Jim Hunt was North Carolina's governor-elect. For the first time. Howard Johnson's was advertising a "Deep Sea Dinner" for $1.99. And the Starlite Drive-In was showing "Inside Marilyn Chambers" and "Sodom and Gomorrah."

Where the Magnolia Grill is now on Ninth Street, there was Troutman's College of Hairstyling. Where Bruegger's is now, there was a Wachovia Bank. In the 700 block there were Morgan's Restaurant and the Shoe Inn, Aileen's Coiffures -- and one little bookstore.

It was Dec. 4, 1976. The high in Durham that day was 49 degrees, the low was 15 and Tom Campbell has a vague memory of snow flurries for opening day of the Regulator Bookshop.

Skip ahead to now: Troutman's, Morgan's, Aileen's and the Shoe Inn are gone, and the Regulator is about to observe its 30th anniversary.

"They are an institution," said Frank Ferrell, owner of the Ninth Street Bakery. "They were a reason for us to go in."

Next weekend, the Regulator is holding anniversary sales and throwing itself a birthday party. Thirty years ago, when Campbell and co-founder Aden Field opened for business, they were unknowing instigators in Ninth Street's metamorphosis from a declining mill-village main street to a cutting-edge college-town destination point. As the bookselling trade has gone more and more chain-corporate, the Regulator has endured by sticking to its countercultural roots.

"There are a lot of people in this community that appreciate something that's not a cookie-cutter standardized sort of place, and does have a point of view," said Campbell, a two-term Durham City Council member in the 1980s.

According to an anniversary essay Campbell wrote for the shop's newsletter, inspiration for the Regulator came from David Birkhead -- like Campbell, a Duke University graduate. Birkhead was never an owner, but he did call the meeting that got the business started, he built some of the original bookcases (some of which are still in service) and his grandmother, Agnes, was the store's first customer.

West Durham was still years from becoming "Old" West Durham. Durham was still a cigarette and cotton-mill town, and Ferrell, who opened his bakery on Ninth Street in 1981, recalls a lot of empty stores there.

"It just felt like the old South," he said, "and the rent was like a dollar a square foot a year."

Campbell's co-founder, Aden Field, left the business in 1978 and John Valentine became a co-owner. Helen Whiting was another partner, from 1982 until her death in 1999. Meantime the Regulator introduced Durham to such publications as Wired and Spy, hosted authors such as R.L. Stine and Jimmy Carter, and went about its business while cultural evolution rendered it less countercultural and more -- frankly -- establishment.

"It's hard to think of what you're doing as an institution," Campbell said, "especially in this business. We're selling a whole new set of books this Christmas than we did last Christmas. Everything changes, and you try to stay as close as you can to the changing edge. ...

"It certainly doesn't get any easier."