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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis.

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  1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

  2. 1880s
  3. Property or economic transaction · 404 North Churton Street, Hillsborough Edmund Strudwick of Norfolk buys the Turner house on North Churton Street for his mother and sisters

    Norfolk cotton merchant Edmund Strudwick bought the house built for tinner Josiah Turner Sr. and enlarged it for his mother and sisters, apparently adding the gables, bay windows and new sash that give it a Victorian look.

  4. Construction or physical change · 410 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill James Lee Love builds a house on East Franklin Street for his wife, June Spencer

    Professor James Lee Love built the one-story house at 410 East Franklin Street in 1887, on the lot of the old president's house that burned the Christmas before, for his wife June, the only daughter of Cornelia Phillips Spencer. It is known as the Spencer House after his mother-in-law.

  5. Property or economic transaction · Walnut Grove The school board condemns a lot for a school for Black children at Walnut Grove

    After two committees were named in March and September 1887 to condemn half an acre in the Walnut Grove district, the board had the deed for the site of a schoolhouse for Black children recorded on October 1.

  6. Statistic or record · Orange County The superintendent's report shows Black schools running half the term of white schools

    Currie's annual report counted 33 white and 25 Black public schools. White schools averaged close to nine weeks of teaching and Black schools under four and a half, and Black women teachers earned $17 a month against $24 for white women.

  7. Property or economic transaction · Public Spring Lot (Lot 0), south side of East Margaret Lane, Hillsborough Hillsborough's commissioners sell the Public Spring Lot

    The town sold its Public Spring Lot, one of the public lots set aside when Hillsborough was laid out, for $100. The finance committee's report for the year ending May 1, 1889 lists the sale.

  8. Construction or physical change · 110 East Orange Street, Hillsborough A small office from the Turner-Strudwick grounds is moved to East Orange Street

    A one-story frame office on the Turner-Strudwick House lot, shown on John Bailey's 1839 map when the lot belonged to Josiah Turner Sr., was moved next door to 110 East Orange Street, two years after Edmund Strudwick of Norfolk bought the property. It was later enlarged into a house and rebuilt in 1987. It is not Dr. Edmund Strudwick's medical office on West King Street.

  9. Chapel Hill James Lee Love leaves Chapel Hill for Harvard

    Love left the university with his family in 1889 to teach mathematics at Harvard. His mother-in-law, Cornelia Phillips Spencer, stayed on in his East Franklin Street house.

  10. Property or economic transaction · Sans Souci, East Corbin Street, Hillsborough Sans Souci is sold at auction and passes to Episcopal Bishop Lyman

    Sans Souci was sold at public auction to a bidder named Parrish, who at once assigned his bid to the Episcopal bishop of North Carolina, Bishop Lyman of Raleigh.

  11. 1890s
  12. Construction or physical change · Colonial Inn, Parks-Richmond House and Twin Chimneys, 153, 175 and 168 West King Street, Hillsborough D. C. Parks has designer Jules Körner remodel his hotel buildings and Twin Chimneys

    While he owned the Occoneechee Hotel, David C. Parks hired Jules Körner of Kernersville to update the hotel, the Parks-Richmond House next door and Twin Chimneys across West King Street, giving them new window and door frames with pointed-arch surrounds.

  13. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Horace Williams begins teaching philosophy at the University of North Carolina

    Williams joined the faculty in 1890 as professor of philosophy and chaired the department from 1890 until 1935. He taught at Chapel Hill for fifty years, until his death in 1940.

  14. Construction or physical change · Borland Road, south of Hillsborough John Borland builds a two-story log house on his 100-acre farm

    About 1890 John Borland put up a full two-story log house with half-dovetail corners. It is one of only two two-story log houses the survey found in the township.

  15. Construction or physical change · 403 West Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill Merchant Henry "Hoot" Patterson turns a West Cameron Avenue I-house into a Queen Anne villa

    In the 1890s Henry "Hoot" Patterson, whose general store was on East Franklin Street, bought the frame I-house at 403 West Cameron Avenue and turned it into a Queen Anne house with a rose window in a front gable, bracketed eaves, a bay window and an elaborate porch that wraps the corner.

  16. Construction or physical change · southwest Orange County The Manly Snipes House is built in southwest Orange County

    The Manly Snipes House, a two-story farmhouse with a second-story wing projecting over the front entrance, was probably built around 1890.

  17. Construction or physical change · University Station Benjamin Duke builds a country house at University Station

    Durham tobacco industrialist Benjamin Duke built a large, richly trimmed country house at University Station in 1891. The site lay south of Hillsborough, where a railroad spur met the North Carolina Railroad. The retreat once took in a big pond, bridges, an office and many outbuildings; by 1993 most of these were gone, but the house with its wraparound porch was well kept.

  18. Construction or physical change · Section I, Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel Hill The W. S. Guthrie family plot is enclosed with a cast-iron fence

    The Guthrie plot in Section I has one of the most ornate iron fences in the cemetery, its gate cast with the family name, the date 1892 and a willow shading two lambs.

  19. Property or economic transaction · Sans Souci, East Corbin Street, Hillsborough Bishop Lyman and his wife sell Sans Souci to Miss Ruffin

    Bishop Lyman and his wife sold Sans Souci to a Miss Ruffin, who kept it until her death in the 1930s.

  20. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Edwin Alderman leaves Greensboro to teach at the university

    Alderman, an 1882 graduate of the university and a founder of the State Normal in Greensboro, accepted a teaching position at UNC in 1893.

