Siler City, North Carolina.

A visit to North Carolina in 2015 prompted a trip to the largest town in Chatham County. Our visit to North Carolina in 2018 brought us back to this town of a bit over 8000 residents in the western part of the county. For more background on our 2015 visit to Siler City, you can check out my post and gallery of photos here, and a guest post from my son, Joshua, who provided a much more detailed story here. In the opening photo above, this post features one of the murals that since 2001 have proliferated throughout the city’s downtown area. This image depicts Siler City very early in the 20th century.

In the photo above, if you look at the left edge, you’ll see the mural’s location on the side of a building. The view of the intersection is the same intersection as depicted in the mural. These two photos were captured in 2015. I used them again here as the day we visited in 2018, the mural happened to be obscured by parked vehicles.

The Siler City Mural Society consisted of townspeople who were interested in bringing an attraction to the downtown area that was then suffering from the loss of workers. As their first act in 2001, they commissioned three murals, the first of which featuring the early Chatham Avenue street scene, followed by a mural titled “Our Hardware Heritage” shown above, and the third mural featuring Siler City’s original hospital. After a hiatus between 2007 and 2014, the project was revitalized by a local artist, Roger Person. New murals were added and on the day of our visit, we even met a local businessman who decided to paint some on his own building. At that moment, he was getting a fresh section of building prepped to add another mural. All of the images I captured that morning are depicted in the gallery at the end of this post. I didn’t include every mural in the city so that when you get a chance to visit, you can be surprised at what you find. Ask around and you can pick up a brochure that shows you where to find the murals as you explore the downtown area.

But what about those burgers? In 2015, we happened to visit Siler City on a Monday. Josh was disappointed that he couldn’t show off his favorite burger joint as they are closed on Sunday and Monday. This year, we made it a point to visit on a day they were open. Everything Josh said about the burger joint proved to be true. Their prime burgers are not just figurative, they are USDA Prime grade. As Josh said in the original article, come early for lunch. When they run out of prime burgers, they close for the day. Burgers and fries are about all they serve with style and southern hospitality and charm. Josh’s blogging stock and trade is food. Josh writes under the moniker “Pot & Pan Handler” You can check out his site here.

So, I promised you a small gallery of mural images. Here they are. In most browsers, you can click on an image to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

Panoramic view a large mural.

Ace Hardware.

Baseball Champions.

Replica of a Coca Cola advert.

Psychedelic rabbit.

Diversity.

Early view of Main Street.