Chapel Hill Historical Society

11/03/2026

Visit our booth at Festifall this Saturday! 100 East Rosemary St., Chapel Hill!

10/30/2026

Congratulations to Laurie Paolicelli on her retirement, and a big thanks for her 21 years of public service and tourism leadership as Director of the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Visitors Bureau. Her many years of support for the Chapel Hill Historical Society are greatly appreciated!

10/24/2026

Ninety years ago on this day, October 24, 1936, the last passenger train ran between the Carrboro depot and University Station. The train was called “The Whooper,” and the engineer was captain Fred Smith. The rail line was inaugurated in 1882 when UNC President Kemp Battle observed that “Neither Egypt, Athens, nor Rome in all their glory had a railroad ten and two-fifths miles long.”

Now that planning has begun on repurposing the rail line, what do you think should be done with the trackage and adjacent land? Should the land be converted to hiking trails and greenspace? Or should we go "back to the future" with light rail service? Let us know your thoughts!

10/20/2026

It is with great sadness that we note the passing of our friend and colleague, Phill Lyons, past President of Preservation Chapel Hill, who passed away on September 26, 2026. You can read his obituary here:

View Phillip John Lyons's obituary, send flowers, find service dates, and sign the guestbook.

09/15/2026

Do you remember the Intimate Bookshop on East Franklin St.? It was the legendary haunt of famous authors and political activists from the 1930s to the 1990s. You can see more memories at https://www.facebook.com/chapelhillhistoricalsociety/photos/do-you-remember-the-intimate-bookshop-it-had-many-locations-in-chapel-hill-begin/982196798529306/

Did you work at the University Mall location? If so, Philip Tanner would like to hear from you at [email protected].

Do you remember the Intimate Bookshop? It had many locations in Chapel Hill, beginning in Milton "Ab" Abernethy's dorm room at UNC in 1930. It then had a brief presence in a room over the Carolina Cafeteria next to the post office on Franklin Street, and then in 1933 moved into the western half of the building at 205-207 E. Franklin St. that formerly housed H.H. Patterson's Store. The bookstore soon became the haunt of liberals and leftists, and attracted the unwelcome attention of Raleigh legislators, who saw it as a threat to the morals of university students. Abernethy befriended many writers, including the novelist William Faulkner and the black poet Langston Hughes.
Abernathy sold the store to Paul and Isabel Smith in 1950, who moved the bookstore to the old Berman Department Store building at 119 E. Franklin Street in 1956. In 1965, the Intimate was acquired by Wallace Kuralt, the brother of famous television journalist Charles Kuralt. Wally Kuralt continued the tradition of the Intimate as a gathering place for artists and intellectuals; and mounted a personal crusade against the "big box" bookstores. A fire in 1992 damaged the bookstore; Kuralt rebuilt it, but finally went out of business in 1998, unable to compete with the large bookstores. Wally Kuralt died in 2003, but his memory lives on in Chapel Hill. The old Berman Department store building that housed the Intimate has been renamed the "Kuralt Building," with a historical plaque on the wall. It is now the location of Chapel Hill Sportswear. You can read more about the Intimate Bookshop and its history below.

08/30/2026

The Seymour Center opened an exhibit of art work by Barbara Tyroler on Saturday, together with a showing of the Marion Cheek Jackson Center's documentary on the history of the A.D. Clark pool at the Hargraves Center.

08/27/2026

We had a "standing-room-only crowd" for our book launch event at Flyleaf Books on Tuesday, August 25 for "Clipped Wings: The Story of Horace Williams Airport." We heard author Daniel Schwartz talk about the history of Chapel Hill's airport from its barnstorming days in the 1920s to its controversial closing in 2018, and his personal reminiscences about the airport that led to his becoming a professional pilot. You can purchase copies of "Clipped Wings" from Flyleaf Books, or from our online bookstore at https://chhs-books-online.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/clipped-wings-the-story-of-horace-williams-airport

08/05/2026

Bill Spransy shares a Chapel Hill memory from 1960:

"In my mind I'm goin' to Carolina
Can't you see the sunshine?
Now, can't you just feel the moonshine?
And ain't it just like a friend of mine
To hit me from behind?
Yes, I'm gone to Carolina in my mind….”

