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Everyday Life & Traditions, Recent decades: 146 dated entries from the full dataset. Back to the highlights →
- Recent decades · 1976–2026
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The Alberta Mill complex is listed on the National Register
The mill, the railroad depot and the brick grist mill were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places, a year after the 1975 nomination made during the fight over demolishing the mill.
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The idle Carrboro depot is converted into The Station
Lee Epting and Mike Macomson finished renovating the disused depot in 1976 after two years of negotiations, reopening it as The Station restaurant, later a music venue.
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WUNC-FM returns to the air as an NPR affiliate
UNC's radio station WUNC, which had begun FM broadcasting in 1952 and had been silenced by equipment problems in the early 1970s, returned to the air from Chapel Hill on April 3, 1976, as a National Public Radio affiliate.
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Carrboro Civic Club's public library closes
The Carrboro Civic Club, which had run a volunteer public library since 1950 with some help from the town and Hyconeechee Regional Library, told the town in 1976 that it could no longer administer it, and the library had closed by 1977. An attempt in 1974 to turn the library over to town government had failed, and Hyconeechee's bookmobile served Carrboro until 1995.
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OWASA commenced operations, taking over the water and sewer systems of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and the university
The three separately owned systems serving the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Carrboro were transferred to the Orange Water and Sewer Authority, which began serving the whole Carrboro and Chapel Hill community as a single public utility that day.
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Caldwell and Cedar Grove volunteer fire departments are incorporated
The Caldwell Volunteer Fire Department was incorporated on December 6, 1977 and the Cedar Grove Volunteer Fire Department a week later, on December 13, extending local fire protection across the northern townships.
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Carrboro Farmers’ Market is established
The market dates its founding to 1979, following organizing and planning in 1977.
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The Orange County Women's Center is established
An anonymous $30,000 gift in March 1979 created a fund for an Orange County Women's Center, meant to give office space to the rape crisis center, the Women's Health Counseling Service and the Orange-Durham Coalition for Battered Women, along with classes and counseling. By April 1980 it was open at 307 North Columbia Street, and it later merged with the Family Violence Prevention Center of Orange County to form Compass Center.
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The first Festival for the Eno is held
The Eno River Association held the first Festival for the Eno on July 4, 1980, at West Point on the Eno, a Durham city park on the river. The yearly festival of traditional music, crafts and trades raises money for land protection in the Eno River basin.
Part of Saving the Eno · 5 events
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Friends of the Orange County Public Library is founded
Residents organized the Friends of the Orange County Public Library on November 5, 1981, to raise money and advocate for a county library preparing to move into larger quarters in Hillsborough. The group incorporated on May 3, 1982, and the IRS recognized it as a 501(c)(3) charity in June 1983.
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Bill Neal and Gene Hamer reopen Crook's Corner
Bill Neal, a former manager of La Residence, and Gene Hamer leased Crook's Corner, a West Franklin Street barbecue restaurant opened by Cam Hill in 1978 and closed in November 1981, and planned to reopen it in February 1982 serving Southern-style meals. Under Neal and later chef Bill Smith it became nationally known.
Subject: Crook’s Corner
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Orange County Public Library refers overdue cases to the Dispute Settlement Center
County librarian Kathleen Moeller-Peiffer reported in 1983 that the library's first attempt to settle overdue cases through the local Dispute Settlement Center had worked: of five patrons sent mediation notices, three returned or paid for their books. The library planned to use the process every three months for its most delinquent materials.
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Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen opens
Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen, a drive-through biscuit restaurant from a small chain begun in Henderson and Louisburg in 1977 and 1978, was operating at 1305 East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill by September 1983.
Subject: Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen
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The Fredricks site is found and excavated and Occaneechi Town is located
UNC archaeologists trying to relocate the Wall site in the spring of 1983 found European trade goods among Indian pottery in a garden about a hundred yards away, and dug there for four seasons. They uncovered a palisaded village of about a quarter of an acre with ten to twelve houses set around a plaza, a sweat lodge and a cemetery outside the stockade, and identified it as the Occaneechi town Lawson visited in 1701.
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Eno Mill closes
Textile production ended at the Hillsborough plant.
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Orange County Public Library receives a $50,000 bequest from Rebecca B. Wall
The library received $50,000 from the estate of Rebecca B. Wall, a retired Veterans Administration hospital librarian and former Orange County Board of Education member who died on April 2, 1986. The fund had grown to more than $100,000 by 2010, when the library dedicated its Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection at the new Main Library.
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Joe Herzenberg wins election to the Chapel Hill Town Council
Joe Herzenberg placed third in the four-seat Town Council race at the municipal election of November 3, 1987, with 3,308 votes, behind Nancy Preston and Roosevelt Wilkerson, and said he was the first openly gay elected official in the history of North Carolina. He was sworn in at the Council's organizational meeting on December 7, 1987, with his neighbor Lightning Brown administering the oath.
Part of LGBTQ political firsts in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1980s–1990s · 4 events
People: Joseph A. Herzenberg
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LGBTQ political firsts in Chapel Hill and Carrboro
Joe Herzenberg's election to the Chapel Hill Town Council in November 1987 made him North Carolina's first openly gay elected official. Carrboro created a domestic partnership registry in September 1994 and Chapel Hill followed in 1995, and in November 1995 Carrboro elected Mike Nelson, the state's first openly gay mayor.
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Carrboro residents begin campaigning for a public library
Plans for a Carrboro library were first proposed in 1988, and residents formed a Friends group that raised money, lobbied town and county governments and worked on site selection. Their campaign led to the Carrboro library that opened in the McDougle schools in May 1995.