  21. Construction or physical change · 517 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Geology professor Collier Cobb builds a Queen Anne cottage on East Franklin Street

    Collier Cobb built his house at 517 East Franklin Street in 1893 and enlarged it later that decade. With its pedimented front wing, Palladian window and curving porch, it is one of the first Queen Anne houses in Chapel Hill.

  22. Publication, speech or performance · Person Hall, UNC campus, Chapel Hill Venable and student William R. Kenan Jr. demonstrate calcium carbide in Person Hall

    Chemistry professor Francis P. Venable and student William R. Kenan Jr. demonstrated the industrial uses of calcium carbide, the source of acetylene gas, in Person Hall.

  23. Disaster or outbreak · Cedar Grove area Forest fire destroys Eno Presbyterian Church

    Wind-driven woods fires on Saturday, April 1, 1893 burned the Eno Presbyterian church and its session house at the old site near the river. The loss preceded the congregation's move to Cedar Grove, where it built again in 1897 to 1899.

  24. Disaster or outbreak · Montrose, 320 Saint Mary's Road, Hillsborough Fire destroys Major John W. Graham's house at Montrose

    Major John W. Graham's house east of Hillsborough burned to the ground on the night of October 19, with almost nothing saved and no insurance on a loss of about $15,000. It was the second Graham house lost to fire on the Montrose site, after the governor's house in 1862; the family moved into the old law office until the present house was built.

  25. Property or economic transaction · McDade House, West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Alphonso and Anne McDade buy the house later called the McDade House

    The heirs of Isaac Hudson sold the western half of the original Lot 5 on West Franklin Street to Alphonso J. McDade and his wife Anne. The McDades never lived there and rented the house to their daughter Minnie and her husband, J. E. Merritt.

  26. Construction or physical change · 524 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Chemistry professor Charles Baskerville builds a Queen Anne house at 524 East Franklin Street

    Charles Baskerville's house on East Franklin Street, going up in March 1896, hides two full stories behind a large polygonal entrance bay with a pyramid roof, trimmed with a turret, a balconied dormer and a gabled vent. Little calls it the most playful Queen Anne house in town. Baskerville bought the lot outright in 1905 and sold the house that year to chemist Charles Herty.

  27. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Edwin Alderman serves as president of the university

    Alderman was named president in 1896 and held the office until 1900, when he left to lead Tulane University. His inauguration, first set for University Day 1896, was put off into 1897 because of that year's heated political campaigns.

  28. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove Eno Presbyterian builds at Cedar Grove

    The replacement church was constructed over three years.

  29. Property or economic transaction · 610 East Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill Horace Williams buys the house at 610 East Rosemary Street

    Williams bought the 1854 house built by the university chemistry professor Benjamin Hedrick and owned it until he died. Preservation Chapel Hill now has its offices there and opens the house to the public.

  30. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill The Old Well rotunda is built

    University president Edwin Alderman had the well's wooden cover replaced in 1897 with a rotunda of eight fluted Doric columns under a dome, modeled on the Temple of Love at Versailles and designed by registrar Eugene Lewis Harris.

  31. Chapel Hill James Sprunt endows a fund for historical monographs at UNC

    By the fall of 1899 James Sprunt had set up a fund at the university for publishing yearly historical monographs, known after 1910 as the James Sprunt Historical Publications. The first monograph appeared in June 1900.

  32. Statistic or record · Orange County The 1899 school report shows two and a half times as much spent on white schools as Black

    Supervisor John Thompson's report for 1899 counted 50 white and 25 Black schools and $4,391.51 spent on white schools against $1,688.09 on Black schools. Almost half the schoolhouses of each race were still log.

  33. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

  34. 1900s
  35. Construction or physical change · Caldwell A log house near Caldwell is enlarged into the Annie Parrish House

    Around 1900 a one-room log house near Caldwell, built some fifty years earlier, was wrapped into a new story-and-a-half frame house with a center gable. The form uses the Annie Parrish House to show how early log houses survive inside later ones.

  36. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Francis P. Venable serves as president of the university

    Elected president in 1900, Venable enlarged the student body, faculty and campus and built an administration for a growing institution. He asked for leave in 1913 and resigned in 1914, returning to teaching and research.

  37. Construction or physical change · northwest Orange County The Bradsher House is built in northwest Orange County

    The one-story Bradsher House, a plain cottage given a shingled center gable and factory-made porch trim, dates from about 1900.

  38. Construction or physical change · Little River The Thomas Laws House is built in the Little River community

    A two-story T-shaped farmhouse with a wraparound porch was built for the Laws family in the Little River community around the turn of the century.

  39. Construction or physical change · near Chapel Hill William Cole builds a house near Chapel Hill as a wedding present for his daughter

    In 1900 William Cole gave his daughter a new one-story house near Chapel Hill, covered in patterned shingles and trimmed with turned porch work. Mattson calls it the showiest house of its kind in the county.

  40. Construction or physical change · Gerrard Hall Gerrard Hall is renovated and its south portico torn down

    Gerrard Hall got a new roof and interior: chairs replaced the pews, the old doors were walled up and two new doors opened on the east. The decaying south porch and its columns were pulled down.

  41. Construction or physical change · Montrose, 320 St. Mary's Road, Hillsborough John W. Graham builds the present house at Montrose

    After his 1893 fire, John W. Graham lived in the enlarged law office until 1902, when he built the two-story frame house that is the core of the present Montrose, the third house on the site.

