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Civil rights era · 1945–1975
- 1950s
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Rebecca Clark moves from the University Laundry to nursing at Memorial Hospital
In 1953 Clark left the University Laundry for the newly built university hospital, where she spent the rest of her working years as a nurse. UNC's Employee Forum says she was the first licensed practical nurse in the campus infirmary and retired in 1979.
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The Hospital Savings Association moves from East Franklin into a large new building on West Franklin
The association left its two-bay store on East Franklin for big new quarters on West Franklin. By the late 1960s it had become Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
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North Carolina Memorial Hospital is dedicated
Exercises at Chapel Hill on April 23-24, 1953, dedicated North Carolina Memorial Hospital and marked the new four-year School of Medicine and the schools of dentistry and nursing. The hospital had opened in September 1952.
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Edmund Strudwick's portrait of C. T. Council is given to the School of Pharmacy
University President Gordon Gray presented a portrait of Durham's C. T. Council, painted by Edmund Strudwick of Hillsborough, to the UNC School of Pharmacy, where Dean E. A. Brecht accepted it at a luncheon in the Morehead building.
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First four-year class graduates from the UNC School of Medicine
In 1954 the UNC School of Medicine graduated its first class of students to complete all four years of medical training. The university's new dental and nursing schools graduated their first classes the same year.
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The university awards William Picard Jacocks an honorary doctor of laws
The University of North Carolina, where Jacocks had graduated in 1904, gave him an honorary doctor of laws degree while he was living in Chapel Hill in retirement.
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Chapel Hill American Legion post gives an iron lung to N.C. Memorial Hospital
The Chapel Hill post of the American Legion presented an iron lung, bought for about $1,600, to North Carolina Memorial Hospital, with Congressman Carl T. Durham making the presentation. Hospital director Robert R. Cadmus said the hospital had treated 90 polio patients, two from Orange County, in its first 18 months; it was the hospital's second iron lung.
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Daniel Okun chairs UNC's Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering
Okun, who joined the UNC public health faculty in 1952, headed the department from 1955 to 1973, and it grew from three to 25 faculty members.
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Edward O. Diggs becomes UNC's first Black medical graduate
Edward O. Diggs graduated from the UNC School of Medicine in 1955, the first African American to earn a Doctor of Medicine degree from the university. James Slade, the school's second Black student, had enrolled in 1953.
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First Salk polio vaccinations given to Orange County first and second graders
Local physicians working under the county health department gave the first round of Salk polio vaccine to more than 1,150 Orange County first and second graders. The work began on Monday, April 18, 1955 with about 500 Chapel Hill area children and finished on April 21 with the Hillsboro, Efland and Aycock schools.
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Orange County first and second graders get their second Salk shots
The district health department gave second Salk vaccine doses to children who had their first shot in the spring: in Chapel Hill on July 21 and 22 for pupils of the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Glenwood, Northside, White Cross and Little Red Schoolhouse schools, and in Hillsboro on July 27, with school buses sent to county schools. Turnout at Hillsboro was low, with only 65 children by 11 a.m.
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Health officer calls tuberculosis Orange County's number one health problem
Asked about tuberculosis, County Health Officer David Garvin said it was the county's number one public health problem. He said drugs, surgery and better treatment had cut the death rate sharply over ten years, but that as many cases were being found as when deaths were four times as great, and that finding unknown cases was the department's biggest problem.
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The Webb brothers design core-plan houses for the Highland Woods cooperative
Highland Woods, south of Memorial Hospital, was organized as a cooperative subdivision by a group of young faculty families, and in 1956 James and John Webb designed its houses around two cores, one for the living areas and kitchen and one for the bedrooms. The book likens it to Six Moon Hill, a Massachusetts cooperative laid out by Walter Gropius's Architects Collaborative in 1948.
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Dr. Ernest Wood, the first radiologist at UNC's hospital, builds a brick Ranch on Fern Lane
The five-bay Ranch has a recessed garage wing and a front cross-gable.
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Thomas Philip Lloyd sells the Carolina Pharmacy to Helen Duguid
Duguid kept the East Franklin drugstore going only a short time before Campus Laundry and Cleaners replaced it.
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O. David Garvin resigns as health director of the five county district
Garvin, health director for Orange, Person, Chatham, Lee and Caswell counties since 1944, resigned effective June 15, 1959 to rejoin the U.S. Public Health Service in its Chronic Disease Branch. The paper described him as a native of Wagner, South Carolina.