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Weaver Street Market opens
Weaver Street Market, a cooperative grocery owned by both its customers and its workers, opened in Carrboro in June 1988. Start-up money came from a Center for Community Self-Help loan, a $200,000 Community Development Block Grant from the Town of Carrboro, and shares and loans from local supporters.
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Orange, Person and Caswell make their Hyconeechee libraries county departments
The Hyconeechee Regional Library board and the three county governments made each county library a department of its own county, responsible for procurement, personnel, accounting, travel and facility maintenance. The regional library kept regional policy, collection development, grants and the regional budget under a joint contract with the counties.
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The Chapel Hill sound gains national attention
Spin's December 1992 feature "Robbing the Cradle," its title a play on the Cat's Cradle, looked at Polvo and other local bands as record scouts hunted for the next big thing after Seattle. By January 1993 the Daily Tar Heel counted about six publications calling Chapel Hill the next Seattle, and Details and Time followed that year.
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Brenda Stephens becomes director of the Orange County library system
Brenda W. Stephens, who had started her library career driving the county bookmobile in 1976, became director of the Orange County Library System in 1993. By the end of that year North Carolina Libraries identified her as director of the Hyconeechee Regional Library, and a 2025 profile calls her the first Black director of a regional library system in the state.
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Chinese School at Chapel Hill is founded
The Chinese School at Chapel Hill, which teaches Chinese language and culture, was founded in 1993 in a community that had grown around UNC since graduate students from mainland China began arriving in the early 1980s. The IRS recognized it as a tax-exempt organization in December 1999.
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Orange County commissioners decline to fund a Carrboro library
The county commissioners turned down the Friends of the Carrboro Library's request for library funding in 1993. With a new middle school under construction, the Friends were encouraged to pursue a library in the school's media center instead.
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The Cat's Cradle moves to Carrboro
After about six months dark, the club reopened in the former Nice Price Books space at 300 East Main Street, a standing-room hall holding about 750.
People: Frank Heath
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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Community Church joins the Unitarian Universalist Association
Members approved affiliation after years of discussion.
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UNC and Chapel Hill celebrate their bicentennial
UNC marked 200 years since the laying of Old East's cornerstone with a Bicentennial Convocation in Kenan Stadium, where President Bill Clinton spoke to about 45,000 people. The town dedicated Michael Brown's mural of the October 12, 1793, lot auction at the Franklin Street post office.
Part of The founding of the University and Chapel Hill, 1789–1795 · 7 events
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Carrboro Board of Aldermen votes to help fund a branch library at McDougle
The Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to fund a Carrboro branch of the Orange County library that would share space and resources with the McDougle Middle School media center. Carrboro and Orange County both provided funding for the library that year.
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Chapel Hill Museum is organized in the former town library
In 1995 a museum study committee proposed a town museum for the former public library at 523 East Franklin Street, and in November the town council agreed to negotiate a rent-free lease with Chapel Hill Museum Inc. The nonprofit museum opened its first exhibit to the public in February 1998.
Subject: Chapel Hill Museum
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Friends run a community art gallery in the Carrboro Branch Library
The Friends of the Carrboro Branch Library set up a gallery for two-dimensional art in the shared library and McDougle schools media center, run by a volunteer art committee. By 2015 it had shown more than 1,750 local artists in more than 60 exhibitions, and by the time the branch closed in 2022 it had shown more than 2,000.
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Orange County ends bookmobile service to fund the Carrboro branch
When the Carrboro branch opened at McDougle in 1995, Orange County moved money to it by cutting the library's bookmobile service to the whole county. The bookmobile had been Carrboro's main public library service since the Civic Club library closed in 1977.
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Carrboro Branch Library opens at McDougle School
The Carrboro Branch of the Orange County Public Library opened in McDougle Middle School in May 1995, sharing space with the school library and open after school hours and on Sundays. Books circulated from May 1 and the ribbon was cut on May 21, with the Friends of the Carrboro Library having raised $2,000 toward its $46,000 budget.
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Maple View Farm builds a creamery and begins bottling its own milk
Maple View Farm, which had begun dairying near Hillsborough in 1963 when Orange County had about 100 dairy farms, built a creamery in 1996 and began bottling milk on the farm in glass bottles in place of selling to a co-op. It opened an ice cream shop in 2000; by 2019 only two dairy farms remained in the county.
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RTPnet puts a public Internet computer in the Orange County Public Library
The community network RTPnet bought a Pentium PC for $1,746.88 in May 1996 as a public access terminal for the Orange County Public Library in Hillsborough, and by July it was installed running Windows 95 in kiosk mode. In October RTPnet reported the library computer on the Internet through a local provider, with classes being taught.
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East Chapel Hill High School opens
East Chapel Hill High School opened on August 20, 1996, to relieve crowding at Chapel Hill High School, with construction still under way around it. It enrolled grades nine through eleven that first year, most of them transfers from Chapel Hill High, and held an opening celebration on November 17.
Subject: East Chapel Hill High School
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Chapel Hill building inspectors count homes destroyed and damaged by Hurricane Fran
The town's Building Inspection Department reported four homes near Airport Road, Homestead Road and Culbreth Road destroyed, 391 homes with major damage and 222 with minor damage.
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Duke Forest closes and salvages timber after Hurricane Fran
Fran brought down more than 1,400 trees across 35 miles of Duke Forest roads, damaged the Bobby Ross Jr. Memorial Picnic Shelter and a research tower in the Blackwood Division, and kept parts of the forest closed for three to six months. A helicopter crew salvaged about 800,000 board feet from 163 acres within two weeks, and salvage through summer 1998 recovered 2 million board feet from 540 acres, worth about $260,000.
