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The History of UNC's Old Well
by Charly Mann
Please note it was not until the 1940s that commercially viable color film was made for use in cameras (Kodak had developed color Kodachrome film in1935, but it was rarely used by consumers). Most of the color photographs in this article are very rare.
This is original well where the Old Well is now located in 1892.
First color photograph on UNC campus. Old Well 1908.
The most photographed spot in Chapel Hill and the iconic symbol for the University of the North Carolina is the Old Well. While there has been a well on this spot for over 215 years, the Old Well that we recognize was not built until 1897. It was conceived by the then president of the university, Edwin Anderson Alderman. He wanted the university to have a structure that would enhance the beauty and view of the campus. He believed that a Greco-Roman style temple was ideally suited for this purpose.
For the first hundred years of UNC there was a real well that stood where the Old Well is now. It was where all UNC students got their water. There were several other wells on campus and in the small village of Chapel Hill, but this one was the closest to the student dormitories. The well was then covered by wooden roof that protected students from the rain when collecting water in their buckets.
This is a rare color photograph of the Old Well in 1916
The design of the Old Well is based on Marie Antoinette's Temple of Love that sits in Trianon Park outside of Versailles. The Temple of Love was built in 1778 and is one of the most visited sites in France. The Old Well was built on a much smaller scale than this temple.
This is the Temple of Love near Versailles which the Old Well is modeled on
The Old Well that was built in 1897 was primarily a wooden structure designed to look like marble. The roof was originally painted black. In 1925 the structure was refurbished and a concrete circle was placed below it. Less than twenty five years later, in 1949, the Old Well was showing signs of decay.
Another rare color photograph of the Old Well from 1926
In 1953 UNC controller and vice-president of finance Billy Carmichael launched a fund raising campaign to buid a new Old Well that would be more durable. Carmichael decided to try raise the funds from his 1921 graduating class from UNC. He enlisted his friend and fellow classmate from that year J.C. Cowan to be in charge up collecting the $15,000 needed for the project.
The Old Well on the University of North Carolina Campus 1933
The original Old Well was torn down on August 4th 1954 and its remains were placed in a storage building behind Phillips Hall. The new Old Well is a replica of the building it replaced, but with a steel frame and a cooper roof for durability. The columns were given a marble base and the concrete floor was replaced with granite.
The next time you admire or take a photograph of the Old Well you may want to thank Edwin Alderman for his idea.
A beauty in front of the Old Well in 2009
Comments:
ghaole
5:04 PM Tue 2/1/2011
this was very helpful when i had to do a project on the old well
deborah
3:00 PM Mon 1/24/2011
this site was very helpful for my researchpaper on it. both of my parents went to the college too!
Dorothy Moore Jackson
3:41 PM Mon 11/29/2010
I too grew up in Chapel Hill in the 1940s and '50s. I enjoyed your history of the Old Well. Just FYI, the old "Chapel Hill Junior High School" at the location of what is now University Square was our Elementary School before it was used as a junior high. I don't know when the building was constructed. In 1943 I was a first grader and learned what it meant when the flag in front of our school was flown at half mast in spring of 1945 (FDR had died).
After the old high school on South Columbia Street / Pittsboro Road (across from what is now the UNC Medical School and hospital complex) burned to the ground, some of the high school classes were held in the basement of our school. The restrooms were also in the basement, and it was with fear and trembling that a small child had to "go" during unscheduled bathroom breaks, when that incredibly loud bell might ring and the halls fill with enormous people rushing about to change classes! I feared being trampled to death!
Thanks for the memories.
suasn dal
8:56 PM Wed 2/3/2010
Excuse Don from previous comment. I'm a grade behind Becky Riggsbee, she only knew Hugh at Guy B. Phillips, he moved prior to CHHS on Homestead Rd. A once told memory can sometime become confused to someone at arms length.
Rollie Tillman
3:09 PM Fri 1/22/2010
Wonderful history of The Well. You are great at unearthing old illustrations, menus, newspaper stories etc. I keep your page on the deskstop so I can see what new surprises you have for us Carolina lovers.
Kevin Gibson
12:25 PM Fri 1/22/2010
Your site is amazing. Chapel Hill Memories is really useful. I have visited it many times and I think it is wonder.
Eric Andrews
10:24 AM Thu 1/21/2010
I know sometimes black and white photos use to be hand tinted to make them look like color, but the detail in your pictures make me think your's are all genuine.
Ken Knight
6:49 PM Wed 1/20/2010
How in the world did you get these photographs? Every picture I have seen of Chapel Hill before 1940 has been black and white.
Debra Jenner
12:44 PM Wed 1/20/2010
Your vintage color photographs of the Old Well are incredible. Will you sell larger images of some of them?
Check out our other website:
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.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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I know sometimes black and white photos use to be hand tinted to make them look like color, but the detail in your pictures make me think your's are all genuine