Chapel Hill Memories is for anyone who wants to relive and help preserve memories of Chapel Hill. We welcome your recollections of any subject related to Chapel Hill and The University Of North Carolina in written, photo, audio, and video form. We have the ability to scan and transfer photos, audio, and video if you do not. We do not charge for this, and will return your materials within a week.
Send your memories, ideas, photos, and questions to CHMemories@gmail.com.
If you need to mail us something let us know, and we will send you our mailing address.
The Legacy of Maurice Julian & Julian's College Shop
by Charly Mann
In 1942 Maurice Julian (1916-1993) created the renowned men's clothing shore that still bears his name in downtown Chapel Hill. Today, almost twenty years after his death, it is still the most illustrious retailer on Franklin Street. For four generations Julian's has catered to men who want to look fabulous in classic yet modern attire. It has always carried the most prestigious men's brands.
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Chapel Hill's Top Secret Space Capsule Landing
by Charly Mann
Chapel Hill holds many mysteries and secrets, but the one I witnessed and photographed on August 20th, 1961 is the least well known. On that morning a NASA Space Capsule crash landed just a few miles outside of Chapel Hill, and I am likely the last living person who saw that event. Fortunately I had a Leica M3 35 mm camera with me and took more than a dozen color photographs of the capsule, and I will share many of those pictures for the first time in this article. I will also reveal why I believe this event has been covered up for more than five decades.
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How Life Changed in Chapel Hill in the Last 60 Years
by Charly Mann
Recently I got an e-mail from a 16-year-old Chapel Hill girl who asked me if things had changed much in town since my childhood years in the 1950s and 60s. The simple answer is that almost everything about Chapel Hill has radically changed, and I will try to detail many of those changes in this piece.
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Chapel Hill Memories Returns
After receiving an outpouring of e-mails, letters, phone calls, and comments asking me to continue Chapel Hill Memories in some form, Chapel Hill Memories is back in a subscription format.
For $30 a year you will have access to all our new and existing content. You may also buy a lifetime subscription for $100. With a subscription, your login id will be activated to access the Chapel Hill Memories website.
We decided to go the subscription route for two main reasons:
1) Our articles and photos have routinely been copied and used on other websites and Facebook without our authorization or credit.
2) The costs in time and money for creating this website are substantial. Unlike many blogs Chapel Hill Memories was custom developed from scratch and required several hundred hours of programming. I have also invested a lot in acquisition of materials and other items to include in articles. We have done all of this to provide the best experience possible to those interested in preserving and reliving memories of Chapel Hill.
Upcoming articles include: A profile of Maurice Julian and Julian’s Clothing Store; Behind the scenes at the Ranch House restaurant; The secret story of a NASA Space Capsule crash landing outside of Chapel Hill in 1961 with lots of photos of the capsule and crash site; The early years of the Cat’s Cradle; The man Chapel Hillians said they would always remembe and then forgot; The history of the UNC-Duke rivalry; The day dogs were no longer allowed to run free in Chapel Hill; Chapel Hill businesses from the 1970s nobody remembers; and The history of pizza in Chapel Hill.
To access Chapel Hill Memories click the Subscribe button above to create a login id, then pay via PayPal or credit card. If you would prefer to pay by check, send an e-mail to chmemories@gmail.com and we will send our mailing address. You may make a larger donation if you would like to support our continued efforts.
Within 24 hours of payment verification your login id will be activated for full access to Chapel Hill Memories.
Thanks,
Charly Mann
WCHL - The Radio Station that Made Chapel Hill a Village
In 1973 WCHL was twenty years old and celebrated that milestone by producing a lighthearted periodical that highlighted the key events in the station's history. WCHL was integral in making that period the Golden Age of Chapel Hill by transforming a small college town into a sophisticated and well-connected village.
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The Decline of Community in Chapel Hill
by Charly Mann
Over the last two decades I have heard from dozens of current and former Chapel Hillians about their declining connection to the people and places in town. This may partly be a consequence of our internet age. We e-mail, text, twitter, talk on our cell phones, play computer games, but are more socially isolated from one another. From the 1920s through the 1970s Chapel Hill neighborhoods were filled with children, every church in town was overflowing on Sunday, neighbors regularly had other neighbors over for dinner, and downtown was the prime destination for dinning, entertainment, and shopping. Most of us had a strong sense of belonging to a community then. Where ever we went we ran into people we knew and almost always took the time to converse with them for a few minutes. More remarkably many of us also delighted in talking to strangers we would meet around town.
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InformZoo
A Year of Charly Mann’s Thoughts
(August 2009 to August 2010):
http://www.informzoo.com
Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
Check out Charly Mann's other website:
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
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