  42. Construction or physical change · B. B. Forrest House, 114 North Wake Street, Hillsborough Merchant B. B. Forrest has a Victorian cottage built on North Wake Street

    A one-story T-shaped cottage with shingled gables and bracketed porches was built for B. B. Forrest, partner in the O. J. and B. B. Forrest general store, about the year he married Mollie Belle Smith of Leasburg. The 2014 district update calls it a rare, intact example of a T-shaped Victorian cottage.

  43. Life event · Hillsborough Shepperd Strudwick brings his family back to Hillsborough

    Shepperd Strudwick, a native of Hillsborough, returned to the town with his family when his son Clement, born in Tennessee in April 1900, was two.

  44. Construction or physical change · 123 East Union Street (moved from the southeast corner of North Churton and East Union streets), Hillsborough The Bingham house is moved down East Union Street to clear the corner for Shepperd Strudwick's house

    The 1831 William J. Bingham House is moved half a block east on East Union Street so that Shepperd Strudwick can build on its lot at the corner of Churton and Union. Much of the old house's outside dates from the move.

  45. Founding or opening · Coker Arboretum, Chapel Hill William C. Coker begins turning a boggy pasture into the campus arboretum

    UNC's first professor of botany began developing a five-acre boggy pasture on the campus into an outdoor classroom for the study of trees, shrubs and vines native to North Carolina. From the 1920s through the 1940s he added many East Asian trees and shrubs.

  46. Construction or physical change · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel Hill A survey enlarging the graveyard is laid before the Chapel Hill aldermen

    After a 1902 trustee resolution to enlarge the crowded burying ground, a survey by James O. Webb presented to the town board on December 12, 1903 added two-thirds of an acre on the west and one and one-third acres on the east. No approval is recorded, but the east addition matches Section II, where regular burials began in the early 1900s.

  47. Construction or physical change · David Faucette House, 1830 Halls Mill Road at the Eno River, north of Efland A Mr. Graham grains the doors and wainscot of the Faucette House

    The six-panel doors and pine wainscot of the house were given their combed graining in 1904-05, work that survives.

  48. Construction or physical change · Hillsborough Shepperd Strudwick builds a Churton Street house designed by Ralph Adams Cram

    Shepperd Strudwick built a Neoclassical Revival house on Churton Street to a design Ralph Adams Cram drew about 1904; Cram's wife Elizabeth was the sister of Strudwick's wife Susan. The site had been cleared in 1903 by moving the antebellum W. J. Bingham House down East Union Street, and the house was finished about 1908. It was later named Tamarind.

  49. Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough Shepperd Strudwick heads the new Bellevue Manufacturing Company in west Hillsborough

    The Bellevue Manufacturing Company, Hillsborough's cotton mill in the west of the town, was incorporated in 1904 with Shepperd Strudwick as its first president, and he remained president until 1929. By 1911 the mill ran 5,000 spindles and 200 looms making ginghams.

  50. Property or economic transaction · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough The superior court orders the old Ruffin place sold to Nannie Russell Roulhac

    Under a superior court judgment, Allen J. Ruffin was named commissioner to convey the ten-acre Ruffin place to Mrs. Nannie Russell Roulhac of Rockingham County for $100 in cash and a mortgage note of $1,455.

  51. Property or economic transaction · 620 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill George Howe buys an East Franklin Street lot from the university and builds a house

    In 1905 the university sold George Howe the lot at 620 East Franklin Street, and the two-story hip-roofed house on it probably went up within a year or so.

  52. Construction or physical change · 721 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Mathematician and historian Archibald Henderson builds his house on East Franklin Street

    Archibald Henderson, who taught mathematics at UNC from 1898 to 1948 and later wrote a history of the campus buildings, built a large frame house at 721 East Franklin Street in 1905. It mixes Colonial Revival porch, entrance and widow's walk with leftover Queen Anne diamond-pane windows and bays.

  53. Construction or physical change · Millhouse Road, near Blackwood Sam Nunn and neighbors raise the last recorded log house in the township

    About 1905 Sam Nunn built a two-story log house for his family with help from Monroe Partin, Green Johnson and one more neighbor. His daughter Annabel Lloyd remembered the four builders, one at each corner, and the survey found no later log dwelling.

  54. Property or economic transaction · Blackwood Farm Herbert and Alice Blackwood purchase and revitalize the farm

    Herbert and Alice Blackwood purchased the farm and renewed its house and agricultural buildings.

  55. Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill John Sprunt Hill endows the North Carolina Collection

    John Sprunt Hill gave the university library money for collecting historical and literary material about North Carolina, the start of what became the North Carolina Collection.

  56. Property or economic transaction · Nash-Hooper House, 118 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough The Graham family gives up the Nash-Hooper House

    The family of former governor William A. Graham, who bought the West Tryon Street house about 1870, owned it until 1906. After that it passed through a number of families.

  57. Property or economic transaction · 139 West King Street, Hillsborough Attorney Frank Nash inherits the old Strudwick office and makes it his office and home

    Frank Nash inherited the former Strudwick medical and law office at 139 West King Street and used it as both his law office and his home. It has been a private house since 1924.

  58. Property or economic transaction · 214 West Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill Education professor M. C. S. Noble takes a Queen Anne house on West Cameron Avenue

    The two-story frame Queen Anne house at 214 West Cameron Avenue, with a front gable and wraparound porch, is believed to have belonged about 1907 to Marcus Cicero Stephens Noble, later dean of the School of Education.

  59. Construction or physical change · 704 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Geologist Joseph Hyde Pratt builds a Colonial Revival house on East Franklin Street

    Joseph Hyde Pratt, UNC professor of economic geology and later state geologist, builds a two-story Colonial Revival house set well back on a large lot on East Franklin Street. Pratt also built several other houses on that part of the street.

