101 W. Rosemary St. / Southland Motor Company / Carolina Cab Stand / Carolina Coach Bus Station

There once was a wood frame structure housing a blacksmith shop and wood shop on this site, but by 1915 it was demolished.[1] The lot was part of the William Lloyd property, but was sold to Claude Cates by Lueco Lloyd in June 1927.[2] Cates sold it via trust to S. Carl Forrest in November 1935.[3] Forrest sold it to Albert Poe in January 1936.[4] Poe sold it to John M. Foushee in January 1956.[5]

The initial service station structure was built in 1925-26 by/for Dewey Merritt as a filling/service station.[6] By 1927 it was owned/operated by E. G. and/or J. E. Burroughs as a Texaco station. In 1928 it became The Southland Motor Company, selling Studebaker and Erskine automobiles; the garage to the structure's rear was likely built then.

By 1936 this was a taxi stand for Carolina Cab (the Carolina Cab Company was owned by Charles Bartlett; he started it in 1935 and closed the business in 1955). In April 1936, the bus station was moved from 136 East Franklin Street to this location (until May 1947, when it moved into a new structure).[7]

On April 9, 1947, eight African American and eight white members of CORE (known as the "Freedom Riders") set out from Washington, D.C. on Greyhound and Trailways buses; on April 12, both buses arrived in Chapel Hill at this bus station. As the buses departed Chapel Hill for Greensboro on April 13, four of the riders were arrested. The commotion aboard the buses drew a large crowd of spectators, including several white taxi drivers. The men were taken to the police station, with a fifty dollar bond placed on each man. As white rider James Peck got off the bus to pay their bonds, a taxi driver struck him in the head.  In May 1947, those members who had been arrested went on trial and were sentenced. The riders unsuccessfully appealed their sentences. On March 21, 1949, they surrendered at the courthouse in Hillsborough and were sent to segregated chain gangs.[8] (For the 1947 report on the incident by Bayard Rustin and George Houser, see: We Challenged Jim Crow; also Bayard Rustin's A Report on Twenty-Two Days on the Chain Gang at Roxboro, North Carolina.)

By 1966 the structure was demolished for a parking lot, owned/operated by the Chapel Hill Parking Association.[9]

A State Highway Marker was place near this very important historical site in 2008.[10]

View north west, 1954 photo excerpt (via CHHS Hill Life)

June 1955 photo excerpt (photo by Roland Giduz, via UNC)

Excerpt from the 09.23.1927 Chapel Hill Weekly

Excerpt from the 08.17.1928 Chapel Hill Weekly

Ad from the 06.29.1928 Chapel Hill Weekly

Excerpt from the April 24, 1936 Chapel Hill Weekly

ENDNOTES:

[1] 1911, 1915 Sanborn maps

[2] Orange County deed book 86, page 236

[3] Orange County deed book ?, page ?

[4] Orange County deed book 1044, page 56; also see book 110, page 44.001. Other likely associated property transactions are book 126, page 6 and book 126, page 10.

[5] Orange County deed book 158, page 183; also see book 158, page 208

[6] The Chapel Hill Weekly, December 24, 1925

[7] The Chapel Hill Weekly, April 24, 1936

[8] Via https://www.stoppingpoints.com/north-carolina/sights.cgi?marker=Journey+Of+Reconciliation&cnty=orange; also see https://www.ncpedia.org/journey-reconciliation-1947 and https://humanities.unc.edu/reconciliation75

[9] Orange County deed book ?, page ?

[10] http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=G-127