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Orange Regional Landfill takes Hurricane Fran yard waste free as Chapel Hill faces tens of thousands of tons of debris
The Orange Regional Landfill on Eubanks Road accepted yard waste at no charge until further notice. Town Manager Cal Horton estimated Chapel Hill had 25,000 to 40,000 tons of fallen limbs and trees and said the town would eventually remove curbside debris, while urging residents to haul debris to the landfill themselves.
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Hurricane Fran strikes Orange County
Hurricane Fran came ashore on the night of September 5, 1996 and crossed to the Triangle overnight. In Chapel Hill winds topped 70 mph, falling trees caused about 29,000 power outages and UNC cancelled classes, and the Eno at Hillsborough hit a record flow. No one in Orange County was killed.
Part of Hurricane Fran, September 1996
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Hurricane Fran causes about 29,000 power outages in Chapel Hill
Trees on power lines caused about 29,000 outages in Chapel Hill; more than 12,000 residents were still without electricity on Sunday evening, September 8, and about 10,000 on Monday afternoon. Duke Power had 1,800 workers plus 1,000 on loan from other utilities in the area and expected to restore Chapel Hill by the middle or end of that week.
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Hurricane Fran fells old trees on UNC's north campus
Fran brought down several roughly 200-year-old trees around New West Hall and left North Campus and Cameron Avenue covered in fallen trees, while the Davie Poplar survived. University power came back within hours, and Sitterson Hall opened as a place for people to recharge batteries, get ice and water and shower.
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Mayor Rosemary Waldorf declares a state of emergency in Chapel Hill after Hurricane Fran
Waldorf declared a town state of emergency on Friday, September 6, because of storm damage and power outages, and residents were urged to stay home; UNC cancelled Friday classes at 3 a.m. She partially lifted the emergency at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, September 10, keeping it in force where utility crews were still working.
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OWASA issues a boil-water advisory after Hurricane Fran knocks out its pumping
The Orange Water and Sewer Authority told Chapel Hill and Carrboro customers to boil water from Friday evening, September 6, after its University Lake pump station lost power and the system lost pressure, and the wastewater plant flooded. The advisory was lifted at 1:50 p.m. Monday, September 9, after lab tests found no contamination; the area drew emergency water from Durham, and a conservation order was lifted soon after.
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The Eno River at Hillsborough reaches its highest recorded flow during Hurricane Fran
The USGS gauge on the Eno River at Hillsborough recorded a peak of 10,800 cubic feet per second at a gauge height of 21.13 feet, the largest peak in its record until Tropical Storm Chantal in July 2025.
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UNC suspends afternoon classes for a campuswide Hurricane Fran cleanup
Chancellor Michael Hooker suspended classes from noon on Wednesday so students, faculty and staff could clear storm debris. Nearly 1,000 students reported to the Old Well within the first hour, working with University forester Kirk Pelland's crews, and Coker Arboretum staff expected their cleanup to run into the winter.
People: Michael Hooker
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A 70-foot oak weakened by Hurricane Fran falls on Venable Hall
A 70-foot white oak fell against Venable Hall at about 2:10 p.m., damaging handrails on the building's steps; no one was hurt. University forester Kirk Pelland said Fran's winds and Wednesday's heavy rain had left many old campus trees at risk, and Executive Vice Chancellor Elson Floyd asked people to report damaged trees to the Grounds Division.
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Carrboro aldermen take up a tree-cutter registration plan after Hurricane Fran scams
The Board of Aldermen discussed asking tree removal workers to identify themselves at town hall before starting work, after Mayor Mike Nelson cited a resident who paid $800 in advance to remove Fran-felled trees and the workers did not return. Staff were to bring a formal proposal to the next meeting.
People: Mike Nelson · Hilliard Caldwell
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Orange County Public Library offers English as a second language classes
By December 1997 the library held a Saturday English as a second language class in Hillsborough and English conversation and beginning English classes at the Carrboro Branch Library, run by an ESL coordinator. A 1999 statewide article said the library had started ESL tutoring and a conversation group several years before and that demand led the county to fund a full-time coordinator.
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Northside Gymnasium opens at Hargraves Park
Chapel Hill's Northside Gymnasium at William H. Hargraves Park, beside the Hargraves Center on North Roberson Street, opened to the public on June 15, 1998. Construction began April 21, 1997, paid for in part with parks bonds voters approved in November 1996, and the gym was dedicated on September 16, 1998.
Subject: Hargraves Community Center
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County Library Services Task Force recommends expanding library service across Orange County
In June 2000 the Board of Commissioners created a 14-member Library Services Task Force to study county library service. Its 2001 report recommended raising library funding to the state per-capita average, starting library projects in the northern and southern parts of the county together, building an Orange County heritage center, and offering Internet-based library service in the Carrboro Century Center.
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Orange County and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools put the McDougle branch library under contract
A contract between Orange County and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Board of Education made the public library in the McDougle schools a branch of the Orange County Public Library, with a county-employed branch librarian. The schools provided space and utilities, the county paid for furnishings, insurance, janitorial service and staff stipends, and branch hours were not to overlap school hours.
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Hyconeechee Regional Library receives a Gates Foundation grant for public computers
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation committed $58,581 to Hyconeechee Regional Library in Hillsborough to expand public access to computers and the Internet.
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Historic Occoneechee Speedway trail opens to the public
A public walking trail opened in 2003 on the Occoneechee Speedway site near Hillsborough, crossing the surviving clay oval of the old NASCAR track. The landowner, the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust (later the Jenrette Foundation), built it with the volunteer Historic Speedway Group.
Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 5 events
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Holy Family Catholic Church in Hillsborough holds its first Spanish Mass
Holy Family parish in Hillsborough, which had grown from about 107 families in 1986 to about 250 in 1999, celebrated its first Spanish Mass in 2003 as Latino members joined the congregation. By 2012 the parish counted about 680 families and held a Sunday Spanish Mass alongside its three other services.