  60. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill UNC's Carnegie Library opens

    UNC's new library, built with a gift from Andrew Carnegie first offered in 1905 as $50,000 and later raised to $55,000, was finished in the summer of 1907 and opened to students that fall once its furniture arrived. It served as the main library until Wilson Library opened in 1929 and was renamed for John Sprunt Hill in 1931.

  61. Construction or physical change · 158 West King Street, Hillsborough A Queen Anne house is built on West King Street for Samuel Mallett Gattis

    The two-story house at 158 West King Street was built for lawyer Samuel Mallett Gattis, former clerk of superior court and Speaker of the state House in 1903. The Gattis family also rebuilt the lot's old wellhouse that year.

  62. Construction or physical change · 115 Battle Lane, Chapel Hill A house is built on Battle Lane for English professor Edward Kidder Graham and his wife Susan

    English professor Edward Kidder Graham, later president of the university, and his wife Susan Williams Moses Graham build a shingled two-story house at 115 Battle Lane that mixes Colonial Revival and Craftsman details.

  63. Construction or physical change · The Rocks, 609 North Street, Chapel Hill Botanist William C. Coker builds his house at The Rocks

    At The Rocks, his estate north of the village (now 609 North Street), botanist William Coker built a stuccoed two-story house raised on a high stone base, with wide eaves and a fieldstone wainscot. Little finds it the nearest thing in Chapel Hill to Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie houses; its architect is unknown.

  64. Construction or physical change · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough Nannie Roulhac remodels the Ruffin house

    Mrs. Nannie Russell Roulhac remodeled the house after buying it, though the main block kept its 1830 form.

  65. Construction or physical change · Nash-Hooper House, 118 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough The detached kitchen at the Nash-Hooper House is torn down

    The nineteenth-century frame kitchen that had stood a few steps east of the Nash-Hooper House since 1819 was demolished.

  66. Founding or opening · Davie Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill UNC sets up a separate botany department with Coker as its chair

    By 1908 William C. Coker, who had come to the university as an associate professor in 1902, was a full professor and chair of the newly established Botany Department, housed in Davie Hall.

  67. Property or economic transaction · Ruffin-Roulhac House, Churton and Orange streets, Hillsborough Nannie Roulhac dies and her son William Sterling Roulhac inherits the Ruffin house

    At the death of Nannie Russell Roulhac the house and block passed to her son, William Sterling Roulhac.

  68. 1910s
  69. Construction or physical change · Bellevue Cotton Mill Superintendent's House, 200 South Nash Street, West Hillsborough The Bellevue mill superintendent's house is built on South Nash Street

    The two-story house built for the mill superintendent, with corbelled brick chimneys, a canted bay and a wraparound porch, is the most decorative early house in the surveyed area and stands out beside the plain mill houses next to it.

  70. Construction or physical change · 203 West Margaret Lane, Hillsborough An eighteenth-century house on West Margaret Lane is moved back from the street

    A two-story frame house at 203 West Margaret Lane, possibly one of the town's earliest, stood flush with the lane on Sanborn maps from 1894 and was likely moved back to its present spot around 1911, when its wraparound porch was built.

  71. Construction or physical change · 607 East Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill Louis Round Wilson has a Craftsman house built on East Rosemary Street

    Louis Round Wilson, the university librarian, had a large Craftsman-style house built at 607 East Rosemary Street in 1911, an early example of the Arts and Crafts mode in Chapel Hill.

  72. Property or economic transaction · McDade House, West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Alphonso McDade sells the McDade House to his daughter and son-in-law

    McDade sold J. E. Merritt and his wife Minnie, McDade's daughter, the West Franklin Street house they had been renting for years.

  73. Construction or physical change · Durham House, 110 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough Hillsborough merchant "Dr." Durham has a Craftsman bungalow built on West Tryon Street

    About 1912 a downtown general merchant named Durham, known in town as "Dr. Durham" though he was not a physician, had a large one-and-a-half-story bungalow built for himself at 110 West Tryon Street. Its wraparound porch has ogee-arched spans between the columns.

  74. Construction or physical change · northwest of Hillsborough Ira Rogers builds a hip-roofed farmhouse northwest of Hillsborough

    Tobacco farmer Ira Rogers built himself a plain, square, hip-roofed farmhouse northwest of Hillsborough in 1912, with tapered porch posts and grouped windows.

  75. Construction or physical change · north of Hillsborough, Caldwell section The Villines log house is built north of Hillsborough

    A one-room V-notched log house with a center door and a small loft window was built in 1912 on what is now SR 1546, north of Hillsborough in the Caldwell section of the county; the year is carved into its rock chimney. It shows log building for tenants and laborers lasting into the twentieth century.

  76. Property or economic transaction · Moorefields, near Hillsborough Moorefields is advertised for public sale and leaves the Moore family

    After more than a century with Alfred Moore's descendants, Moorefields was advertised for public sale, and its later owners were not Moore relatives until 1949.

  77. Construction or physical change · Cameron Avenue and South Columbia Street, Chapel Hill The first president's house is moved off the Swain Hall site and becomes a private home

    When Swain Hall was built in 1913 at Cameron Avenue and South Columbia Street, the 1795 house built for the university's president was moved from the corner and reused as a private dwelling.

