Hillsboro High School, heard Lieutenant Governor L. Y. Ballentine on the legislature and rural needs, and reelected all their directors, who kept H. G. Laws as president. Manager F. E. Joyner's plan to bring power to every farm after the war was laid out. People: Hubert G. LawsSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 8, 1945, p. 1
  12. Piedmont Electric opens bids for 150 miles of new rural power lines The Hillsborough cooperative took bids for 150 miles of lines to reach 450 new members in six counties, and its board approved a low bid of $179,414.53. About 150 Orange farm families signed up since 1940 stood to get power.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), November 15, 1945, p. 1
  13. Piedmont Electric's members meet in Hillsboro as the co-op reaches 1,271 members About 600 members of the Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation met at Hillsboro high school for the co-op's eighth annual meeting, heard Secretary of State Thad Eure and re-elected H. G. Laws, president since its start. The co-op then served 1,271 members over about 400 miles of line in six counties, had 150 more miles under construction and planned a home office at Tryon and East Boundary streets. People: Thad Eure, Hubert G. LawsSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 6, 1947, p. 1
  14. Piedmont Electric's manager reckons two-thirds of Orange farms have electricity F. E. Joyner, manager of the Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation, estimated that 65 percent of Orange County farms had electric service from the cooperative, the university utilities and Duke Power, ten points above the state average he cited. The cooperative served about 1,800 members in five counties.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), December 25, 1947, p. 1
  15. Piedmont Electric members thank retiring president H. G. Laws and W. F. Shaw takes his place About 600 members at the Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation's ninth annual meeting in the Hillsboro High School auditorium adopted a resolution of thanks to H. G. Laws, an incorporator and president since the cooperative began, who had moved off its lines into Hillsboro, and vice president W. F. Shaw of Reidsville became president. The cooperative then served about 1,800 members over 500 miles of line in six counties. People: Clyde Roberts, Hubert G. LawsSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 12, 1948, p. 1
  16. Piedmont Electric installs a two-way radio system for its line crews The Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation installed a Motorola two-way FM radio system at its Hillsboro office and in two trucks and a car, which by the co-op's own account cut the time of service interruptions by more than half. The co-op called it the first such system installed by a power company in North Carolina; the town let it use town land for the transmitter building and the town water tank for the antenna.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 3, 1949, p. 16
  17. The REA approves a $132,000 loan for Piedmont Electric's lines and a new headquarters By June 17, 1948, the Rural Electrification Administration had approved a $132,000 loan to the Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation of Hillsboro for a new headquarters and warehouse, a substation and the remaining lines of its 200-mile 'H' project. The cooperative, organized in 1938, had 550 miles of line serving 1,850 rural members and planned 900 miles serving 3,000. People: Carl T. DurhamSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 17, 1948, p. 1
  18. Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation builds its headquarters in Hillsborough The rural electric cooperative serving Orange and five nearby counties put up a new headquarters building in Hillsborough in 1949. By 1953 it ran about 1,100 miles of line to more than 4,000 customers.Search the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 250
  19. Senator Frank Graham addresses Piedmont Electric's annual meeting at Hillsboro Senator Frank P. Graham told about 1,500 people at the Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation's annual meeting that hopes for the United Nations rested on projects like their cooperative, and he said the first rural electrification project in America had been the line from Calvander to Orange Grove. The members voted to raise the cooperative's debt limit from $1.5 million to $5 million for more lines and elected Lawrence Walker a director in place of A. P. Dabbs. People: Frank Porter GrahamThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 9, 1950, p. 1