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Orange County Public Library moves its catalog to the Polaris system
The library replaced its Galaxy automation system with Polaris. County budgets later list remote access to the online catalog and to patrons' own library accounts through Polaris.
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Second library task force calls for a new main library of 30,000 to 65,000 square feet
A second Library Services Task Force, appointed in January 2004, recommended building a centrally located main library of 30,000 to 65,000 square feet sized for 2025 population estimates, a southwest branch in Carrboro combining the McDougle branch and the Cybrary, and an Orange County heritage center.
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Robert Campbell petitioned Chapel Hill for bus service to the Rogers Road neighborhood
Minister Robert Campbell asked the Chapel Hill council to extend free transit service to the Rogers Road community, noting that it lacked sidewalks and sewer service and that children walked along the landfill's heavy truck route. He suggested rerouting underused Airport Road buses.
People: Robert Campbell
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Cedar Grove Branch Library opens in northern Orange County
Orange County opened the Cedar Grove Branch Library in two rooms of the Northern Human Services Center, a former school, to serve Cedar Grove and northern Orange. Budgets describe books, Spanish-language materials, children's and adult programs, computer classes and materials borrowed from other regional libraries.
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The Carrboro Cybrary opens in the Century Center
The Cybrary, a branch of the Orange County Public Library focused on computer and Internet access, opened in Room 5 of the Carrboro Century Center with five computer stations, current books and a paperback exchange. The Town of Carrboro provided the space. It closed on January 31, 2025, when its services moved to the Southern Branch Library.
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WCOM community radio begins broadcasting
WCOM, a 100-watt low-power FM community station run by the nonprofit Public Gallery of Carrboro, first went on the air at 103.5 FM from Carrboro at 11:27 p.m. on September 29, 2004. Its founders included Jacques Menache and Ruffin Slater, and it first broadcast from a building at Weaver and Greensboro streets.
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Carrboro formed the New Horizons task force for the Rogers Road area
Carrboro created the New Horizons task force to serve residents of the Rogers Road area it was annexing. The town's Rogers Road sidewalk and bus stop project, begun in 2018, grew out of the task force's work.
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Chapel Hill council took up how to carry out a Rogers Road small area plan
Under a 2002 resolution adopted jointly by Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, Chapel Hill had agreed to plan the residential area west of the Greene Tract around Rogers and Purefoy roads, including an affordable housing site. The manager recommended starting after four neighborhood conservation districts were finished, with the Planning Board leading.
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Carrboro annexed subdivisions on the west side of Rogers Road
Carrboro annexed six subdivisions north of Homestead Road, including Fox Meadow and Highlands, bringing part of the Rogers Road area inside town limits. In September 2004 the aldermen had voted 6 to 1 to go ahead even though the historic neighborhood had asked the two towns to move their annexation boundary so the community would not be split.
People: Mark Chilton
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Residents founded the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association
About 85 households founded RENA as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, putting a long-running informal community alliance on a formal footing. RENA went on to organize the Coalition to End Environmental Racism and to run the neighborhood's community center.
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St. Paul AME Church bought land on Rogers Road for a new church campus
The Chapel Hill congregation bought more than 22 acres for a worship complex with a banquet hall, wellness center, daycare, senior and affordable housing, athletic fields and a cemetery. The land, at Rogers Road and Purefoy Drive, became the site of the planned St. Paul Village.
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Orange County's Museum and Historical Society Merge
In May 2007 the Orange County Historical Museum, founded by the Hillsborough Garden Club in 1957, merged with the Hillsborough Historical Society to form the Historical Foundation of Hillsborough and Orange County, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The News of Orange reported the merger in its June 20, 2007 issue.
Subject: Orange County Historical Museum
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County library begins offering downloadable videos
The FY 2007-08 county budget added funds for MyLibraryDV, letting regional library patrons download videos in the library or on their own computers.
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Carrboro High School opens
Carrboro High School on Rock Haven Road was dedicated with a ribbon-cutting on August 23, 2007, and began classes on August 27 with more than 600 students under principal Jeff Thomas. The Carrboro Citizen called it the town's first high school.
Subject: Carrboro High School
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A state highway marker for Billy Strayhorn goes up in Hillsborough
The North Carolina Office of Archives and History put up marker G-125 on South Churton Street. It calls Strayhorn a jazz composer and pianist who wrote Take the A Train for the Duke Ellington Orchestra and points a quarter mile west to his boyhood home site.
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Eve Carson, UNC’s Student Body President, is killed
Eve Marie Carson, 22, UNC's student body president and a Morehead-Cain Scholar from Athens, Georgia, was abducted from her Chapel Hill home early on March 5, 2008, robbed and shot on Hillcrest Road near campus. Demario Atwater pleaded guilty in 2010, and a Hillsborough jury convicted Laurence Lovette on December 20, 2011.
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Burma Art Therapy Project begins in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools
The Art Therapy Institute began a school-based art therapy program for adolescent refugees from Burma in partnership with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and the refugee community in Orange County. A later UNC evaluation estimated that about 400 Burmese families lived in the county.
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Lucinda Munger becomes Orange County library services director
Lucinda Munger became library services director for Orange County, heading the main library in Hillsborough and three branches.
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Sheriff Pendergrass defends Orange County's enrollment in Secure Communities
At a county commissioners' meeting, Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass explained his decision to enroll the Orange County jail in the federal Secure Communities pilot, which checks the fingerprints of people booked into jail against federal databases including immigration records. Commissioners, who had resolved in 2007 not to join the 287(g) program, raised concerns but took no action.