  78. Construction or physical change · 517 North Street, Chapel Hill Historian J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton commissions a house on North Street from N. C. Curtis

    In 1914 J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, head of the UNC history department and later founder of the Southern Historical Collection, had N. C. Curtis design a one-story house with a pyramid roof at 517 North Street. Two rooms were added in 1924.

  79. Construction or physical change · 204 Glenburnie Street, Chapel Hill State Forester John S. Holmes builds a shingled house on Glenburnie Street

    John Holmes's wood-shingled house at 204 Glenburnie Street, with bargeboards and diamond-pane sash, is the only example in Chapel Hill of the Shingle Style that McKim, Mead and White developed for Newport summer cottages.

  80. Construction or physical change · 108 Battle Lane, Chapel Hill Engineering professor T. Felix Hickerson builds a house on Battle Lane

    T. Felix Hickerson, later author of a standard road-design textbook and the engineer who laid out Gimghoul and Laurel Hill, built a two-story weatherboarded house at 108 Battle Lane that pairs a classical entrance porch with a bay window and a sleeping porch.

  81. Construction or physical change · SW corner of West Franklin and Columbia streets, Chapel Hill The 1880 brick building on the southwest corner of Franklin and Columbia is torn down

    Judged unsafe, the brick building put up in 1880 at the southwest corner of Franklin and Columbia streets was razed. The Baptists later built their church on this corner.

  82. Construction or physical change · 408-412 North Street, Chapel Hill The old Episcopal rectory is said to be cut into sections and moved to North Street

    Local tradition holds that around 1915 the Episcopal rectory, a two-room house of about 1850 later enlarged into an H shape, was sawn into pieces and moved to North Street, where the parts became the small houses at 408, 410 and 412.

  83. Chapel Hill UNC gives James Sprunt an honorary doctor of laws

    The university, where Sprunt served as a trustee, awarded him an honorary LL.D.

  84. Founding or opening · Orange County Training School, Merritt Mill Road, Chapel Hill Robert and Mollie Malone open Orange County Training School on the old Hackney campus

    Principal Robert E. Malone, his wife Mollie Holmes Malone as domestic science teacher, and two other teachers began classes in academic, industrial and farm subjects at the county's new training school for Black students. Black residents had raised $3,000 toward the board's 1916 purchase of the Hackney campus on Merritt Mill Road.

  85. Construction or physical change · Calvander Farmer and lumber dealer Brodie Lloyd builds a large bungalow at Calvander

    Around 1918 Brodie Lloyd, who farmed and ran a lumber business in Carrboro, had a roomy bungalow built on Old NC 86. The report ranks it among the biggest and best kept in the township.

  86. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Trustees name the first five Kenan professors

    The trustees adopted President Edward Kidder Graham's recommendations for the new Kenan professorships, funded under the will of Mary Lily Kenan Flagler Bingham. Venable was named Kenan Professor of Chemistry, with H. V. Wilson, Edwin Greenlaw, William MacNider and William Cain.

  87. Statistic or record · Orange County Training School, Merritt Mill Road, Chapel Hill Orange County Training School enrolls 215 students

    Two years after it opened on the former Hackney campus in Chapel Hill, the county's training school for Black students had 215 enrolled.

  88. 1920s
  89. Construction or physical change · 214 Henderson Street, Chapel Hill Contractor Brodie Thompson builds his own house on Henderson Street

    Brodie Thompson, the town's leading builder of the 1920s and 1930s and contractor for many fraternity houses and village homes, built a Colonial Revival house for himself at 214 Henderson Street.

  90. Construction or physical change · Martindale House, 1518 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Contractor Charlie Lee Martindale builds his own bungalow on East Franklin Street

    Martindale, credited with many of the brick stores on Franklin Street and with the Gimghoul Castle, built the house at 1518 East Franklin Street on about two acres then outside town and did its interior woodwork himself. The Durham road first ran behind the house.

  91. Construction or physical change · Senlac, 203 Battle Lane, Chapel Hill Dr. John Booker remodels Senlac on Battle Lane

    In the 1920s Dr. John Booker, whose wife was Kemp Battle's granddaughter, reworked Senlac: he added matching one-story side wings, removed the Italianate trim and gave the house a full-width porch with Doric columns.

  92. Founding or opening · East Franklin Street opposite Battle dormitory, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill's new federal post office opens on Franklin Street

    Postmaster R. S. MacRae moved into the new government post office across Franklin Street from the Battle dormitory before the building was quite finished, leaving the crowded one-room office. Haymes Brothers had begun the one-story building with columns in April 1918 under a contract signed the December before.

  93. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Horace Williams holds the Kenan professorship of philosophy

    Williams was named a Kenan professor at the June 1920 commencement, announced by President Chase together with W. C. Coker and Louis R. Wilson. He held the Kenan chair of philosophy until 1935 and taught as professor emeritus afterwards.

  94. Property or economic transaction · Hasell-Nash House, 116 West Queen Street, Hillsborough Alexander H. Graham acquires the Hasell-Nash House on West Queen Street

    After more than ninety years with the Nash family, the house passed in 1921 to lawyer Alexander H. Graham, later lieutenant governor and a grandson of Governor William A. Graham. The Grahams sold it on August 20, 1935, to Dr. H. W. Moore, who had it restored with architect Archie Royal Davis.

  95. Construction or physical change · Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill Under rector Alfred Lawrence, the Chapel of the Cross asks Hobart Upjohn to design a new church

    The vestry, led by its new rector Alfred Lawrence, asked church architect Hobart B. Upjohn to design a larger building linked to the old chapel by a cloister, after a 1920 diocesan resolution called for enlarging the church to serve the university.

