Voluntary building "restrictions" arc fuming Chapel Hill into a colonial village.
— (Photo by Hemmer.)
Contrast, Distinction
Orange’s charm is focussed in its
villages which arc content to re¬
main small.
By AUBREY MICK EL JOIIA
When they laid the comcrstorc for
the first University building on Octo¬
ber 12. 1793. they also founded a
town, and visitors ever since have been
unable to tell where the University
ends and Chapel Hill begins.
Their start was humble, but the set¬
ting worthy of its future. Establish¬
ment of a University had been written
into the constitution, and the commis¬
sioners authorized to locate it came
to the 50 1 -foot hill named for the New
Hope Chapel, a Church of Eng¬
land establishment. Chancellor Robert
House describes it in the new Orange
County history:
“A granite promontory jutted out
from the north and west 300 feet
above the valley to the cast and south.
Two bold creeks at the foot of the
hill were ready to turn the gristmills
and sawmills of farmers and lumber¬
men. A profusion of springs and brooks
gushed from the hillside, and had
carved the terrain into bends, glens
and meadows. All this was covered
with a mountain growth of oak. hick¬
ory, ash. laurel and rhododendron.
Chapel Hill was already a beautiful
place. It would have become an im¬
portant town in southern Orange even
if there had been no University . . .”
But there was a university — Amer¬
ica's first state university — and what
a university! Eor a month it had no
student body, until Hinton James ar¬
rived after historically trudging from
Wilmington. It grew slowly, struggling
for life in a financial vacuum. A car¬
pet-bag government forced its closing,
but over the years, in peace and war.
it progressed in size and even more
in significance.
Never did so poor a people have
so precious a possession. It sent its
roots out into every crevice of the state,
and a people, themselves starving for
education, gave it nourishment. Gifts
trickled in to supplement meagre state
support. It is a well-remembered uni¬
versity; a loyal alumni have been a
substantial factor in its physical growth
and improvement, lately through a se¬
ries of novel foundations.
A succession of brilliant and coura¬
geous presidents guided it to honor and
prestige; growing state pride and sup¬
port was the response.
In 1932, the Greater University was
created by consolidating State College
and Woman's College and the Chapel
Hill school. New departments and
schools have been added throughout
the years, and World War II (and
Navy use of the facilities) brought a
sharp expansion.
The physical expansion took place
on a well-wooded plateau, the build¬
ing done with such foresight that the
campus preserves spaciousness through
rolling lawns and groves.
Around this attractive campus grew
up an attractive community, all but
buried in undisturbed forests, and peo¬
pled largely by University personnel.
It is spreading out. too. with one large,
modern residential-shopping center at
Glen Lennox. Aside from its student
body of about 6.000 (1953), the uni¬
versity employs 2.400 of this village,
has a payroll of $8,000,000. and an
over-all budget of $15.000.000 — en¬
rollment reached a peak of 7,603 in
1948.
Few people realize the extent of
the university's non-educational op¬
erations. It owns and operates the wa¬
ter works, telephone system, power
plant, laundry, hotel and restaurant,
these facilities serving thousands aside
its own group.
Otherwise Chapel Hill has no indus¬
tries, except for printing and a bak¬
ery. and a football team, but it is a
substantial trading center and is the
site of a large non-profit insurance
enterprise — Hospital Saving Associa¬
tion of North Carolina, which has
470.000 North Carolinians protected
under group hospitalization. It has
banks, real estate firms and other serv¬
ice agencies. And. of course. Louis
Graves' widely loved Chapel Hill
Weekly.
The municipality has a tax rate of
$1.43. and in addition those living
in the Chapel Hill school district
(which docs not coincide with the
town's boundaries) pay a 20 cents
school tax supplement.
The presence here of over 5.200
(1950 census) students gives Chapel
Hill's statistics some weird turns. For
all its birthdays, it is a youthful town
— with a median age of 23.1. And
it is extremely well-educated statistic¬
ally. The residents 25 years old or
older have spent an average of 14.6
years in the classrooms, and 1.195 of
them have completed four years or
more of college work.
The students also hammer down the
median income, which is only $669
THE STATE. OCTOOCR 3. 1953