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Cliff's Meat Market is honored for serving Carrboro's Spanish-speaking customers
Cliff's Meat Market in Carrboro received Orange County's Pauli Murray Award in the business category; owner Cliff Collins was nominated for reaching out to the Spanish-speaking community. The butcher shop, open since 1973, had hired Latino staff as Spanish-speaking customers began asking for cuts in Spanish.
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Commissioners reject closing the Carrboro and Cedar Grove branch libraries
Facing recession cuts while opening the new Hillsborough main library, the county manager proposed closing the Carrboro branch at McDougle School and the Cedar Grove branch and moving their staff to the new building. After opposition from Commissioner Mike Nelson, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen and residents, commissioners rejected the closures and used reserve funds to staff the new library in the budget adopted in June 2009.
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Chapel Hill council received the Rogers Road Small Area Plan Task Force's final report
Council members Mark Kleinschmidt and Bill Strom presented the report, and the council voted 9 to 0 to send it to advisory boards, Carrboro, Orange County, OWASA and the city schools, with a joint public hearing planned for October 2009. Rev. Robert Campbell of RENA thanked the council for giving the community a voice.
People: Robert Campbell · Mark Kleinschmidt
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UNC's library exhibited Rogers Road family histories drawn from Emily Eidenier Pearce's book
The exhibit We're All Family Here: Preserving Community Heritage in the Rogers Road Neighborhood of Chapel Hill introduced families who had shaped the area from the 1700s on. It was inspired by Pearce's 2009 history Rogers Road, which RENA presents as part of its History Project.
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Flyleaf Books opens
Flyleaf Books, an independent bookstore in the Midtown Market shopping center on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Chapel Hill, opened in November 2009 with a soft opening set for November 16. Jamie Fiocco, Sarah Carr and Land Arnold ran the store, and its grand opening followed on January 9, 2010.
Subject: Flyleaf Books
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Orange County Main Library opens on Margaret Lane
The county's new 23,500-square-foot Main Library at 137 West Margaret Lane in Hillsborough held its grand opening on January 8, 2010, after planning that began with a task force in 2000 and a groundbreaking in April 2008. It added a teen center, a 90-person meeting room and a local history area.
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Orange County Public Library begins lending eBooks and Kindles
In the 2010-11 budget year the library added an eBook collection and Kindle readers, provided through donations from the Friends of the Orange County Public Library. The next year it added an OverDrive eBook collection for download to patrons' own devices.
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Orange County Public Library forms a Teen Advisory Board
The library completed its first year of teen programming in the 2010-11 budget year and established a Teen Advisory Board.
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Orange County closes the Cedar Grove Branch Library
The county closed the Cedar Grove Branch Library, northern Orange County's only staffed library, effective August 1, 2010, citing 502 registered borrowers and a cost per patron far above other branches. Its materials and computers went to the main library and the Cybrary, and some Cedar Grove items were reused in 40 Literacy Bag outreach kits.
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Commissioners drop a proposed bookmobile and fund year-round Sunday hours at the main library
The manager's recommended 2011-12 budget included $317,315 for a new bookmobile, $252,500 of it to finance the vehicle. Commissioners did not approve it and instead allocated $128,500 to expand service, including 60 hours a week with year-round Sundays at the main library from September 1, more Kindles, and more money for books, databases and programs.
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Carrboro aldermen approve criteria for siting a freestanding library
The Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to approve criteria, recommended to the Orange County commissioners, for siting a freestanding southwest Orange County library in Carrboro, whose county branch was then housed in McDougle School. Aldermen ranked transit, walking and cycling access first, while Nerys Levy of the Friends of the Carrboro Branch Library asked for ample parking for older patrons and stressed access to computers and information.
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School Board converts Frank Porter Graham Elementary into a Spanish dual-language magnet school
After a district report named serving students with limited English and closing the achievement gap as the main purposes of dual language, and after forums that included sessions for Spanish-speaking and Karen and Burmese families, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board approved converting Frank Porter Graham Elementary into a Spanish-English magnet school. It reopened as the district's first dual-language magnet on August 26, 2013, with more than 500 students.
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Orange County Main Library introduces RFID self-checkout
During the 2012–13 fiscal year the Main Library in Hillsborough put radio frequency identification tags and self-checkout stations into service. Patrons used self-checkout for 63 percent of transactions, above the library's 50 percent goal, and the next year's objective was 70 percent.
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Hyconeechee Regional Library is dissolved
The regional library Orange County had shared with Person and Caswell counties closed on July 1, 2012, ending the county's annual matching contribution and leaving the Orange County Public Library to operate as a county system on its own. In the following budget year the county moved library software costs into its IT department, absorbed a lower state aid estimate, and replaced the Polaris catalog system with Sierra.
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Orange County Public Library adopts its first strategic plan
The FY 2013–14 county budget reported that the library was creating a strategic plan, and county capital documents later refer to the approved Library Strategic Plan 2013–16, which charged the library with serving rural residents. The county called the 2017–2020 plan the library's second.
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Chapel Hill extended its extraterritorial jurisdiction over the Historic Rogers Road area
Because none of the neighborhood lay inside Chapel Hill's limits, the town could not legally spend money on its sewer, so the council held a public hearing set for October 15, 2014 on bringing its part of the area under the town's extraterritorial jurisdiction. Afterward the neighborhood was split between Carrboro and Chapel Hill's ETJ.
People: Robert Campbell
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RENA and the Jackson Center produced the Historic and Vibrant Rogers Road report
The Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association and the Marian Cheek Jackson Center put together survey analysis and community feedback on the neighborhood's future. Two years later the same partners ran the planning process behind Mapping our Community's Future.
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Hillsborough votes to remove "Confederate Memorial" lettering from the former library
The 1934 public library building on North Churton Street, home of the Orange County Historical Museum since 1983, still carried part of its "Confederate Memorial Library 1934" sign. After museum leaders asked in June 2015 to take the words down, saying some Black residents felt unwelcome, the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners voted that year to remove the sign from the pediment.