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Health officer asks county commissioners for money to buy polio vaccine
District health director O. David Garvin asked the Board of County Commissioners for a special appropriation to buy Salk vaccine for schoolchildren and pregnant women who could not pay, after federal vaccine allotments were cut and shots became required for school entry. The board agreed to provide funds if needed but told him to seek March of Dimes money from the county polio chapter first.
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Jim Tatum dies at Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill
Tatum apparently contracted an overwhelming viral infection while visiting Canada with the coaches Peahead Walker and Frank Howard, and died one week after entering Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill. He was buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.
- 1960s
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A nursing home is built at 401 North Churton Street
A one-story brick nursing home, built in the form of the Ranch houses of its day, goes up about 1960 at 401 North Churton Street.
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North Carolina Memorial Hospital admits its 100,000th patient
UNC A to Z records that the hospital welcomed its 100,000th patient in 1960, eight years after it opened.
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A.D. Clark Pool opens
Chapel Hill's swimming pool for Black residents, at the Roberson Street community center and now the A.D. Clark Pool, was dedicated on June 15, 1961. Cornelia Spencer Love gave $40,000 to build it, Black residents supplied labor and raised money for the bath house, and Adolphus D. Clark led the pool association.
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Chapel Hill Human Relations Committee asks for a Black nurse on the district health staff
At a Chapel Hill Human Relations Committee meeting, Esther Atwater said the district health department needed a Black nurse on its staff. Chairman Dr. William Joyner said he would take the request to District Health Officer Dr. O. D. Garvin.
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The Orange County Council on Alcoholism opens its headquarters in an addition to Calvin Burch's cabinet shop
The council's rehabilitation committee moved into a new office built onto Calvin Burch's cabinet shop on old NC 86, rented as a round-the-clock place for counseling and advice. Burch chaired the committee, which reported 54 cases in its first year there.
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Inter-Church Council forms
Seven women’s organizing led to coordinated local poverty relief.
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NAACP chapter pickets North Carolina Memorial Hospital over segregated rooms and wards
The UNC chapter of the NAACP organized a picket in April 1963 to protest that private rooms and certain wards for Black patients at the hospital were still segregated, although outpatient clinics, recovery rooms, pediatrics and the cafeteria had been integrated. Hospital officials opposed the demonstration.
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Isaac M. Taylor serves as dean of the UNC School of Medicine
Taylor succeeded W. Reece Berryhill as dean in 1964. Student enrollment, faculty and research funding grew during his deanship, and a ten-year capital building program began that produced Berryhill Hall, the first phase of the Health Sciences Library, and the Brinkhous-Bullitt and Burnett-Womack Buildings.
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Survey finds N.C. Memorial Hospital still separates patients by race
A Daily Tar Heel survey of Chapel Hill accommodations listed North Carolina Memorial Hospital among places keeping segregation, with director E. B. Crawford Jr. saying the hospital had two floors of mostly Black patients and did not generally integrate patient rooms.
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Villines Rest Home opens on Occoneechee Street in Hillsborough
A notice in February 1964 announced that the Villines Rest Home on Occoneechee Street was open to anyone who could no longer care for themselves.
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More than 25,000 Orange County residents take Sabin oral polio vaccine on one Sunday
The Durham-Orange County Medical Foundation ran a Sunday oral polio vaccine campaign at eight public school feeding stations in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Cedar Grove and Efland. A total of 25,679 people took the vaccine on a sugar cube, about 56 percent of the county, with Glenwood School alone serving 5,063; a second dose was set for May 17.
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The Holy Week fast ends on Easter Sunday and the Rev. LaVert Taylor is hospitalized
The five fasters finished their eight-day water-only fast in front of the post office on Easter Sunday. The Rev. LaVert Taylor of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was admitted to Memorial Hospital with an upset stomach afterward; James Foushee had been treated there during the fast and released.
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The Committee of Concerned Citizens raises about $400 for injured demonstrators and the hospitalized faster
Committee members served bread and cheese for donations twice a day in the basement of the First Baptist Church, raising about $400 to cover the hospital bills of demonstrators hurt in sit-ins and of the Rev. LaVert Taylor after the fast.