  96. Disaster or outbreak · Eagle Hotel annex, present site of Graham Memorial, Chapel Hill Fire destroys the main building of the old University Inn

    Fire on November 30, 1921 destroyed the main building of the old University Inn, the former Eagle Hotel, and left 42 student roomers without quarters; students on the roof with a hose saved the annex Nancy Hilliard had built for President Polk's 1847 visit. The annex stood until it was razed in January 1924 to clear the site for Graham Memorial.

  97. Construction or physical change · St. Mary's Road, east of Hillsborough A two-story addition turns the Hill Farm house to face a new way

    In 1922 a big two-story frame wing was added to the Hill Farm house east of Hillsborough on St. Mary's Road, changing the direction the house faced. The older part, a rear ell from the late eighteenth century, became a back wing.

  98. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Arthur Cleveland Nash comes to Chapel Hill as the university's architect

    Nash moved to Chapel Hill in 1922 to serve as architect for the University of North Carolina during its major expansion, working with the builder Thomas C. Atwood and the consulting firm McKim, Mead and White of New York.

  99. Construction or physical change · 619 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Graduate dean James Finch Royster builds a house on East Franklin Street

    James Finch Royster, dean of the UNC graduate school in the later 1920s, built the two-story house at 619 East Franklin Street in 1922.

  100. Naming or commemoration · Franklin Street, west of the campus entrance, Chapel Hill The Susan Graham memorial fountain replaces the old town well on Franklin Street

    Townspeople set up a marble drinking fountain designed by Roger Noble Burnham at the curb of Franklin Street, on the site of the old town well, in memory of Susan Williams Graham.

  101. Disaster or outbreak · Countywide Orange County Training School burns

    On June 12, 1922, a kitchen fire started by boarders in the neighboring Flanner-Carr House destroyed the Orange County Training School building, the Flanner-Carr House and several outbuildings. Classes met in scattered places until a Rosenwald-funded brick school opened in Northside in 1924.

  102. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill John Sprunt Hill chairs the trustees' buildings committee

    As a university trustee, John Sprunt Hill chaired the committee on university buildings during the campus building program of 1923 to 1931.

  103. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Orange County Training School opens a Rosenwald campus

    The Orange County Training School's new brick building for Black students rose on land given by Henry Strowd at the north end of Church Street in Northside, Chapel Hill. Its cornerstone was laid on Labor Day 1924 and it opened late that year; the Rosenwald Fund gave $1,500 of its $23,112 cost, Black residents $500.

  104. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill The Carolina Inn is built

    John Sprunt Hill built the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill.

  105. Construction or physical change · Tankersley residence, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The Tankersley house on East Franklin Street is torn down

    Frances Adele Tankersley, tired of the business district's noise, built a new house east of the Presbyterian church, and her old house was razed. Three stores later went up on the lot.

  106. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Alfred Lawrence helps found the Chapel Hill School of Religion

    Lawrence took part in organizing the Chapel Hill School of Religion in 1925-26; funded by the town's churches, it opened its first non-credit courses in the fall of 1926. His papers hold material on it from 1925 and 1926.

  107. Construction or physical change · 206 North Boundary Street, Chapel Hill Brodie Thompson builds a house for historian Henry McGilbert Wagstaff

    For Henry and Mary Wagstaff, Thompson built a two-story frame house at 206 North Boundary Street with a fanlit entrance, a porch with turned balusters, a high hipped roof and a long side porch toward Rosemary Street.

  108. Construction or physical change · 602 East Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill Brodie Thompson builds a house on East Rosemary Street for George and Sarah Pickard

    Contractor Brodie Thompson builds a two-story, five-bay Colonial Revival house for George and Sarah Pickard at the southeast corner of East Rosemary and North Boundary streets.

  109. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Nash designs Spencer Hall, the university's first dormitory for women

    Spencer Hall, designed by Nash and under construction in 1924, opened in 1925 as the first dormitory for women at the University of North Carolina; the trustees gave it Cornelia Phillips Spencer's name in 1927. It was one of a series of dormitories he designed on the campus through the 1920s.

  110. Construction or physical change · Gimghoul Castle, 746 Gimghoul Road, Chapel Hill The Order of Gimghouls begins building its castle

    Work on the Gimghouls' castle off the end of Gimghoul Road began in 1925: some 1,300 tons of stone were hauled to the site, stonemasons came from the Waldensian settlement at Valdese, and Chapel Hill builder Charlie Lee Martindale was general contractor. The order held its first gathering there in May 1926.

  111. Naming or commemoration · UNC campus, Chapel Hill The new chemistry building, Venable Hall, is dedicated

    The university dedicated its new chemistry building in 1925 and named it Venable Hall while Venable was still teaching there.

  112. Construction or physical change · Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill The new Chapel of the Cross church is consecrated

    The Upjohn building, from then on called the Church, was consecrated during Alfred Lawrence's rectorship. The parish timeline notes that male students in the campus ministry resisted including women students.

  113. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Playmakers Theatre opens

    The Carolina Playmakers dedicated their theatre in the remodeled Smith Hall, the 1850s building later used as a library and law school, on Monday, November 23, 1925, with talks by Frederick Koch and President Harry W. Chase and three new folk plays.

  114. Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill Alfred Lawrence publicly opposes fundamentalist attacks on teaching evolution

    The Chapel of the Cross rector took a public stand against fundamentalist efforts to bar the teaching of evolution in public schools, introducing a diocesan resolution against limits on freedom of thought, teaching and research.

