Chapel Hill/Carrboro History

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Looks pretty generic. Is that Chicken Bridge? If it is, i was at one of the pumpkins carvings where they used to line the bridge with Jack o' Lanterns. I think that was started by MacLean Builders. One of the partners used (?) to live out that way.
 
Generally no. We only go there on the way to my wife's sister's in Southern Pines. White Cross Road to Chicken Bridge to 87 is the closet way for us.and avoids most of Pittsboro.
 
finesse said:
Generally no. We only go there on the way to my wife's sister's in Southern Pines. White Cross Road to Chicken Bridge to 87 is the closet way for us.and avoids most of Pittsboro.
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Coming in from #DeepChatham (my homeland) heading for Chapel Hill/Carrboro you emerge off of the aforementioned Alex Cockman Road onto Highway 64 East (towards Pittsboro) where after less than a mile you turn left onto Bowers Store Road. Along that road the land rises and at the top of a hill with a clearing and a view in all directions you take a right onto Henderson-Tanyard Road till it dead ends into Castlerock Farm Road where you turn right. Some of y’all may know Henderson-Tanyard because of The Shakori Hills Festivals.

One of my many personal landmarks along the way is a house that for decades has been the parking spot for a truck that has painted on it ‘Billy “Crash” Craddock.” I drove by it yesterday - it is still there (642 Castle Rock Rd) after all these years. Craddock was born in Greensboro in 1939 and was a country and rockabilly phenom. He kicked off his career at 18 - a heart throb designed to challenge Elvis - and became a star in Australia. “Boom, Boom Baby” was a #1 hit for him there. Now 83 he was still performing as recently as last year (Palace Theater, Crossville TN, Sept. 30). Listen/Watch his classic performance here:

At the end of Castle Rock Farm you come up on Highway 87 and go left until you turn right on Brown’s Chapel Road which becomes Chicken Bridge Road. Along that quarter mile stretch you’ll see one of the two North Carolina Historical Markers dedicated to Captain Johnston Blakeley. (Anybody from Carrboro/Chapel Hill ought to be able to make it home from there - shame on you if you can’t)
 
Oh, I know that way. We used to live at that end of Mann's Chapel. It's that my wife is at that point where life runs a little smoother if we keep things familiar.
 
donbosco said:
Coming in from #DeepChatham (my homeland) heading for Chapel Hill/Carrboro you emerge off of the aforementioned Alex Cockman Road onto Highway 64 East (towards Pittsboro) where after less than a mile you turn left onto Bowers Store Road. Along that road the land rises and at the top of a hill with a clearing and a view in all directions you take a right onto Henderson-Tanyard Road till it dead ends into Castlerock Farm Road where you turn right. Some of y’all may know Henderson-Tanyard because of The Shakori Hills Festivals.

One of my many personal landmarks along the way is a house that for decades has been the parking spot for a truck that has painted on it ‘Billy “Crash” Craddock.” I drove by it yesterday - it is still there (642 Castle Rock Rd) after all these years. Craddock was born in Greensboro in 1939 and was a country and rockabilly phenom. He kicked off his career at 18 - a heart throb designed to challenge Elvis - and became a star in Australia. “Boom, Boom Baby” was a #1 hit for him there. Now 83 he was still performing as recently as last year (Palace Theater, Crossville TN, Sept. 30). Listen/Watch his classic performance here:

At the end of Castle Rock Farm you come up on Highway 87 and go left until you turn right on Brown’s Chapel Road which becomes Chicken Bridge Road. Along that quarter mile stretch you’ll see one of the two North Carolina Historical Markers dedicated to Captain Johnston Blakeley. (Anybody from Carrboro/Chapel Hill ought to be able to make it home from there - shame on you if you can’t)
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Here’s ‘The Rest of the Story’ on Blakeley and his marker. On May 1, 1814 ‘The USS Wasp’ set sail commanded by Johnston Blakeley of Rockrest, Chatham County & @UNC, with the mission to harass the British navy & shipping (War of 1812). Many victories followed but ‘The Wasp’ was lost at sea-Blakeley was honored posthumously. See here: Johnston Blakeley, War of 1812 Hero, Lost at Sea ‬ ‪

I wondered about Blakeley for many years - I have what is perhaps a mistaken recollection of a marker to Blakeley in Pittsboro but maybe I was confusing Blakeley with James Waddell, another ship’s captain honored there.

NCPedia has a fuller account of the story of Blakeley & the exploits of ‘The Wasp.’ Blakeley, Johnston | NCpedia more intriguing to me is Blakeley’s pre-maritime life. As a student (1797-99) at UNC he headed the Philanthropic Society & his portrait hangs in New West Hall on campus there. ‪In his honor a poem was penned & published in ‘The North Carolina Magazine’ in 1855, Volume 3. ‬


No more shall Blakeley's thunder roar� Upon the stormy deep;�Far distant from Columbia's shore� His tombless ruins sleep;�But long Columbia's song shall tell� How Blakeley fought, how Blakeley fell.
 
Bingo!! (Though it’s 15-501.)

AKA Starpoint, Congested Area, Hippy Hill, and County Line!!
 
At least for a time, the famous Time-Out Billy ran that grill. The eats were great. A Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich was a secondary go-to there for me. I used to love to grab a bite for the road at Gas Station Grills. There were also ones at Calavander, the one out 54 just past The Old Broken Spoke (Now The Kraken) bar and another one before you got there. Of course, the BLT at Merritt's Store is the most famous sandwich of them all. Standing in line there is the last place that I spoke to Coach Smith.
 
donbosco said:
At least for a time, the famous Time-Out Billy ran that grill. The eats were great. A Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich was a secondary go-to there for me. I used to love to grab a bite for the road at Gas Station Grills. There were also ones at Calavander, the one out 54 just past The Old Broken Spoke (Now The Kraken) bar and another one before you got there. Of course, the BLT at Merritt's Store is the most famous sandwich of them all. Standing in line there is the last place that I spoke to Coach Smith.
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Are you talking about the one on 54 and Morrow Mill? Where is the one between that and the Kraken? Thought I'd been in about all of them. I mean, there is the Fiesta Grill but it's not really a grill.
 
finesse said:
Are you talking about the one on 54 and Morrow Mill? Where is the one between that and the Kraken? Thought I'd been in about all of them. I mean, there is the Fiesta Grill but it's not really a grill.
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Im going pretty far back - used to be one across from that old elementary school and on the other side of the Kraken there was another.
 
donbosco said:
Im going pretty far back - used to be one across from that old elementary school and on the other side of the Kraken there was another.
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I was building houses in the trails in the late 70's and don't really remember either one. There's a vague recollection that there was one in that store at the corner of White Cross Road but not the other. Oh well.
 
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