Meeting of the Waters Creek

Meeting of the Waters Creek and the woods surrounding it have been a favorite retreat for over a century. Kemp P. Battle, president of the university from 1876 to 1891, described the area around the creek as being full of "high bluffs . . . heart leaves, anemones, ferns, stellarias, tiarellas, irises, and other small, beautiful plants. Lofty beeches, their bark covered with the initials of students vainly seeking perpetual fame, overhang the everwinding stream and give a grateful shade at all hours of the day."

Today, the creek runs through culverts under the campus, then emerges in the Coker Pinetum south of Boshamer Stadium. The creek runs through the North Carolina Botanical Garden, and converges with Morgan Creek south of Mason Farm Road. Many of the storm drains on campus flow into the creek.

This photo of the creek comes from the scrapbook of Elizabeth Tannahill Bain. Bain was the daughter of a UNC professor and later a secretary for the Department of Romance Languages.