The front page of the February 11, 1957 issue of the Chapel Hill News Leader features a snapshot of a mule that kept straying onto the property of the local mayor.
We’ve worked with the Chapel Hill Historical Society to share additional materials from their collections. This batch includes more issues of the following newspapers:
The issues of the News Leader discuss town and county news, as well as a hefty amount of news related to UNC-Chapel Hill. Items related to politics and education frequently take center stage on the front page.
Nineteen new photos and one newspaper clipping are now available to view on DigitalNC courtesy of our partners at the Chapel Hill Historical Society. All images focus on Baum Jewelry Craftsmen, a Chapel Hill jewelry store that was located where I Love N.Y. Pizza currently resides.
Twoimages show the exterior of Baum Jewelry Craftsmen while three others document the staff, Walter Baum, and an award granted by The Chapel Hill Newspaper to the store for their brick architecture. The rest of the photos in this batch are various angles of West Franklin Street in the 1990s. Each photo meticulously documents the outside of I Love N.Y. Pizza, prompting a comparison of how the storefront used to look when Baum Jewelry Craftsmen occupied the space. Not only that, but these photos also show the various stores that used to line Frankin of yesteryear, such as TJ’s Campus Beverage and Caribou Coffee. Locals will also recognize glimpses of The Yogurt Pump in a few photos.
To see more photos as well as other materials from the Chapel Hill Historical Society, visit their contributor page and check out the material selections on the left-hand side. Or check out their website by clicking here.
Thanks to our partners at the Chapel Hill Historical Society, DigitalNC is happy to be able to provide access to two groups of materials from their collection online. A new set of drawings that illustrate the civil engineering and planning of Chapel Hill, and more issues of The Lincoln Echo from Chapel Hill’s Lincoln High School.
Only a few dozen issues are known to exist of The Lincoln Echo, published by the pre-integration African American high school of Chapel Hill, making this resource vital for the community. Our digital holdings of the paper now cover 1949 to 1965, and we also have issues of its precursor, The Orange Echo, from 1944 to 1947. The May 1945 issue of The Lincoln Echo is particularly noteworthy as it includes seniors’ reflections on graduating in light of V-E Day, which happened around the same time. One student said, “The outlook for myself is that when this war is over I will have equal opportunities with anyone, and be able to earn an honest dollar regardless of my color.”
The other digital additions in this batch are comprised of engineering drawings for the planning of the town. These drawings include scaled radiuses of fire trucks and garbage trucks, used to calculate the necessary dimensions for streets. Also, there are drawings of various street details, such as bus shelters, sidewalks, curbs, and other elements. The batch also includes plans for several roads around town, including Airport Road (NC86), now known as Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., pictured below.
Almost a hundred new maps and blueprints have been digitized and added to DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Chapel Hill Historical Society. Dated from 1875 to June 2007, these maps illustrate how much the city of Chapel Hill and Orange County has changed in the last century and a half.
A map of how Chapel Hill would have appeared in 1818. Franklin St and Columbia St are featured.
This new batch contains many different types of maps and blueprints, including maps of Chapel Hill neighborhoods, site plans for individual properties, blueprints of the Chapel Hill Public Library and its additions, maps of the city’s outer limits, and township tax maps.
A color-coded map of the Glen Lennox properties circa 2008
Beyond recent maps of Chapel Hill, this batch also includes several other interesting items. One map sketches Orange County, as well as the neighboring counties that ceded land between the years of 1752 and 1849. Another sketches the state of North Carolina as it appeared in 1753, when Anson and Rowan Counties stretched to the west. Another map, from 1976, sketched Chapel Hill as it would have appeared in 1818.
Other items in the collection tell their own Chapel Hill stories. In 1925, R.L. Strowd, a local landowner, sold a number of lots throughout Orange County, and those deeds of land sales are also included in this collection. Another record of land sale is included, when Samuel Morgan sold land to Jesse Hargraves in 1845 for the cost of $4,300. This batch of items also includes a book that contains detailed maps of the Chapel Hill and Carrboro area from the 1960s through the 1980s, as well as an informational pamphlet from 1953 advertising the Lake Forest neighborhood of Chapel Hill.
By adding yet more maps, blueprints and artifacts to our collection, we can learn and understand more about the city that DigitalNC calls home. To see more materials from the Chapel Hill Historical Society, visit their contributor page or check out their website.
A portion of one map of Carrboro and Chapel Hill – showing Franklin St, Main St, and Greensboro St.
