# @chapelboronews on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DEqEPoGve1E
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/25990994-chapelboronews-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/a19b0c1dc1.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-01-10T19:45:28.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Chapelboro.com (@chapelboronews) — https://gondola.cc/chapelboronews

## Caption

Story by thisisaaronkeck 
____________________________________

We all know that Chapel Hill is a town with a very rich history, and there’s nowhere in Chapel Hill with more history than Franklin Street.

Now, a pair of organizations has joined forces to share that history with you – in a brand new way.

I’m walking with Missy Julian Fox along the 100 block of East Franklin Street, where every storefront has a story to tell. She’s telling me about the Carolina Theater, a movie house that got its start where the Varsity Theater is now – then moved across the street in 1942, at the height of World War II.

“The only reason it got finished is because we had the Navy pre-flight school here,” she tells me. “During the war, all the building materials went to support the war effort, (but) this theater was allowed to be finished – because it supported those Navy Cadets.”

We’re talking about the stories featured in “Welcome to Franklin Street,” a joint effort of the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership and the Chapel Hill Historical Society.

It’s supposed to be a self-guided walking tour. But – when you get the chance to hear the stories from the expert herself, you take it.

“They had this famous scoreboard outside that had games across the United States,” she says of one long-gone drugstore. “And you would literally see crowds and crowds of people gathered, to find out all those other scores.”

“Put your phone on the QR code and you get a story,” she says.

You can find and scan those QR codes downtown – there are close to a dozen already on Franklin Street, with more potentially in the works.

At the end of the day, Missy Julian Fox says “Welcome to Franklin Street” is not just about remembering Chapel Hill’s past – it’s also about promoting Chapel Hill’s future.

“This was designed to be the heart of the town, and what makes it that is that people use it, enjoy it, meet here, make a memory here,” Fox says. “And those kinds of things are happening still…
.
.
.
.
.
.
#franklinstreet #chapelhill #historicaltour

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 130
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 1

## Tags

franklinstreet, chapelhill, historicaltour

---
Copyright (c) Gondola