  115. Construction or physical change · Jones Log House, 108 Windhover Place, Chapel Hill Durham resident Southgate Jones builds a two-story log summer house on Windhover Place

    Jones patterned the 25-by-30-foot house at 108 Windhover Place on log houses owned by his relatives. An amateur geologist, he gathered the ironstone and petrified wood for its fireplace surround on the site; a stone pumphouse was added in the mid-1930s.

  116. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill, 124 South Boundary Street Nash builds his own house in Chapel Hill

    Nash designed and built a Colonial Revival house in Chapel Hill as his personal residence, at the address now numbered 124 South Boundary Street. The state listed it on the National Register on October 26, 2017 as the property most closely associated with his career.

  117. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill, South Building Nash renovates South Building and adds its portico

    Nash carried out the renovation of South Building and added the portico in 1926 and 1927, part of his remodelling of older campus buildings that also took in Old East, Old West and Gerrard Hall.

  118. Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill William R. Kenan Jr. gives $275,000 for a football stadium

    Kenan announced a gift of 275,000 dollars to build Kenan Memorial Stadium in honor of his parents, William Rand and Mary Hargrave Kenan. Construction began in November 1926.

  119. Construction or physical change · 104 North Boundary Street, Chapel Hill Brodie Thompson builds a brick Colonial Revival house for banker Milton Hogan

    At 104 North Boundary Street, Thompson built a two-story brick house for Milton and Carrie Hogan with a Doric-columned entrance, modillion cornice and one-story side porches.

  120. Construction or physical change · 101-107 North Churton Street, Hillsborough Three brick stores are built at 101-107 North Churton Street after a fire

    After fire destroyed the Berry Building on North Churton Street, three brick stores went up on the site together. Plaques saved from the old building, crediting Captain John Berry in 1869, were set between the new storefronts with one reading 'Rebuilt 1927.'

  121. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Kenan Memorial Stadium opens

    Kenan Memorial Stadium, the gift of William Rand Kenan Jr., hosted its first event on November 12, 1927, when Carolina beat Davidson 27 to 0. It was formally dedicated before the Thanksgiving Day game against Virginia on November 24, when Governor Angus McLean accepted it for the state and the University.

  122. Construction or physical change · Cates House, 108 South Hillsborough Avenue, Hillsborough H. Scott and Alice Cates build a stone house on South Hillsborough Avenue

    A Colonial Revival house faced in rough-coursed stone was built for H. Scott and Alice Cates at South Hillsborough Avenue and West Margaret Lane. It is one of only two stone houses in Hillsborough.

  123. Property or economic transaction · 321 West Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill W. C. Coker buys Dr. Jones's Gothic cottage, which becomes the Chi Psi fraternity house

    In 1928 W. C. Coker bought the property at 321 West Cameron Avenue, and the 1850s Gothic cottage of Dr. Johnston Blakeley Jones became the Chi Psi fraternity's house.

  124. Property or economic transaction · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel Hill University trustees give Chapel Hill three more acres for the cemetery

    Answering an aldermen's petition of June 11, 1928 about crowding, the trustees granted two acres on the east, laid out as Sections III and IV, and an acre on the south that extended the Black Sections A and B. Lot sales went into a maintenance fund overseen by a joint town and faculty committee.

  125. Construction or physical change · 321 West Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill Chi Psi announces a Norman-style house for West Cameron Avenue

    Chi Psi announced plans for a $50,000 Norman-style stone house by the university architects Atwood and Nash on the old McCauley place on Cameron Avenue. The design broke with the campus's Colonial theme: steep slate roof, casement windows with stone trim, an arched entrance and a stone terrace. The old McCauley house, the chapter's home, burned on Christmas night 1929, and in November 1930 the chapter was still without a new house.

  126. Construction or physical change · east of Hillsborough Mack and Julie Rigsbee build a white-quartz country house east of Hillsborough

    Around 1929 the Rigsbees built a rambling story-and-a-half house faced with white quartz on two wooded acres east of Hillsborough, with a quartz wall, garage, pump house and swimming pool to match. Local stories say the couple sold whiskey and hid it in the roof.

  127. Construction or physical change · 114 South Columbia Street, Chapel Hill The Beta Theta Pi fraternity house is completed on South Columbia Street

    The Beta Theta Pi house at 114 South Columbia Street, apart from the fraternity courts, is a brick house laid in Flemish bond with a slate roof and dormers, a Doric portico across the front and wings on each side, set back on a wide lawn.

  128. Disaster or outbreak · 321 West Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill The Gothic cottage serving as the Chi Psi house burns

    Dr. Jones's board-and-batten cottage at 321 West Cameron Avenue burned in 1929, a year after it became the Chi Psi fraternity house. The fraternity's Tudor Revival house now stands on the site.

  129. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill The new University Library, later Wilson Library, is dedicated

    UNC dedicated its new University Library, designed by Arthur Cleveland Nash, on October 19, 1929, weeks after students began using the building that fall. It served as the main campus library for decades, was named for librarian Louis Round Wilson in 1956, and after a 1984 to 1987 renovation became the home of UNC's special collections.

  130. 1930s
  131. Construction or physical change · Alpha Tau Omega house, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Alpha Tau Omega builds a Tudor Gothic house on East Franklin Street

    Architect Courtland Curtis designed Alpha Tau Omega's house on East Franklin Street in Tudor Gothic, one of the few big fraternity houses of the era not in the Colonial Revival mode.