Nearly three dozen maps and blueprints have been digitized and added to DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Chapel Hill Historical Society. Dating from 1929 to 1963, these maps really illustrate how much the city of Chapel Hill has changed in the last century.
Blueprint of the west side of Dr. J.B. Bullitt’s house in Chapel Hill.
This new batch contains many different types of maps and blueprints, including cross sections of the Chapel Hill Municipal Building, a survey of East Rosemary Street, cross sections of local doctor J.B. Bullitt’s home, and Planning Board maps of the Chapel Hill and Carrboro region. Also included are maps for proposed developments of segregated cemeteries, which would have been established next to NC state highway 54. These maps are fascinating to see and compare to what we know of the area today, and to see how much has changed since these maps were created.
These maps are very large, with some stretching out to be over 6 feet in length! While most could be scanned with our overhead PhaseOne camera (our process is documented on video here), several were so large that they had to be framed in a vacuum-sealed rotating container so that they can be preserved in the highest quality. Some of these largest ones took two different shots to compose together, resulting in images that were 7000 pixels tall by 11000 pixels wide. That’s far larger than anything even the most high-tech cell phone cameras can shoot.
One of the maps being scanned inside a vacuum-sealed container for maximum quality
Having these maps and blueprints in our collection is very important, as it helps us understand the changes to the city which DigitalNC calls home. To see more from the Chapel Hill Historical Society, visit their partner page, or take a look at their website.
Accounts of Dr. K.G. Henry from October to November, 1910
The Digital Heritage Center has just finished digitizing a ledger from Patterson’s General Store, which covers the store’s accounts in the years 1910 and 1911. The store was located on East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. The ledger, from the Chapel Hill Historical Society, contains the names and accounts of a number of North Carolina residents and businesses. Many faculty members and administrators from the University of North Carolina were customers, including Edward Kidder Graham, Kemp Plummer Battle, and Horace Williams.
Of particular interest to us were the entries for one Professor L.R. Wilson. This is Louis Round Wilson, for whom the Wilson Library is named. Professor Wilson bought such staples as lard, beans, olive oil and eggs, as well as some tasty treats including chocolate, apples, and potato chips. One of his entries also demonstrates that the general store sold more than just food products, as he obtained matches and an umbrella from Patterson’s.
Henry “Hoot” Houston Patterson, owner of the store, was a confederate veteran, and an active member of the community . The Southern Historical Collection at UNC holds many more of Patterson’s ledgers and Preservation North Carolina has put up a historic plaque at Patterson’s house on Cameron Avenue in Chapel Hill.
Front cover of the ledger from Patterson’s General Store
More materials from Boy Scout Troop 835 and Girl Scout Troop 59 from Chapel Hill, N.C., are now available on our site thanks to the Chapel Hill Historical Society. This batch primarily includes photographs of the two troops’ trips during the 1970s.
One of the most iconic destinations is, of course, Philmont, which many former scouts would probably recognize. Located in New Mexico, the ranch has long been a testing ground for wilderness survival skills and troop bonding. Based on the camp’s photo archive, it doesn’t look like a whole lot has changed since these troops visited.
One of the first big stories breaks about midway through the year: the parking meter debacle. Apparently, the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen had been tossing around the idea of installing parking meters for a couple of years, and the decision to finally do it happened in 1958. Local businessmen immediately pushed back, arguing that instituting paid parking would hurt their businesses.
Apparently, everyone could agree on the fact that the parking meters were ugly, but the author of the article, Roland Giduz, speculated that complaints about the meters would die down once everyone realized how much they improve traffic (spoiler alert: that doesn’t really happen based on the coverage that follows).
Just below the meter gripes article is another big story of the year: school integration. It describes two issues for an upcoming school merger election: first, whether Black students would attend Carrboro Elementary School, and second, whether the Chapel Hill School Board would charge $30 tuition for students from Carrboro. (Note: more materials about Carrboro Elementary School were also uploaded in this batch, including architectural plans and a document of education specifications).
The earlier articles that this one refers to (from May 22, 1958) don’t mention race until the very last line: “As to the general pupil assignment policy for next year, [Mr. Culbreth] said that he anticipated that the Board would re-adopt the existing regulations, whereby racial segregation has been maintained.” As the July article notes, this is four years after the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision declaring racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
September 11, 1958
The issue gets a more personal focus in the September 11, 1958 issue, when the Orange County School Board denied Lee and Lattice Vickers’ child admittance to the then all-white Carrboro Elementary School. The Vickers’ case was set against the backdrop of ongoing school assignment problems, with neighboring school systems fighting each other over pupil placement and resources.
The fight to racially integrate schools in Chapel Hill (and throughout North Carolina) continued well into the 1960s, and, sadly, none of the community papers that we have from the area extend past 1963. One of the latest articles available, from The Chapel Hill Weekly, reports a survey of Southern business leaders and how their perspective on industry shaped their views on the matter.
But, in 1958, public school integration was still competing for front page space with—you guessed it—parking meters.
In this case, efforts were headed by a citizens group concerned about the effects of the ABC stores in the area. Meetings were held at the University Baptist Church, though Carolyn Noell, a spokesperson for the group, noted that local churches were only providing contacts and spaces (not serving as official sponsors).
Not long before this, the News Leaderreprinted an article from the Durham Morning Herald about how lucrative the ABC stores were. Apparently, the Durham ABC stores sold almost $58 million of alcohol from June 30, 1957, to September 1958 (enough to pay for Durham’s entire share of the Raleigh-Durham airport, plus some for Lincoln Hospital, local schools, warehouse equipment, public libraries, garbage disposal services, and a rabies inspection program, among other things). To put these sales into proportion, a fifth of whiskey (from a “popular brand”) cost $3.95 back then. Certainly, money was at the heart of the argument for the Orange County Citizens for Legal Control in their ad in the January 29, 1959 issue.
Of course, in a college town like Chapel Hill, there’s also frequent news about the University. One article, from October 2, 1958, warned that student enrollment may swell to between 12,000 and 14,000 in 1970 (today, total enrollment exceeds 30,000). And—surprise!—much of the concern about the growing student population is related to parking.
One of the funnier articles about UNC-CH is about Rameses, the live mascot (not to be confused with costumed cheerleader Rameses, former bodybuilder). Rameses VIII, then in power, was “the most aggressive ram I’ve handled,” according to Glen Hogan, his boarder. He was also one of the biggest up until then, clocking in at 250 pounds. These two facts, Hogan hoped, would dissuade rival Duke students from stealing the mascot.
The reigning Rameses (né Otis) ascended in 2020 as the twenty-second mascot. His handler, James Hogan, is part of the same family that has been caring for the mascots since the 1920s. Rameses XXII has “come a long way” in getting used to people and is (presumably) a bit sweeter than his “big and mean” predecessor—though he is still well-guarded.
December 4, 1958
One final story from 1958 is the opening of the Chapel Hill Public Library, which was originally opened in the Hill House on West Franklin Street. The goal, according to Mrs. Richmond Bond, chairman of the board, was to “supplement” the University’s library by focusing on children’s and popular books that were generally unavailable at UNC.
Bond argued that Chapel Hill was the only town of its size in North Carolina without a public library and that the University library had “almost more than it can do” with the increase of UNC students. This led the Board of Aldermen to approve a $4,600 grant for the local library. Somebody even donated over 300 books before the library opened its doors.
In the very last uploaded issue of the Chapel Hill News Leader, from January 29, 1959, the top headline reads, “Death of a Newspaper.” Due to internal litigation, the paper had to stop running.
A typed note inviting community members to visit the Carrboro Library
One exciting piece of local history appears in the scrapbook from the Carrboro Civic Club, which formed a committee to build a public library in Carrboro. The scrapbook contains notes from committee members about the financial aspects and personnel of the project, as well as an early draft of library rules. “Practice good citizenship regarding books,” it warns.
Carrboro Elementary School as imagined by Croft and Hammond in 1957
Some of the ways that litter is spread, according to the National Council of State Gardening Clubs
Finally, if you’re interested in how anti-littering campaigns were waged in the 1970s, there’s this letter from the National Council of State Gardening Clubs, Inc. As part of the “Keep America Beautiful” project, the Council’s leaders identified the seven main ways that litter appears in communities and illustrated some changes that needed to happen to reduce them.
“There is every likelihood that this marriage of behavioral science and techniques will produce offspring reaching into all facets of community life and improving the whole climate in which human beings live as neighbors,” editor Christopher C. Gilson writes.
These three items barely encompass the variety of materials that’s been added, so you can do even more exploring yourself by looking through the whole batch. To see more materials from the Chapel Hill Historical society, you can visit their partner page or their website. The run of Chapel Hill News Leader newspaper issues from 1958-59 that was uploaded with this batch is also available.
This blog is maintained by the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center and features the latest news and highlights from the collections at DigitalNC, an online library of primary sources from organizations across North Carolina.
