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Welcome to Carrboro

Come spend a perfect day in Carrboro and see why people who live in Carrboro are so proud of their town. Stop by the Visitors Center at 501 W. Franklin Street for your Walk Carrboro Map. For more information, log on to www.walkcarrboro.com.

Carrboro has a personality all its own, and it’s not afraid to proclaim it. The spirit of Carrboro recognizes the independent spirit of Orange County. It’s a walking town, proudly liberal and independent with a coffee-house quality, a feeling of friendliness, of home. It was incorporated in 1911 as the town of West End. Eventually it was named after Julian Carr, who ran the cotton mill, a cotton mill which still stands today housing Weaver Street Market, the town center, and a gathering place for this blossoming community.

Photo of Carrboro Farmers at the Farmers Market by Jackie Helvey

With a population of just around 17,000, the little town that is Carrboro does things in very big ways. It’s spoken out on the war in Iraq, stood up to the INS, and voiced its problems with the Patriot Act. Not just voiced: the Carrboro government passed resolutions. For instance, while most of the rest of the country was boycotting France because of their opposition to the war in Iraq, and eating Freedom Fries, Carrboro offered what support it could and encouraged people to buy French. Maybe it didn’t change the world, but it did get the town a spot on The Daily Show.

Getting to Know Carrboro: A Step-by-Step Guide

by Daniel Wallace

[For more information about Carrboro, please visit www.townofcarrboro.org or www.carrboro.com.]

(1) Getting to know a town, like getting to know a person, begins with knowing its name. When you’re introduced, this is usually the first thing. “Jim,” you might say, “this is Carrboro. Carrboro, Jim.” After a little time passes and you get to know Carrboro better, you learn its nicknames. Carrboro has a few: Paris of the Piedmont, Faraway Carrboro, Seattle of the South, the Invisible Kingdom of America. This is how it is: New York is the Big Apple. Los Angeles is the City of Angels. Carrboro is the Paris of the Piedmont.

(2) The latitude of Carrboro, N.C. is 35.91N and the longitude is -79.075W. Good to know where it is, especially if you’re sailing there.

(3) The estimated population in 2003 was 16,747. Since then it has grown a little. By my count, a thousand people or so. Give or take a hundred.

(4) Carrboro, North Carolina, is the smallest town in America with its own foreign policy. I wish I knew if this were true; it sounds true. But the fact is, with a population of just around 17,000, the little town that is Carrboro does things in very big ways. It has spoken out on the war in Iraq, stood up to the INS, voiced its problems with the Patriot Act. Not just voiced: the Carrboro government passed resolutions. For instance, while most of the rest of the country was boycotting France because of their opposition to the war in Iraq, and eating “Freedom Fries”, Carrboro offered what support it could and encouraged people to buy French. Maybe it didn’t change the world, but it did get the town a spot on The Daily Show. I only bring it up here for those of you who don’t already know it: Carrboro has a personality all its own, and it’s not afraid to proclaim it. It’s not afraid to pass resolutions about it. It’s as if at any moment—who knows?—it might choose to secede, and, in its quiet, always-friendly way, become the Independent Republic of Carrboro.

(5) For many years, Carrboro could only be understood in relation to Chapel Hill, N.C., and for good reason. But not so much anymore. Remember when you were growing up and one of your friends had a little brother and you always liked him and he was kind of cute but you never really thought of him as much more than your friend’s little brother? And then years pass and the next time you run into the little brother he’s not so little anymore, he’s all grown up, and after hanging out with him for a while you start to like him — a lot — and not for who he was (your friend’s little brother), but for who he is?
Okay. Hold that thought. And see 6.

(6) History. It’s impossible to understand Carrboro without understanding its history – which is true of everything, everywhere, and of everybody – but it’s especially true of Carrboro. Because imagine this: it was never even meant to be a town at all. All it was in the beginning was a railroad depot. In 1882, the town to the east – that would be Chapel Hill – determined that it needed a train station to accommodate folks traveling there. They picked a deserted area a mile away from campus – a mile away so no one on the Hill would be disturbed by the unseemly sound of a train passing through. In 1913, it became the largest hardwood cross-tie market in the world, and the next year its named was changed to Carrboro, after Julian Carr bought Lloyd’s mill and donated electricity and actual streets to the town. Finally, this former train depot found a name all its own.

(7) How times – and towns – have changed. Today, going to Carrboro is still taking a walk on the wild side, but it’s a different sort of wild side now. The fun kind of wild, the good kind. And a kind of spiritual shift has taken place. Or maybe not spiritual as much as a shift in cool, that very major thing that’s impossible to quantify but you know it when you see it . . . and feel it.

(8) If Carrboro had a presiding spirit, a statue they could erect at a roundabout that would illustrate its character, it might be a . . . farmer with a laptop? Or an architect in overalls? Or a dog in a clown suit – not for any real reason, but because Carrboro is a town with a great sense of humor. So, to re-cap: A beautiful town with a sense of humor who votes democratic. (Sounds like a personals ad. Sounds like a place some other town might want to date. I would, if I were a town. It’s so beautiful and it has a great personality!)

(9) It’s the kind of small southern town where the past and the present seemed to have been fused into a single moment until it’s no longer one time or the other. Many of the buildings on Main Street and Weaver Street, the two main drags, haven’t changed in half a century – and yet Carrboro is wireless. The heart of the town is a contemporary version of the old country store, but it’s a co-op now and the food is mostly organic. There are no big sports teams here (that action is one town over) but there are bike lanes. Lots of them. And some serious bikers using them. So share the road, Buster.

(10) The Arts Center began in 1974 and has become the soul of the arts community. Not just for Carrboro either, but for fifty miles in any direction you care to go. It’s one-stop-shopping for, well, anything you can think of that has anything to do with the arts: everything from writing, music, theater – and so much more. Without it, Carrboro would be mightily diminished. In the other end of the same building is Cat’s Cradle, the institution which single-handedly earned Carrboro its designation as the Seattle of the South. Big names and little alike, local and international, play at this world famous music venue – and local bands that went on to bigger things. Ben Folds Five and The Squirrel Nut Zippers started out here.

(11) Weaver Street Market – or The Weave, as it’s known around town. Weaver Street began in 1988 with a mix of financing from the town of Carrboro, a loan from Self-Help Ventures, and individual community support. The result is much more than a grocery store, though. From late-spring to early-fall the co-op hosts live music on Thursday nights and Sunday morning Jazz brunches, with local non-profit organizations selling food, wine and beer. Hundreds of people – children, dogs, and some of the craziest dancers you’ve seen since 1973 – crowd the lawn and just . . . hang out. Because that’s what it is: a hang out.

(12) Created in 1977, the Carrboro Farmer’s Market was one of the earliest markets to link farmers directly with the customer. This is a true farmer’s market. Twice weekly, on Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings, from spring until the last Saturday before Christmas, the market serves as yet another community event: if you didn’t see Shelley and Bob at the Weave on Thursday, you’ll probably see them at the market on Saturday.

(13) Carrboro is a bright place. Even though it’s clearly grown out of the shadow of its big brother Chapel Hill, it doesn’t cast a shadow of its own, nor does it care to. It’s our own City of Light.

(14) Apparent opposites existing together: this is not merely a culinary attribute of this town: it’s the people too. New Age crystal-packing spinach-eating sandal-wearing peaceniks share the sidewalks with tobacco-chewing coverall-wearing Sunday-go-to-meeting farmers. The buildings—low to the ground, red brick buildings-have been there for over half a century, but inside them are stores like Nested, a tastefully shi-shi home furnishing store. Carrboro is not a melting pot as much as it is a blending of cultures, and eras. This is the spirit you find every weekend at the Farmer’s Market.

(15) It’s a Monday, though, when I have lunch with Carrboro’s new mayor, Mark Chilton. I remember Mark from a long time ago: in 1991 he was, at 21, the youngest city councilman in the history of Chapel Hill. Since then, he’s moved to Carrboro, and he’s still a young mayor, and dresses like one: he’s wearing baggy green shorts, a blue T-shirt and a straw hat. He apologizes for being underdressed, but there’s nothing to apologize for. This is Carrboro, after all, where even the mayor is ultra-casual. We talk for a while about all the wonderful things Carrboro offers, all the things I’ve just told you all about. Then Mark says, “I hate to put everything into political terms, but beneath all of this, all the fun—and it is fun, Carrboro—are some really serious issues. Weaver Street, the Farmer’s Market, they’re all part of a vision: we want to make Carrboro a sustainable society.”

The Town of Carrboro has been running a garbage truck, a utility truck and a backhoe on bio-deisel for over a year. Companies are measured in three ways: social justice, economic profit and sound environmental policies. Buying locally means local farms are preserved, the local economy is strengthened, there’s less pollution and less dependence on outside sources of food. Sustainable means being able to live on its own, through the community and the people who care about it. Carrboro is a bright place. Even though it’s clearly grown out of the shadow of its big brother Chapel Hill, it doesn’t cast a shadow of its own, nor does it care to. It’s our own City of Light.

Daniel Wallace

Daniel Wallace is the author of “Big Fish, A Novel of Mythic Proportions” (published in 1998), “Ray in Reverse” (2000) and “The Watermelon King” (2003). He was was born in Birmingham, AL, and attended Emory University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying business. However, he didn’t graduate, but instead took a job with a trading company in Nagoya, Japan. After returning to Chapel Hill, Wallace worked for 13 years in a bookstore and as an illustrator before Big Fish was published. He still lives in Chapel Hill with his wife Laura and son Henry. He is currently a professor at UNC in Chapel Hill.