  20. Orange County 4-H clubs win the state farm and home electric award At the state Farm and Home Electric Congress in Charlotte on November 17-18, 1952, Orange County was named state winner in the farm and home electric division of 4-H work and given a plaque for the county office. The county agents' year-end report credited the county's 12 4-H clubs with first place in the state 'Better Electric Methods' program.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), November 20, 1952, p. 1
  21. Piedmont Electric's annual meeting draws some 1,500 members to Hillsboro About 1,500 members attended the Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation's fourteenth annual meeting in the Hillsboro High School auditorium, where Highway Commission chairman A. H. Graham praised the state's progress in rural electrification and roads. The co-op reported more than 4,800 members on 1,250 miles of line in six counties after adding some 300 members and 45 miles of line in the year, and its board re-elected W. F. Shaw president. People: Alexander H. "Sandy" GrahamThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 25, 1953, p. 1
  22. Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation honors three long-serving directors At the cooperative's annual barbecue, County Agent Don Matheson gave gold watches to W. F. Shaw, J. G. Jobe and Clyde Roberts, each an unpaid director for 15 years or more. He said rural lines in Orange County had grown from 28 miles in 1932 and 140 in 1937 to about 600. People: Don S. Matheson, Clyde RobertsSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 22, 1955, p. 1
  23. Piedmont Electric members hold their 17th annual meeting at Hillsboro More than 400 members heard Congressman Carl Durham trace rural electrification to 1933, when, he said, Orange County's commissioners started the program and the county 'can claim that it was first,' and heard state REA chairman Gwyn B. Price forecast farm power use tripling in 20 years. Members re-elected nine directors, including S. C. Wilson, Clyde Roberts and N. B. Berry; the co-op served 5,200 members over 1,340 miles of line in six counties. People: Carl T. Durham, Clyde Roberts, John W. Umstead Jr.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 21, 1956, p. 1
  24. Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation cuts its rates The cooperative announced a general rate reduction, about 13 percent for most of its 5,378 members, effective with December bills, which it said would save members some $60,000 a year. It was the co-op's second rate cut in ten years; it then ran 1,359 miles of line in Orange, Alamance, Granville, Person, Caswell and Durham counties.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), December 19, 1957, p. 1
  25. Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation receives a $579,000 REA loan The Rural Electrification Administration announced a $579,000 loan to the Hillsboro cooperative to build 12 miles of transmission line, tie lines for new stations and 27 miles of distribution line, which the agency said would serve some 1,360 new members.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 30, 1959, p. 4
  26. Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation holds its twentieth annual meeting in the new Hillsboro High gym About 500 to 600 members of the rural electric cooperative met in the new Hillsboro High School gymnasium, heard Farm Bureau president B. C. Mangum urge cooperation, and re-elected all directors and officers. The cooperative reported about 1,400 miles of line serving more than 5,600 members, and said its average power cost had fallen from nine cents a kilowatt-hour in 1939 to two and a half cents.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 25, 1959, p. 1
  27. The Piedmont Electric office on East Tryon Street is raised to two stories The flat-roofed brick office built for the Piedmont Electric Company around 1950 as a one-story building was enlarged to two stories in 1960.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), 129 E. Tryon/205 N. Cameron, Piedmont Electric Company
  28. Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation marks 25 years at its annual meeting About 300 members at the cooperative's silver anniversary meeting in Hillsborough re-elected its nine directors and W. F. Shaw as president. Manager F. E. Joyner reported that average use per member had more than doubled in five years; the co-op had grown from 356 members in three counties in 1939 to 6,300 in six counties.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 25, 1964, p. 9

