Chapel Hill, NC - 3/2/01:
When Lockport's William Rand Kenan Jr. passed away in 1965 he left the bulk of his estate to his college alma mater and charities under the de facto direction of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Today in Chapel Hill, a part of North Carolina's technology triangle of Chapel Hill-Durham-Raleigh, the Kenan presence on building facades is huge but the Kenan name appreciation in the community is minuscule. The Lockportian who gave millions to the Chapel Hill area appears largely unknown here outside of the top levels of the University of North Carolina.
Driving onto the
UNC campus Thursday afternoon, 3/1, I asked directions to Kenan Stadium. My first
inquiry to a student sent me to the campus baseball stadium named after someone else.
Next a campus professional, perhaps a faculty member, replied, "Kenan
Stadium?...You must mean "the football stadium"...it's down that way...just keep
bearing right and you'll find it." I found it all right and it is HUGE.
The UNC campus was so busy and crowded, with parking restricted everywhere, it was not possible to park and attempt to get inside pictures of this giant arena. The frame at left, showing the main entrance, however, tells part of the story. This multi-million dollar facility was built with part of the Kenan fortune.
When Mr. Kenan offered to build a new high school for Lockport, the city and school leadership turned down the idea. It would have just galled former Lockport Mayor Frank Moyer Jr. and his cronies to have the Kenan name memorialized in Lockport in such a prominent way. The high school still went up, at local taxpayer expense, at Lincoln and Locust, the same site proposed by Mr. Kenan --- but without the Kenan name or funding.
According to the Kenan biography, Moyer and his political and other associates at the time, managed to so insult Mr. Kenan that he largely shut off the tap to any further major funding for Lockport community projects. In Across Fortune's Tracks it's explained that when Mr.Kenan failed to accept Moyer's invitation to join the local Masons, Kenan incurred the wrath of Moyer and the Masons. Mr. Kenan's wife was not re-appointed to the hospital board---another Kenan charity that saw no more of the Kenan cash. Kenan's home of Locust Street in Lockport is about the sole remaining beneficiary of the Kenan money for Lockport.
What remains of the Kenan treasure today are in part administered here in
Chapel Hill by the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust.
The Trust Board, which still has some of Kenan's relatives on it, is largely controlled by interests connected to the University of North Carolina --- a state school supported by the State of North Carolina (with more than a little help from the Kenan Trust). The private rich brick parking lot for members and employees of The Trust (entry of which is shown left) is one of the few areas one can find available parking on the campus of the University of North Carolina.
The Trust keeps a low profile in Chapel Hill. We couldn't find a listing for them in the telephone book but sources say their operations are headquartered, quite properly, at "The Kenan Center"---a huge conference complex on the UNC campus (pictured in part below). On the first day of March some of the floral bursts had already come out here in this area that sees Spring more than a month before those of us in Lockport do.
The Kenan Center is part of the much larger, Kenan-Flagler Business School campus at UNC. A traffic sign a bit further on up The Big Hill from a public entry point (below) tells you need not continue if you don't have a special permit. Sure enough, there was no place for tourists to park (legally). A security guard eyed me menacingly as I stopped the car to take a picture of the Kenan Center building (above).
But for all his gifts to the Chapel Hill community the Kenan name, let alone the man, appears little appreciated here by the general public---including the general student population. At a large local bookstore I asked, "Do you have the Kenan biography in stock?" The first response was "how do you spell Kenan?" The clerk at the counter, a UNC student, had "never heard" of Mr. Kenan. He did check his computer to assure me that, "No, we don't carry that book." Over at a popular cafeteria, I asked six patrons while standing in line, what they knew of the famous Lockportian. The only positive response from the six was from one who asked, "Is that the same Kenan who they named the football stadium after?" Nobody that I encountered, in the general mainstream of Chapel Hill working people could tell me about Mr. Kenan. His name recognition is much higher in Lockport where "The Kenan Center" is a household word.
The One...The Only...
Lockport
Home Page: www.Lockport-NY.com
THE PICTURE OF LOCKPORT