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Frank Heath tells the Carrboro Board of Aldermen that the Cat's Cradle has outgrown its building
At the second public hearing on a proposed arts and innovation center and hotel at East Main Street, Heath said the Cat's Cradle and the ArtsCenter were both too big for their buildings and that expansion had become urgent. He called it a dilemma for a small town with two successful arts organizations.
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Orange County Public Library begins lending Wi-Fi hotspots
In the 2015–16 fiscal year the library and county IT staff piloted lending Wi-Fi hotspots to residents of southern Orange County and added hotspots to the lending collection at its libraries. Federal CARES Act money later doubled the hotspot inventory to meet pandemic demand.
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County capital plan budgets a Southern Branch library at 203 South Greensboro Street
Orange County's FY 2016–21 capital plan scheduled $6,375,000 in FY 2017–18 to design and build a Southern Branch library replacing the Cybrary and the Carrboro branch at McDougle School, after commissioners directed staff to work with Carrboro on siting it on the town-owned 203 South Greensboro Street property. The plan projected ten staff positions, two of them moved from existing Carrboro library operations.
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Cedar Grove Community Center opens with a self-service library station
Orange County dedicated the renovated Cedar Grove Community Center, once home to the Cedar Grove Negro School, in June 2016, with a self-serve library station beside the building. The $180,000 kiosk offered automated borrowing in northern Orange County without a staffed branch; the county's FY 2021–22 budget ended support for it, citing poor performance and low patron use.
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Orange County's library branches are merged into one catalog
Preparing for the Southern Branch, the library merged the holdings of the Main Library, the Carrboro branch at McDougle School and the Cybrary into a single catalog during the 2017–18 fiscal year and added the Cedar Grove kiosk's items. Staff reported an immediate rise in circulation at all three branches and in items sent between locations by courier.
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New Hope Elementary starts a Spanish dual-language program in Orange County Schools
After a year and a half of planning, New Hope Elementary opened a 50-50 Spanish-English dual-language program for 48 kindergarten students at the start of the 2018-19 school year, taught on alternating days in English and Spanish. The principal described it as a way for Latino students to take pride in their heritage and keep the Spanish they use with their families.
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Hillsborough holds a celebration of Billy Strayhorn
A day of events called A Celebration of Billy Strayhorn began at the historical marker on South Churton Street and ran on at the Orange County Main Library and the Burwell School Historic Site. Mayor Tom Stevens, the musician Yahyah Corbett, the choreographer David Rousseve, the Duke professor Thomas DeFrantz and the puppeteer Jeghetto took part.
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A mural for Billy Strayhorn is painted on South Churton Street
Max Dowdle painted an eleven by thirty five foot mural called Take the A Train on the side of 226 South Churton Street, the building that houses the record store and bar Volume. Volume's owner Tony Lopez proposed it, the Tourism Development Authority paid for it, and the Arts Council and the Historic District Commission approved it.
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Mutual Aid Carrboro opens a COVID-19 solidarity fund for workers
Mutual Aid Carrboro partnered with NC Piedmont DSA to raise money for workers sent home without pay, running a solidarity fund for emergencies such as evictions and utility shutoffs. Applications were offered in Spanish, English and Chinese, with interpreter lines for Karen, Burmese and Kinyarwanda speakers.
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Cat's Cradle plays its last shows before the pandemic shutdown
Destroyer played the main room at 300 East Main Street on March 11, 2020, and Songs From the Road Band played the Back Room on March 13, the club's last shows before COVID-19 closed it. Heath said he began rescheduling on the night of March 11, when the NBA suspended its season, and the March 14 shows were cancelled.
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COVID-19 transforms Orange County
Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro declared states of emergency on March 13, 2020, and the county and its three towns ordered residents to stay home from March 27. UNC moved undergraduate classes online in August 2020 after campus clusters. The county emergency, extended more than a dozen times, expired on May 1, 2022.
Part of COVID-19 in Orange County, 2020–2022 · 2 events
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Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools launches Food for Students meal distribution
CHCCS, the Town of Chapel Hill, PORCH and volunteers began handing out free meals to students as schools closed, starting from about 20 sites. By December 21, 2020 the program had distributed more than 900,000 meals from 37 sites.
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Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro declare a COVID-19 state of emergency
Orange County government and the Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro declared states of emergency to prepare for COVID-19, allowing emergency procedures and funding. The county declaration, extended more than a dozen times, stayed in force until May 1, 2022.
People: Penny Rich · Lydia Lavelle
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Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools close under a statewide order
Governor Roy Cooper closed all North Carolina public schools for at least two weeks from Monday, March 16, 2020, shutting both Orange County districts. CHCCS then began online classes for grades 6-12 and sent learning packets home for grades K-5 at the end of March while serving meals to students.
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Orange County Public Library closes its buildings and sets out a free book shelf
With its buildings closed, the library kept the Hillsborough and Carrboro book drops and phone reference running, stopped charging late fees, and from March 18 set out a free book and DVD shelf outside the Main Library in Hillsborough.
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Orange County Health Department identifies the county's first COVID-19 cases
The health department announced that Orange County residents had tested positive for COVID-19 at the State Laboratory of Public Health and were isolating at home. Health Director Quintana Stewart said the response was shifting from containment to mitigation.
People: Penny Rich · Quintana Stewart
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Orange County and its three towns issue a joint stay-at-home order
Orange County, with Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough, ordered residents to stay home except for essential needs from 6 p.m. on March 27, 2020, three days before the statewide order took effect. Set to run until April 30, it was extended to May 8 to match the state order.