It was a typical early June day, full of promise and sunshine when the six of us, Bland Simpson, Mark Phialas, George Penick, Dave Harrison, Charlie Flowers and I shared a booth in the Rathskeller’s Subway Room for lunch. Bland’s uncle, who was the manager of Ledbetter Pickard, the stationary store sitting atop the Rat, had graciously arranged for us to get together to celebrate the previous days ending of the 1960 school year and our matriculation from Glenwood to the seventh grade at the junior high school (the site go Granville East these days).

Finishing lunch we exited the Rat and half of us headed down the parking lot and the other half of us headed up Amber Alley to the steel stairs leading up to Franklin Street. Aa we reached the top of the stairs, we each began to head our own ways when I spotted two of our former former classmates weaving in and out of the foot traffic chasing one another with water guns. In front was Danny Decker, who was a class ahead of us and five yards behind Danny ran my pal, James Taylor. The year before, James and I found ourselves in the same classroom and developed a really nice friendship. I'd found him engagingly friendly, funny and casually brilliant in everything he did and I was funny and friendly , so we hit it off quite well.

I’m not exactly sure why but when he came racing by I turned toward him and ‘slugged” him in his right shoulder. It was a thing between guys of our certain age to “greet” one another by hitting each other in the arm and I was just carrying forward my part of that social contract. Apparently I had consumed more than my legal limit of Coca~Cola at lunch, because I hit him hard enough for him to stop chasing Danny, spin around and loudly exclaim “BILL!" before turning and begin chasing Danny up the second flight of the 4th Amber Alley staircase.

We didn’t see each other the rest of that Summer and really each other except to say “Hi” when we passed in the school hallways. And we both sort of forgot about, or so I thought, it until 8 years later when I listened to “Carolina On My Mind” for the first time. I must say I was floored my pal had remembered that hit enough to include it in his hit song and the images from that day at the intersection of Franklin and Amber Alley came flooding back.

08/01/2026

Planning begins on Carolina North project...

A group of key stakeholders at UNC Chapel Hill on Monday toured the site of what is set to be a major expansion project for the university.

07/26/2026

The Chapel Hill Historical Society announces the publication of author Daniel Schwartz's book, "Clipped Wings: The Story of Horace Williams Airport. Join us at 5:30 PM on Tuesday, August 25, at Flyleaf Books for a book signing and presentation on the history of Chapel Hill's former airport!

On May 15, 2018, just days short of its ninetieth anniversary as an airfield, Horace Williams Airport in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. was officially closed by its owner, the University of North Carolina. Since its beginning as a barnstorming airfield run by local airplane enthusiast Charley Martindale in the 1920s, the airport had served as a training field for World War II pilots, a dedicated transport facility for the university's Medical School, and a conveniently located airport for local small aircraft pilots.

UNC graduate and professional pilot Daniel Schwartz combines a detailed history of the airport with a personal memoir of his experiences there as a student pilot. He vividly describes the controversies and conflicts that arose with the university and the town of Chapel Hill as aircraft technology evolved from biplanes to jets and helicopters. While there were accidents and complaints about noise levels at the airport that was once described as the "illegitimate offspring" of the town and the university, many lives were saved by the airport's medical transport capabilities. Schwartz includes interviews with many of the personalities associated with the airport over the years. Their reminiscences lend color and depth to the story of the "little airport that could."

On May 15, 2018, just days short of its ninetieth anniversary as an airfield, Horace Williams Airport in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. was officially closed by its owner, the University of North Carolina. Since its beginning as a barnstorming airfield run by local airplane enthusiast Charley Martinda...