Abstract:
Chatham County is a great county but it could have been the greatest county in the state if it hadn't missed three golden opportunities including losing locations of: the state capitol to Wake County; the University of North Carolina to Chapel Hill because Chatham County had too many saloons; and the first railroad in the state was to have been built in Chatham, but farmers objected. Despite of all the might-have-been, Chatham is still a county of rich history.