People: Penny Rich · Quintana Stewart
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Governor Cooper's statewide stay-at-home order takes effect
Executive Order 121, signed March 27, 2020, took effect at 5 p.m. on March 30 and ordered North Carolinians to stay home except for essential work and activities, capping gatherings at 10 people. Orange County's joint order had begun three days earlier.
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Orange County and the towns launch a Housing Helpline for emergency rental aid
Orange County and the Towns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough opened a Housing Helpline in April 2020 to connect residents with emergency rent, utility and deposit assistance. The county's Emergency Housing Assistance program paid out $2.5 million to 1,005 residents in 2020, and an Eviction Diversion Program followed in July 2020.
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Orange County reports its first COVID-19 death
The health department reported that a resident in their 70s under hospice care at PruittHealth-Carolina Point, one of two long-term care facilities with outbreaks, had died of COVID-19 complications. The county then had 104 confirmed cases, and PruittHealth had at least 86 positive cases among residents and staff.
People: Quintana Stewart
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Drive-through food distribution at Chapel Hill Public Library serves 576 households
PORCH, the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina and the Town of Chapel Hill ran a drive-through food distribution in the Chapel Hill Public Library's lower parking lot, serving 576 households, or 2,391 people, with about 40 volunteers.
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Orange County requires face coverings
Orange County and its towns extended the local state of emergency through August 31, 2020 and required face coverings from 5 p.m. on June 12 when people could not keep six feet apart.
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Orange County Commissioners adopt a countywide Language Access policy
The Board of County Commissioners approved a policy requiring free interpretation and translation for residents with limited English across all county services, and directing each county department to keep a language access plan and train its staff.
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Orange County Schools votes to open the school year online
The Orange County Schools board voted unanimously to begin the 2020-21 year with remote-only classes for at least the first four weeks, on the recommendation of Superintendent Monique Felder.
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Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools extends online-only classes into
The CHCCS board unanimously accepted interim Superintendent Jim Causby's recommendation to keep classes virtual through at least January 15, 2021. On December 18, 2020 the board kept remote learning in place through at least February.
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North Carolina musicians release Cover Charge to benefit the Cat's Cradle
Twenty-five North Carolina acts, among them Superchunk, the Mountain Goats, Tift Merritt and Iron and Wine, recorded cover songs for an album to raise money for the closed Carrboro club. Musician and UNC professor Florence Dore organized it, and Heath said presales were running better than expected.
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County budget closes the McDougle branch and consolidates Carrboro service at the Cybrary
Orange County's FY 2021–22 budget closed the Carrboro branch library at McDougle School, moved its staff to the Cybrary and lengthened Cybrary hours from 44 to 54 a week to match the Main Library, whose hours were cut from 68 to 54. The two changes together saved $143,083, and the same budget ended support for the Cedar Grove library kiosk.
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Health department vaccinates its first recipients at drive-through clinics
By early January 2021 the Orange County Health Department had vaccinated about 1,000 Phase 1a personnel at drive-through clinics in Hillsborough and Chapel Hill and opened sign-ups for residents 75 and older, more than 4,200 of whom registered.
People: Quintana Stewart
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UNC Health opens a large vaccination clinic at the Friday Center
UNC Health opened its largest appointment-only COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the Friday Conference Center in Chapel Hill, starting with people 75 and older. Staff expected about 600 patients a day in the first week and up to 1,500 a day at full capacity.
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Orange County Schools students return to classrooms
Kindergarten and first-grade students returned for hybrid in-person classes on January 25, 2021. Students in grades 2-12 followed in two rotating cohorts on March 8 and March 15, a month earlier than planned, after Senate Bill 37 required districts to offer in-person instruction.
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Orange County Health Department launches a health equity website
The health department launched a health equity webpage to stay accountable to residents on racial equity, citing the county commissioners' June 16, 2020 declaration of structural racism as a public health crisis.
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Gaps in vaccination among Black and Hispanic residents reported
Chapelboro reported that Black residents were 12.4 percent of Orange County's population but 9 percent of those vaccinated, and Hispanic residents 8.6 percent and 5.5 percent. The county was working with church leaders and advocates in a Human Services Consulting Group and had held clinics at the Hargraves Community Center and in Cedar Grove.
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Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools students return for hybrid classes
The CHCCS board voted unanimously on March 4, 2021 to begin hybrid in-person instruction on March 22, nearly a month before the April 19 start it had approved in February. Students attended in cohorts two days a week, and roughly half could remain fully remote.
People: Joal Hall Broun
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Pop-up vaccine clinic held at the Rogers Road Community Center
The Orange County Health Department held a pop-up COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the Rogers Road Community Center for Hispanic and Asian American residents, many of whom do not speak English, after local volunteers asked for one and printed flyers in several languages.
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Crook's Corner announces its closure
On June 9, 2021, the owners of Crook's Corner told customers the West Franklin Street restaurant was closing, saying the COVID-19 crisis had made their position untenable. Gene Hamer and chef Bill Neal opened it in 1982, Bill Smith later led the kitchen, and the James Beard Foundation named it an America's Classic in 2011.
Subject: Crook’s Corner
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Orange County Public Library adds Spanish-language classes and bilingual storytimes
Beginning in the 2021–22 fiscal year the library offered Spanish-language computer basics classes with the Family Success Alliance and UNC's Community Workshop Series. By 2023–24 it held storytimes in English and Spanish at Carrboro's Century Center, added Spanish interpretation to free computer classes and ran a health series for Spanish speakers with El Centro Hispano, and in 2024–25 it added bilingual storytimes at the Carrboro Farmers' Market and monthly conversational Spanish programs.