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Supreme Court lets stand the ruling against segregated hospitals built with federal funds
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, leaving in place the Fourth Circuit's November 1, 1963 ruling that Greensboro hospitals built with Hill-Burton money could not segregate doctors or patients. The Daily Tar Heel carried the decision on its front page.
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Paul F. Sharp serves as chief administrator of UNC at Chapel Hill
Sharp was chief administrative officer of the university at Chapel Hill from September 1, 1964 to February 15, 1966. His records document the state's speaker ban law and programs in medical education, and he left to become president of Drake University.
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Ruth Anderson Stephens becomes the first Black graduate of UNC's School of Nursing
Ruth Anderson Stephens completed the School of Nursing's master's program in nursing education and administration in 1965, the school's first African American graduate.
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Memorial Hospital ends racial segregation
After a federal inspection team found the hospital out of compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Chancellor Paul F. Sharp announced it would take immediate steps to obey the law. The hospital had assigned patients to rooms by what it called cultural background, and room assignments now had to be made without regard to race.
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Health care across language and immigration
From the student-run SHAC clinic of 1967 to UNC’s interpreter services, the CAMPOS program and the Center for Latino Health of 2008, care for the county’s newcomers has grown with its languages, and the health department was serving clients in almost 20 languages by 2014. El Futuro’s bilingual mental health work in Carrboro and the refugee wellness program of 2015 carry it on.
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UNC students open SHAC, the nation's first student-run free clinic
The Student Health Action Coalition began in 1967 with a few UNC medical students seeing patients in supporters' homes. It now holds a free Wednesday evening clinic at the Carrboro Community Health Center, with student interpreting teams in Spanish and Mandarin.
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Stonemason John Wesley Campbell, builder of Northside stone houses, dies
John Wesley Campbell, born about 1888 to a white father and a Black mother and trained in masonry from age seven, died in 1968. He worked on UNC buildings, Memorial Hospital and Franklin Street stores, built stone houses and the Hargraves Center in Northside, and taught the trade to his five sons and other Black masons.
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Albert Coates suffers a stroke and is taken to Memorial Hospital
In late January 1968, while still teaching a criminal law class on a reduced schedule, Coates lost the use of his right arm and leg at home and was taken to Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill, where he spent about a week in intensive care. He was home on Hooper Lane a month later, and his doctor told him not to return to the classroom.
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Taylor Hall is completed and named for Dean Isaac M. Taylor
The University completed a medical school building in Chapel Hill in 1969 that honors Isaac Taylor, then dean of the School of Medicine.
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Police charge pickets at Lenoir Hall; nine are arrested and four hurt
About 25 police charged a group of pickets and sympathizers at the north end of Lenoir Hall when they did not disperse. Nine people were arrested, including AFSCME official Gene Gore and graduate student John Wheeler, and four were treated at Memorial Hospital. The next day Mayor Howard Lee announced that town police were being withdrawn from the strike scene.
- 1970s
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Berryhill Hall is completed and named for W. Reece Berryhill
The University completed a medical school building in Chapel Hill in 1970 and named it for W. Reece Berryhill, who had been dean of the School of Medicine since 1941.
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Orange–Chatham Comprehensive Health Services begins
Orange-Chatham Comprehensive Health Services began in 1970 as a joint venture of UNC's Division of Health Affairs and a local community action program, bringing federally funded primary care to rural residents. UNC staffed its health centers, including Prospect Hill and Haywood-Moncure, from September 1970, and the program later became Piedmont Health.
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Durham motorcycle gang member charged with murder in the Cates stabbing
Durham County officers arrested Ronnie Broadwell, 28, a member of the Durham Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, at Watts Hospital early on the morning of the stabbing, and he was charged with murder and held without bond in the Orange County Jail. By November 24 four white men were in jail and a second man, Bryan King of Durham, faced an assault charge.
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James Cates is killed outside the UNC Student Union
James Lewis Cates Jr., 22, a Black Chapel Hill resident, was stabbed outside the UNC Student Union shortly before 2 a.m. during an all-night dance, in a clash with members of Durham's Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, and died at North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Three white men charged in his death were acquitted by an all-white jury in 1971.
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Christopher Fordham serves as dean of the UNC School of Medicine
Fordham, who had earned a certificate in medicine at UNC in 1949, was dean of the School of Medicine from 1971 to 1979 and for part of that time also vice chancellor for health affairs. The Area Health Education Centers program began under him.
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General Assembly gives North Carolina Memorial Hospital its own board of directors
Legislation passed in July 1971 created a board of directors for the hospital and separated it administratively from the School of Medicine, whose dean it had answered to since 1956.
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UNC School of Medicine launches the Area Health Education Centers program
The AHEC program began in 1972 with three regions under an 8.5 million dollar federal contract with the UNC School of Medicine, to train and place health professionals across North Carolina. The General Assembly funded a statewide network of nine regions in 1974, and all nine were running by 1975.
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Orange County Rape Crisis Center is founded
The organization established local support and advocacy for survivors of sexual violence.
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UNC Lineberger Cancer Center is established
UNC established a cancer research center in 1975 under founding director Joseph Pagano. Later named for the Lineberger family of Belmont, who helped fund its 1984 building, it earned NCI comprehensive status in 1990 and is North Carolina's only public one.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
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Severe drought creates a local water crisis
A drought from August 1976 to January 1977 forced Chapel Hill and UNC to buy more water from Durham, ban unnecessary water use and cut campus services. By August 1977 University Lake was lower still, and the new Orange Water and Sewer Authority kept conservation rules and used federal drought aid to buy Durham water.
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Bill Dow and Laura Heise found the North Carolina Agricultural Marketing Project
Physician and farmer Bill Dow and Laura Heise founded the North Carolina Agricultural Marketing Project, modelled on the farmers' markets Dow had helped start in Tennessee. The project led directly to the Carrboro Farmers' Market.
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Yonni Chapman leads the North Carolina Memorial Hospital Employees Forum
Chapman, a hematology laboratory technician at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill from 1975 to 1985, served as president of the hospital's Employees Forum from 1978 to 1980 and helped unite coworkers against racial discrimination and unsafe working conditions.
- 1980s
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Aziz Sancar joins the UNC faculty
Sancar joined Carolina's faculty in 1982; he became the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the School of Medicine, where his lab mapped how cells repair damaged DNA.
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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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Oliver Smithies and Nobuyo Maeda join the UNC faculty
Smithies and Nobuyo Maeda came to UNC's School of Medicine in 1988; Smithies later described himself as the trailing spouse, UNC having recruited Maeda.
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The Interfaith Council begins turning the old town hall into a homeless shelter
In 1989 the building was leased to the Interfaith Council, which was rehabilitating it as a shelter for homeless people with donations and a town grant.
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General Assembly renames North Carolina Memorial Hospital as UNC Hospitals at Chapel Hill
Session Law 1989-141, ratified May 25, 1989, replaced the name University of North Carolina Memorial Hospital with University of North Carolina Hospitals at Chapel Hill throughout the General Statutes and changed the terms of its board members.
- 1990s
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UNC dedicates the Herman G. Baity Environmental Laboratory
The School of Public Health dedicated McGavran-Greenberg Hall and the Herman G. Baity Environmental Laboratory, with Chancellor Paul Hardin giving the dedication.
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N.C. Neurosciences Hospital opens at UNC Hospitals
The N.C. Neurosciences Hospital opened in 1995 as a specialized hospital within the UNC Hospitals complex in Chapel Hill.
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Carrboro votes to pay for domestic partner coverage in its employee health plan
Setting town employee health insurance for fiscal 1995-96, the Board of Aldermen voted that the town would bear any expense of adding coverage for domestic partners to its Kaiser plan, after asking staff on May 23 to find out why the insurer Healthsource did not offer such coverage. The vote was six to one, with Michael Nelson opposed.
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General Assembly creates the UNC Health Care System
Legislation in 1998 created the UNC Health Care System, bringing UNC Hospitals and the clinical work of the School of Medicine under one entity.
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Project HomeStart opens
Project HomeStart, transitional housing for homeless families on Homestead Road, opened in 1998 as a joint project of the Inter-Faith Council and the Orange County/Durham Coalition for Battered Women. By October it housed five families; it now runs as IFC's HomeStart shelter for women and families.
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Dr. Arch Jordan House is listed in the National Register
The National Park Service listed the Dr. Arch Jordan House at 7015 NC 57 in Caldwell in the National Register of Historic Places on August 6, 1998, for architecture and social history. The Italianate house, built between 1875 and 1885 and home to physician Arch Jordan until 1905, served as a manse for three churches from 1905 to 1929.
- 2000s
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North Carolina Children's and Women's Hospitals open
UNC Hospitals opened freestanding women's and children's hospitals in 2001. The Women's Hospital houses labor and delivery, operating rooms and ambulatory clinics, and the Children's Hospital holds a 58-bed newborn intensive care nursery.
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Penny Rich is appointed to the OWASA board
Chapel Hill appointed Rich to the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board in 2001, and she served two three-year terms through 2007. She helped write water conservation policy during a severe drought.
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UNC public health students complete a community study of Fairview
After interviewing residents in 2001 and 2002, students in the UNC Department of Health Behavior and Health Education issued an action-oriented community diagnosis of Fairview. It is one of the few written histories of Hillsborough's northern Black neighborhoods.
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UNC Health Care expands Interpreter Services as Spanish-speaking patients increase
After a 2003 summary on the state of Hispanic health was presented to the UNC Health Care executive board, the system added Interpreter Services resources from 2003 to 2007. UNC Hospitals handled nearly 40,000 interpreter consults in 2005-2006.
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Orange County votes to extend health benefits to domestic partners
At a November 20, 2003, work session, the Orange County commissioners voted unanimously to extend employee health benefits to domestic partners. The county's insurance trust could not add them for January 2004, so the county budgeted the cost in 2004 and coverage for partners of county employees began January 1, 2005.
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UNC School of Medicine starts CAMPOS to train Spanish-speaking physicians
Marco Alemán and colleagues founded the Comprehensive Advanced Medical Program of Spanish in 2004 to prepare medical students to care for Spanish-speaking patients without relying on interpreters. Its first class graduated in 2008, and students do yearly service with Spanish-speaking communities.
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El Futuro runs a bilingual mental health clinic in Carrboro
El Futuro, a Latino mental health nonprofit started by psychiatrist Luke Smith, opened a Carrboro office in 2005, a year after its Siler City clinic. The Carrboro location closed in 2015 for lack of funding.
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Refugees from Burma are among the first recorded direct arrivals in Orange County
Orange County Health Department figures record 19 refugee direct arrivals in fiscal year 2005-2006, from Burma, Cuba and Iran. At the time one resettlement agency, Lutheran Family Services, served the Triangle.
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Orange County Health Department starts an Immigrant and Refugee Health Program
During the sharp rise in arrivals from Burma, the Orange County Health Department initiated an Immigrant and Refugee Health Program. The 2018 report found Karen and Burmese were the two refugee languages most requested by the department's patients.
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Oliver Smithies wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2007 prize to Smithies, Mario Capecchi and Martin Evans for discovering principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells. Smithies was at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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UNC opens the Center for Latino Health for Spanish-speaking patients
The UNC Center for Latino Health (CELAH) began in 2008 in the School of Medicine and UNC Health Care, offering specialty and primary care in Spanish, same-day access and health education. It served more than 15,000 patients in its first ten years.
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North Carolina Cancer Hospital opens
The North Carolina Cancer Hospital opened as the clinical home of UNC Lineberger.
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N.C. Cancer Hospital is dedicated
The seven-story, 315,000-square-foot N.C. Cancer Hospital, built with a 180 million dollar authorization from the General Assembly, was dedicated in September 2009. It tripled the space available for treating cancer patients at UNC.
- 2010s
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Local schools and health providers report Burmese, Karen and Chin families moving to Orange County from elsewhere
Although direct refugee arrivals fell to 86 in fiscal year 2010-2011, local schools and health care agencies reported significant in-migration of Burmese, Karen and Chin residents from other counties and states.
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UNC Hospitals employs about 7,000 people
Town figures show UNC Hospitals employed 6,680 full-time and 359 part-time staff in 2010, and the UNC Health Care System, with 7,964 employees, was Orange County's second-largest public employer after the university.
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Chapel Hill's comprehensive plan describes the town as a university and health care town
The Chapel Hill 2020 data summary opens with a chapter titled Chapel Hill: A University and Health Care Town, names the UNC Health Care System among the town's three largest employers, and describes its expansion beyond the main campus toward NC 54, the 15-501 corridor and a new UNC Hospitals site in Hillsborough.
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UNC School of Social Work launches its Refugee Mental Health and Wellness Initiative
Josh Hinson launched the initiative at the UNC School of Social Work in 2013 to support resettled refugees, connecting refugee communities to interpreters, mental health screening and treatment.
