CHAPEL HILL - Three years ago, Doug Eyre was asked to give a talk at the Chapel Hill Public Library about Horace Williams Airport.

Chancellor James Moeser had just announced the university's intention to close the airport to make way for the Carolina North satellite campus, touching off a fierce debate.

Given the intense controversy, a big crowd showed up to hear Eyre speak.

"It was packed, standing room only," said Eyre, who taught geography and Asian studies at UNC for 44 years. "But I think I disappointed them. I said, 'I know you're all here because of the debate over the airport -- but I'm just here to give you the historical background.'"

For eight years, from 1999 to 2007, that's what Eyre did every month in The Chapel Hill News. His "Historical Notes" column gave readers the background on the people, places and events that have shaped Chapel Hill.

The Chapel Hill Historical Society has collected all 99 of Eyre's columns, updated and expanded, in book form as "Profiles of Chapel Hill Since 1900." A publication party to celebrate the book's release will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. today at the Historical Society offices below the Chapel Hill Museum on East Franklin Street.

Eyre, 87, began writing "Historical Notes" shortly before his full retirement from the UNC faculty in 2000. He modeled the column on an earlier series of "Historical Notes" written mostly by Ralph Watkins, a retired physician and medical administrator. In 2001, Eyre bound the original series of columns by Watkins and others into a hardcover book.

"I admired Dr. Watkins a great deal," Eyre said. "For a period of about 10 years I was at the Historical Society more than anyone else, and I learned a lot researching the questions people would call and ask. When I fully retired from the university I started doing the columns; it didn't really occur to me that I was starting this at 80."

Eyre wrote a column every month from December 1999 to December 2007. His work led the Historical Society and the Chapel Hill Museum to name him one of the 12 charter members of Chapel Hill's "Town Treasures," along with notables including Bill and Ida Friday, Robert and Pearl Seymour, the Rev. J.R. Manley and others. The society also last year established an award in his name, the John Douglas Eyre Award, to honor those who document Chapel Hill's history. Eyre was the first recipient.

"That he took on this project when the age of 80 and stuck to it with such commitment says a lot about Doug," said Terry Barnett, president of the society. "It's also a wonderful story in itself, about falling in love with a new topic and pursuing it with a passion."

After Eyre finally handed off the "Historical Notes" to other members of the Historical Society (see page B8 for this month's installment by Linda Jacobson), he planned to make a dozen copies of all his columns and gather them in binders for use by the Historical Society and local libraries. The other members of the Historical Society had grander plans.

"We thought the columns formed a wonderful collection of stories about Chapel Hill, and we thought they should be gathered in a more permanent way," Barnett said.

"I thought it wouldn't take very long to collect them -- just copy them and print them. But Doug said, 'No, I want to check these facts' and 'I think this person has died' and 'Did that person graduate in this year or that year,' so he updated and expanded them."

Aside from an initial column he wrote to introduce the column in December 1999 and a valedictory one to bid farewell to it in January 2008, "Profiles of Chapel Hill Since 1900" includes every column Eyre wrote, in the order in which they first appeared in The Chapel Hill News.

The first, originally published on Christmas Day 1999, was about Chapel Hill's first airport, Martindale Field (later called Chapel Hill Airport), an airstrip built in 1928 and operated by Charlie Lee Martindale. It hosted air shows and other entertainment until the university bought it in 1940 and turned it into what we now know as Horace Williams Airport.

Eyre's last historical column, published Dec. 23, 2007, was about the Village Bank, a locally owned and managed bank that operated from 1982 to 1995.

In between, he wrote about local personalities ranging from UNC President Frank Porter Graham to barber Mac Snipes; places such as the Botanical Garden and the Porthole Restaurant; and events such as Eleanor Roosevelt's five visits to town and the bizarre 1944 murder that drew curious crowds to watch as divers searched the bottom of Eastwood Lake (with gruesome results).

"I started out with something I already had some knowledge about, the airport," Eyre said. "After that I just wrote about what I thought was interesting, and I hoped others would find it interesting too."

dave.hart@nando.com or 932-2003

IF YOU GO

The Chapel Hill Historical Society will hold a free, public publication party for Doug Eyre's "Profiles of Chapel Hill Since 1900," from 3 to 5 p.m. today at the Historical Society offices at 523 E. Franklin St., below the Chapel Hill Museum. The book, $20, will be available. For more information, call 929-1793.