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Orange County Public Library reopens its Main Library building
After more than a year of closure and appointment-only curbside pickup, the Main Library reopened with distancing measures under the county's plan to reopen facilities through July 2021. In Carrboro the branch at McDougle School closed on June 13 and the Cybrary opened for browsing on August 6.
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Orange County reinstates an indoor mask mandate
As the delta variant spread, Orange County and the Towns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough required masks inside buildings and businesses from 5 p.m. on August 11, 2021.
People: Lydia Lavelle · Quintana Stewart
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Orange County Public Library ends overdue fines
Orange County commissioners approved a fine-free model for the county library, and overdue fines ended the next day. Library staff had found that fines fell hardest on residents facing economic hardship; charges for lost or damaged items continued.
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Orange County lifts its indoor mask mandate
Orange County and its three towns ended the indoor mask requirement on March 7, 2022. UNC-Chapel Hill lifted its campus mandate the same day, and Orange County Schools planned to make masks optional on March 10.
People: Quintana Stewart
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Orange County's COVID-19 state of emergency expires
The county's COVID-19 emergency declaration, in force since March 13, 2020 and extended more than a dozen times, expired at 5 p.m. on May 1, 2022, making it the longest-running state of emergency in county history.
People: Quintana Stewart
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Ground is broken for the Southern Branch Library in Carrboro
Carrboro and Orange County broke ground at 203 South Greensboro Street for the Orange County Southern Branch Library and civic building known as The 203 Project, after both boards gave final approval on March 15, 2022. Mayor Damon Seils led the program, with remarks by commissioners' chair Renee Price, County Manager Bonnie Hammersley, Town Manager Richard J. White III and Nerys Levy of the Friends of the Southern Branch Library.
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Erin Sapienza is named director of the Orange County Public Library
County Manager Bonnie Hammersley named Erin Sapienza library director after she had served as interim director since October 2021, when director Lucinda Munger resigned. Sapienza joined the library in June 2013 as a branch manager, became community services librarian in October 2015 and assistant director in March 2020.
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Orange County Main Library begins sensory-friendly browsing hours
After staff training with the Autism Society of North Carolina, the library started a Sensory Friendly Browsing Hour during the 2023–24 fiscal year. In 2024–25 it installed sensory-friendly furnishings in the Youth Services area and held monthly sensory-friendly browsing hours for families.
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Zijie Yan, a UNC professor, is killed on campus
On August 28, 2023, Zijie Yan, an associate professor, was shot and killed in UNC's Caudill Labs, and the campus locked down for about three hours. Graduate student Tailei Qi was arrested that afternoon and charged with first-degree murder; the case had not come to trial by March 2026.
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Orange County Public Library starts DELIVEReads home delivery
The library and Orange County Transportation Services began delivering library materials to residents unable to visit because of illness, disability, physical limitations or transportation problems, with up to ten items a month and staff selections on request. The service made 180 deliveries in its first fiscal year and later extended to caregivers.
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The News of Orange merges with the Mebane Enterprise
Womack Publishing announced on January 3, 2024, that its weeklies The News of Orange County and the Mebane Enterprise would merge at the end of January. The combined paper, with a section for Mebane, covers Mebane, Hillsborough and Efland from the News of Orange office in Hillsborough, and the Mebane office closed.
Subject: The News of Orange County
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Carrboro backs a study of turning the old University Railroad line into a greenway
The Town Council unanimously approved an agreement to study converting the 11-mile rail corridor, which still carries coal to UNC's cogeneration plant, into a multi-use trail once the plant stops using coal.
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Buckhorn Flea Market closes on Buckhorn Road
The Buckhorn Flea Market on Buckhorn Road in western Orange County, known to many Spanish speakers as La Pulga de Mebane, closed after about four decades when a trucking company bought the land. Its 300 to 500 weekend vendors were largely Latino immigrants, and the Mebane City Council voted on July 1 to annex and rezone the property for a truck terminal.
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A bilingual book walk is installed at Efland-Cheeks Community Park
The county parks department and the library installed a bilingual English–Spanish book walk at Efland-Cheeks Community Park during the 2024–25 fiscal year, paid for by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library. It brought a library reading program to a rural part of the county without a branch.
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Interlibrary loan returns through UNC-Chapel Hill
Working with UNC-Chapel Hill, the Orange County Public Library restored interlibrary loan during the 2024–25 fiscal year at no cost to patrons. The county had charged $1 plus library costs, raised the fee to $3 in October 2013 and cut it from $4 back to $3 in 2018 before the service lapsed.
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Carrboro and Orange County name the Drakeford Library Complex
The Carrboro Town Council on October 15 and the Orange County commissioners on November 7, 2024 approved naming the building under construction at 203 South Greensboro Street for Robert "Bob" Drakeford, Carrboro's first Black mayor. A naming committee of two council members, two commissioners and two Friends of the Library members recommended the name on September 24 after a community survey drew more than 200 responses.
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Food pantries open at the Main Library and the Southern Branch
During the 2025–26 fiscal year the library built a permanent food pantry in the Main Library lobby in Hillsborough and worked with a local Girl Scout troop to establish one at the Southern Branch in Carrboro. The Main Library also collected 424 pounds of food for the Orange Congregations in Mission pantry.
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Tropical Storm Chantal floods Orange County
Chantal dropped up to 10 inches of rain on Orange County on the night of July 6, 2025. Chapel Hill crews made more than 50 water rescues around Camelot Village and Eastgate Crossing, Carrboro's Weatherhill Pointe flooded, and the Eno at Hillsborough set a record crest on July 7. The county declared an emergency that day.
The other dated entries wait behind a subject, a place, an era, a month, or the All dated entries switch, and each storyline’s page carries its own component entries. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. Each card’s “Correct this” link opens the contact form with the entry already named. Suggest an event →
Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated September 14, 2026.
