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History of Chapel Hill from 1818 to 1927
by Charly Mann
In 1818 there were only two stores and one tavern on Franklin Street along with about a dozen houses. The tavern was called Hilliard’s and the names of the businesses were Trice’s and Tom Taylor’s store. As late as 1898 much of what is now the central business district of downtown Chapel Hill was still farmland. From where the Carolina Coffee Shop is today to Columbia Street and south to where the Ackland Art Museum stands was a farm surrounded by a cornfield. It was not until 1907 that this land was divided up and sold into commercials lots.
This is Spencer Dorm facing the Chapel of the Cross in 1926. This is the "new" larger chapel for the church and was built in 1926. Spencer was the first women's dormitory on the UNC campus and had just been built. It was not until the following year that it was named Spencer in honor of Cornelia Phillips Spencer. (This photo was taken from the lawn of the President's house.)
Before 1900 few people would venture out after dark in town. Not only were there no electric lights anywhere in Orange County, but also there was not even a single kerosene lantern on the streets or walkways of Chapel Hill. Finally in 1920 electric lampposts were installed around the UNC campus, and in 1927 twelve similar street lamps were placed from Raleigh Street to Columbia Street on the north side of Franklin Street. That same year the main part of Franklin Street was also paved.
Elm tree along path at the University of North Carolina in 1925
One of the most beautiful sights in Chapel Hill in the 19th century was a row of elm trees that aligned Franklin Street, but by 1927 there were all dying and were removed and replaced with new trees spaced evenly between the new lampposts.
This is Phillips Hall on the UNC campus which was built in 1920. My father, William Robert Mann (1920 - 2007), was a mathamatics professor at the Univesity, and had his office and taught his classes in this building.This photo was taken in 1926. Behind Phillips in this picture is the original Memorial Hall which was built in 1885 and demolished in 1930 because it was unsafe.
Comments:
Allison
11:39 AM Fri 7/3/2009
This was a really interesting post. Thanks for writing and for the photos. While still devastated over the Varsity closing, this is a reminder that the old adage "the only constant is change," holds true.
Ron Turner
10:22 AM Wed 7/1/2009
I love looking at all your old photos of Chapel Hill. It is simply amazing how much the town has changed in the last 75 years.
Carey Kitt
12:35 PM Tue 6/30/2009
In the 1940s and 50s Phillips Hall was the home of the UNC engineering department. For some foolish reason the North Carolina University system moved Engineering to NC State in the late 1950s. That's the reason State has a better male to female ratio that any major university in the state.
Jeff Libby
10:33 AM Tue 6/30/2009
It is hard for me to imagine much of downtown Chapel Hill being a corn field a century ago.
Mike Griffiths
2:54 PM Mon 6/29/2009
Your Dad was one of my professors in the late 1970s. I think he was only professor to give me a "C", but I learned more in his class than almost any other at Carolina.
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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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My father was also a math professor with an office in Phillips Hall, the back new part. He was Chairman for a number of those years. No doubt they knew each other. I remember the faculty picnics at Wyburn's farm on the Haw River. I haven't been in that building in 30 years.