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Orange County Health Department reports serving clients in almost 20 languages
The county's 2014 State of the County Health Report said the Health Department served clients in almost 20 languages through bilingual staff and interpreters and bought translation memory software. It also described the Orange County Latino Health and Refugee Health Coalitions working on access to care.
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New community house opens
The men’s shelter moved to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
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UNC Refugee Wellness begins providing mental health care under a state refugee contract
In 2015 the UNC School of Social Work's Refugee Mental Health and Wellness Initiative began contracting with the Refugee Office of the state Department of Health and Human Services to provide mental health services directly to refugees in Wake, Durham and Orange counties.
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Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha are killed in Chapel Hill
On February 10, 2015, neighbor Craig Hicks shot and killed Deah Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, 19, in the couple's Chapel Hill condominium. Hicks pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in June 2019 and received three consecutive life sentences without parole.
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Quintana Stewart becomes Orange County's health director
After a nationwide search, the Orange County Board of Health chose Stewart, then assistant health director at the Forsyth County Department of Public Health. She started on December 18, 2017, succeeding Colleen Bridger, who had left in February 2017 for a post in San Antonio.
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Penny Rich chairs the Orange County Board of Commissioners
Rich was vice chair of the county commissioners from 2016 to 2018 and chair from 2018 to 2020, and she led the board through the start of the county's COVID-19 response.
- 2020s
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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COVID-19 in Orange County
From the first cases in March 2020 to the last emergency measures in 2022: closures, remote school, the health department's response, mutual aid, and the pandemic's unequal weight.
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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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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.
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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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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 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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UNC reopening produces a COVID-19 outbreak
UNC-Chapel Hill began in-person classes on August 10, 2020, reported four COVID-19 clusters in residence halls, private student housing and a fraternity within days, and on August 17 announced that undergraduate classes would move online from August 19. Campus test positivity rose from 2.8 percent to 13.6 percent in one week.
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Stewart receives the Chapel Hill-Carrboro chamber's citizenship and service award
The Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce gave Stewart its Duke Energy Citizenship and Service Award in 2021, during the county's COVID-19 vaccination campaign. She later received the Ron Levine Public Health Legacy Award in 2022 and a National Association of Counties award in 2025.
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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 commissioners proclaim Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett Day
The Board of County Commissioners unanimously proclaimed Wednesday, January 20, 2021 Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett Day, honoring the county native who grew up in Cedar Grove and attended Orange County Schools; she accepted by Zoom.
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IFC Commons opens in Carrboro
The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service opened IFC Commons at 110 West Main Street in Carrboro, a $6 million building that put its community kitchen, food market and other non-shelter programs under one roof. Its virtual grand opening was held January 21, 2021.
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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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Carrboro proclaims Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett Day
Carrboro Mayor Lydia Lavelle proclaimed January 26, 2021 Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett Day, after Hillsborough and Orange County had honored the Orange High graduate for her COVID-19 vaccine work.
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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.
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Hillsborough proclaims Dr. Kizzmekia "Kizzy" Corbett Day
At an online meeting, Mayor Jenn Weaver read the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners' proclamation naming January 12, 2021 for Corbett, a Hillsborough native who helped develop the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine; Corbett thanked the board and urged residents to get vaccinated.
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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.
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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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Panciuto reopens after its pandemic closure, now sharing space with the Hillsborough Bakeshop
Panciuto reopened with a pared-down service model and no tipping, paying staff at least $15.40 an hour. The Hillsborough Bakeshop, begun as a stopgap during the shutdown, now runs in the same space.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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UNC awards Alexander Julian an honorary Doctor of Arts
At Spring Commencement, UNC-Chapel Hill gave Alexander Julian, a Chapel Hill native who entered with the Class of 1969 and designed the argyle basketball uniforms, an honorary Doctor of Arts, one of six honorary degrees that year.
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Latino residents press for Spanish-language mental health care at a Chapel Hill assembly
At a public accountability assembly at St. Thomas More Catholic Church organized by Orange County Justice United and the North Carolina Congress of Latino Organizations, residents called for more mental health services in Spanish. That month Alliance Health announced $500,000 for El Futuro's services and programs in Orange County.
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El Futuro launches Mentes Fuertes, a Spanish-language mental health program in Orange County
Four Spanish-speaking community health workers began leading free ten-session psychoeducation groups at the Orange County Rape Crisis Center, St. Thomas More and Holy Family Catholic Church. By March 2024, 48 participants had enrolled.
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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 October 2, 2026.
