Pittsboro residents, businesses recall historic courthouse

PITTSBORO — Frankie Jones used to glance up at the courthouse steeple’s clock every day to check the time.

Now, like scores of Pittsboro residents and business owners, she misses the presence of their town’s centerpiece. The Chatham County Courthouse was severely damaged in a fire late last month.

“I have looked at that clock 99,000 times as I was driving in and out of town,” said Jones, a waitress at Virlie’s Grill who first visited the historic building on a middle school field trip. “So every time I look up, it startles me that the clock’s not there.”

To the town’s residents, the courthouse was more than a legal center. It was a childhood memory, an inspiration, a comforting symbol of home. And now that it is gone, they are reflecting for the first time upon what it meant.

Every time Nan Baldauf, a 32-year resident of Chatham County, returned home from out of town, she anticipated the sight of that courthouse steeple.

“When you’re coming from anywhere, that’s the first thing you see when you come home,” said Baldauf, the manager of Second Bloom Thrift Boutique.

“You see the courthouse, especially the steeple. Now that that’s gone, I really miss it.”

Many artists and photographers visited Pittsboro to create artwork with the image of the courthouse, Jones said.

“Much like the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and some of the other iconic symbols of the state, the Chatham County Courthouse was the main symbol of the county and Pittsboro,” said Tommy Edwards, owner of Red Gate Music, Art & Antiques.

Edwards attended a series of lectures sponsored by a historical association at the courthouse and played with his band, The Bluegrass Experience, at political gatherings in the courtroom, he said.

“A building like that has so many various meanings to so many different people,” Edwards said. “It might be where you got your marriage license or where you looked at the plan of your new home or something like that.”

The fire also impacted the younger generation of Pittsboro.

“It’s amazing. I can get on Facebook and see all these people who have got default pictures of the courthouse before it burned down,” said 21-year-old Travis Squires, who wrote a report on the courthouse in the eighth grade.

Last Saturday, several bands from the town performed downtown at a festival, called Pittsboro Rising, to honor the city and county officials as well as emergency workers who responded to the courthouse fire. Attendees were encouraged to visit downtown shops and restaurants.

“It was our way of saying, ‘We’re not done yet. We’re going to make it,’” Edwards said.

Business owners who relied on the courthouse for drawing tourists are still holding their breath for things to pick up again. The traffic circle around the courthouse in the center of town still hasn’t reopened.

The proximity of the restaurant to the courthouse was a significant factor when Chris Pratt, the owner of Virlie’s Grill, decided to buy a restaurant on Hillsboro Street, he said.

“A lot of people who came to town took the time to go visit it, walk around it and, of course, some of those people ate with us,” he said. “We took it for granted — being right here in the shade of it.”

Downtown shops and restaurants were, by and large, spared from permanent damage.

“Other than the smoky smell which lasted a couple days, we didn’t have any damage other than a couple hundred dollars worth of cleaning labor and the loss of a Thursday night, which is a big night for us,” Pratt said.

But the logistical difficulties the fire has caused are still impacting business.

Restaurants might lose money without the lunchtime traffic of courthouse employees, Edwards said.

James Henry Shook, the owner of J. Henry Paint & Hardware, has noticed less traffic coming from north of Pittsboro, particularly from Chapel Hill. That means fewer customers.

“It’s just another inconvenience,” Shook said. “It may encourage them to stop a little further north.”

Town residents are hopeful that the county commissioners will uphold their promise to rebuild the courthouse, Jones said.

But so far, there’s no timeline for that.

“Rebuilding it is going to be the best bet,” she said. “I think it will continue to stand. I mean, it’s stood for over 100 years.”



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