  132. Construction or physical change · Whitfield Road, near Mount Moriah An owner of Durham's Erwin Cotton Mill builds a log retreat above New Hope Creek

    In the 1930s a log house was built on a steep ridge over New Hope Creek, reportedly as a getaway for Mr. Erwin of the Erwin Cotton Mill in Durham. Older log outbuildings, among them a tobacco barn, mark an earlier house site.

  133. Property or economic transaction · Sans Souci, East Corbin Street, Hillsborough Miss Ruffin's will leaves Sans Souci to Samuel T. Latta

    Under the will of Miss Ruffin, proved on March 16 of a year in the 1930s, Sans Souci and her other property went to Samuel T. Latta, who was living there in 1971.

  134. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Nash retires and leaves Chapel Hill, staying on as consulting architect

    Nash retired in 1930 and moved to Washington, D.C., but continued as the university's consulting architect until 1953, advising on later campus work.

  135. Construction or physical change · University Texaco Service Station, SE corner of East Franklin and Columbia streets, Chapel Hill Texaco builds a service station at Franklin and Columbia after the town lets nine elms come down

    To put a station on the southeast corner, Texaco needed nine old elms cut. The town agreed, with reluctance, once the company promised a tasteful yellow building with roses in the planting.

  136. Construction or physical change · 118 North Churton Street, Hillsborough Alexander H. Graham builds a stone law office on Churton Street

    Graham, a former speaker of the state House, tore down the small frame building that held his law office and began a one-story building of local stone with a columned front for himself and his new partner Bonner Sawyer. Its cornerstone reads "Graham Building 1930."

  137. Construction or physical change · Hill Hall, UNC campus The old Carnegie Library is dedicated as the music building

    After the library moved to its new building, the Carnegie Library was remodeled for the music department with an auditorium and a Reuter organ, most of the cost given by the Hill family. It was dedicated on November 14, 1930, and named Hill Music Hall by trustee resolution in the summer of 1931.

  138. Construction or physical change · 115 West King Street, Hillsborough A second storefront is built beside the old general store at 115 West King Street

    A new brick store went up on the west side of an 1880s general store building, the two were joined inside, and the older store got a new front. The pair later housed the Dual Supply hardware store.

  139. Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill University Lodge buys Chapel Hill's old Baptist church for its hall

    University Lodge No. 408 bought the old Baptist church building on Franklin Street and made it into its lodge hall.

  140. Property or economic transaction · Nash Law Office, 143 West Margaret Lane, Hillsborough Hattie V. Brown buys the Nash law office

    Hattie V. Brown bought the half of lot 10 that held the old Nash law office. The property then changed hands several times before the Hillsborough Historical Society bought it in 1970.

  141. Property or economic transaction · 619 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill State senator John Umstead buys the Royster house on East Franklin Street

    In 1933 state senator John Umstead bought the house at 619 East Franklin Street, and it has carried his name since.

  142. Construction or physical change · Cates House, 112 West Union Street, Hillsborough Curry Roberts builds a brick house for the Cates family on West Union Street

    A two-story brick Colonial Revival house was built for the Cates family at 112 West Union Street, set far back on a lot running the depth of the block. Curry Roberts built it and the Black brickmason Roosevelt Warner laid the brick; it replaced an earlier house on the lot.

  143. Construction or physical change · Hillsborough Hillsborough builds the Confederate Memorial Library

    Federal relief crews began a new library on Churton Street in Hillsborough in December 1933, with local money, including $7,000 from the Hillsborough United Daughters of the Confederacy, paying for materials. The cornerstone of the Confederate Memorial Public Library was laid on July 13, 1934, and the building became the Orange County Historical Museum in 1983.

  144. Construction or physical change · R. A. Eubanks general store site, south side of East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Robert A. Eubanks's old general store is torn down

    The store on the south side of East Franklin was razed. The new Carolina Theatre went up on the site in 1942.

  145. Protest or organizing · Campus stone walls, UNC, Chapel Hill A federal plan to replace the campus rock walls with concrete is dropped after protests

    Among the Public Works Administration projects approved in the state was one to replace the stone walls on the Chapel Hill campus with new concrete. Town and campus objected to tearing out Elisha Mitchell's walls, and the approval was withdrawn.

  146. Life event · The Rocks, 609 North Street, Chapel Hill Botanist William C. Coker marries Louise Venable

    William Chambers Coker married Louise Venable, daughter of former UNC president Francis P. Venable, in 1935. After her death in 1983 part of the grounds of The Rocks, the Coker home on North Street, became a public garden in her memory.

  147. Property or economic transaction · Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill The Hill family gives the Carolina Inn to the university

    John Sprunt Hill and his family gave the Carolina Inn, which he had built in 1924, to the university on the condition that its income support the North Carolina Collection.

  148. Property or economic transaction · UNC campus south of the Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill Trustees offer land and the PWA approves a grant for an Institute of Government building

    University trustees agreed to give the Institute a site valued at $15,000 on the western edge of the campus south of the Carolina Inn, the building to go to the university if the Institute ended. The Public Works Administration approved $55,498 for labor, one of 52 grants from 300 applications in the state, toward a building then estimated at $123,000.

  149. Construction or physical change · Roulhac-Hamilton House, 143 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough Dr. Bryan Roberts buys the Roulhac-Hamilton House and remakes it as a brick Colonial Revival house

    In 1936 the Hamilton heirs sold the old Laburnum Cottage on West Tryon Street to Dr. Bryan Roberts and his wife. About 1940 they covered it in brick veneer and added a new Colonial Revival entrance and a two-story rear wing, leaving little of the 1840s house visible.

  150. