High Noon

In the early 1970s small groups of Carolina students began gathering at the bell tower at noon to smoke marijuana —they called it High Noon. The location was likely selected because of its central location and also due to the tall hedges that used to surround the bell tower. Their meetings wer...

Horace Williams Airport

The university-owned Horace Williams Airport closed in 2018 after eighty years of operation. It opened in 1928 when local contractor Charlie Lee Martindale purchased fifty acres from UNC professor Horace Williams and built a small airfield that came to be called the Chapel Hill Airport. Throughout t...

Woollen Gym

Woollen Gym opened in March 1938 to serve as a replacement for Bynum Gymnasium, which the university had long outgrown. In addition to more space for games and exercises, the most exciting feature of the new gym was the Bowman Gray Memorial Pool, which was said to be the largest pool in the South wh...

South Building

Construction on South Building, known originally as Main Building, began in 1798, but lack of funds delayed its completion until 1814. Students reportedly built rough cabins inside the unfinished structure to escape crowded conditions in Old East. When it finally opened, South contained dormitory ro...