Places in this history

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

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.

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Background on Farms & Rural Life

Background reading on Farms & Rural Life. These works cover the broader subject and may not discuss this storyline. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.

Widely held

Clover Garden

Simpson, Bland · 2024 · The University of North Carolina Press

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.

✓ Held at OCPL · BIO SIMPSON SIM NC Cardinal UNC Duke Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress

Minnie tries to be useful

Smith, Courtney Soling · 2022 · Orange County Historical Museum

Companion picture book about Minnie the collie by Courtney Soling Smith, again from the Orange County Historical Museum in 2022, following an African American farm family in Cedar Grove Township. Thirty-seven unnumbered pages, chiefly color illustrations, with a facsimile. Written for children, with the museum's local history interest behind it.

UNC CH Historical Society

Orange County local farms and food profile

2017

Two-page profile of farming and local food in Orange County from NC Cooperative Extension, 2017, drawing on the 2012 and 2017 USDA agricultural census figures. It came out of NC State Extension's Local Foods Program and FarmLink.

NC Cardinal UNC NC Digital Collections DPLA

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Sowing seeds of reverence: new agricultural traditions in the North Carolina Piedmont

2017 · Center for Documentary Studies, Duke University

Photobook from a June 2017 workshop at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in which thirteen participants, from teenagers to retirees, photographed farms in Orange and Alamance counties. Each farm gets a section by one or two of them: Braeburn Farm at Snow Camp, Cane Creek Farm at Saxapahaw, Dawnbreaker Farms at Hurdle Mills, Maple View Farm at Hillsborough, McAdams Farm and others, in color photographs and portraits of the farmers. Published in Durham in 2017, 89 unnumbered pages.

NC Cardinal UNC

Miss Mary's Money

Jones, H. G. · 2014 · McFarland & Co.

H. G. Jones follows the fortune of Mary Ruffin Smith (1814-1885), the unmarried heiress whose Orange and Chatham County lands passed at her death to the University of North Carolina and the Episcopal Church. Chapters profile her grandfather Francis Jones, then trace the bequest through a quarrel among Episcopalians over Price Creek, the Chapel of the Cross and the university's buildings. A December 1885 New York Times report called the gift money; Jones shows it was land. Published by McFarland in 2014, 231 pages.

✓ Held at OCPL NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Wake Forest Davidson Methodist CH Historical Society

Cozy Kitties at Eco Farm

Econopouly, Cindy · 2013

Cindy Econopouly's 2013 story for beginning readers about the cats at Eco Farm in Chapel Hill, with colors as a second theme.

Chapel Hill PL
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Oral history interview with Nancy Holt, October 27, 1985: interview K-0010, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Holt, Nancy · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Raised in Orange County's Cane Creek community, Nancy Holt became one of its organizers when the Orange Water and Sewer Authority planned a reservoir there. Interviewed alongside Brian Holt by Frances E. Webb in October 1985, she describes farm life, the school and church that held the community together, how scattered neighbors cooperated, and the environmental and social costs residents expected from the reservoir. Runs about two and a half hours; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2007, through Documenting the American South.

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Oral history interview with Sam Crawford, October 26, 1985: interview K-0006, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Crawford, Sam · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Sam Crawford (born 1949) helped found Cane Creek Conservation Authority, the residents' group formed in 1975 to fight plans by OWASA, the Chapel Hill area's water utility, for a reservoir on Cane Creek in rural Orange County. In this October 1985 interview with Judith Wheeler, joined by Patty Crawford, he recounts how residents learned of the plan and organized, and the environmental and water-supply arguments on each side. A little over two hours; electronic edition from the UNC library, 2007, through Documenting the American South.

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Oral history interview with Bobby Kirk, October 28, 1985: Interview K-0013, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Kirk, Bobby · 2005 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Dairy farmer Bobby Kirk, who led the conservation authority formed at Cane Creek, describes the fight against the Cane Creek Reservoir, proposed for southwestern Orange County. In this Southern Oral History Program interview, recorded October 28, 1985, by K. Campbell, Kirk explains why he and neighboring farmers opposed the project, how residents first organized against it, and his view that the reservoir was badly planned. Just over an hour long. Published online in 2005 by the UNC-Chapel Hill Library in Documenting the American South.

NC Cardinal UNC

Fish Dam Road Maps

Liles, Joe · 2004

Joe Liles's 2004 maps of Fish Dam Road, tracing its course across Durham, Orange, Granville and Wake counties.

Durham

Interviews With Residents on Fish Dam Road

Liles, Joe · 2004

Joe Liles's interviews with longtime residents of Fish Dam Road, an old rural road in Durham County, recorded in 2004, with subjects tied to both Durham and Orange counties. The interviewees are Charles Scott Harkey, Mary Scarlett Jones, Boyce Link and John Scarlett, all born between 1912 and 1920, and the topics include country life, the road's history and the Duke Power Company.

Durham

Flexible development standards for preserving rural character : a design manual for conservation and development in Orange County, North Carolina

1996 · Orange County Planning Dept.

Design manual from the Orange County Planning Department, dated June 20, 1996, setting out flexible development standards meant to preserve the county's rural character. Topics include land subdivision, rural land use, the environmental aspects of land use and open space in Orange County. Published in Hillsborough, one volume in various pagings with illustrations.

UNC

Research sources

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Background

Records of the time

  • Rural Electrification Authority Record GroupState Archives of North Carolina Includes the Electric Membership Corporations File, 1935-1985, with charters, bylaws and annual reports, and requests for service from rural residents.

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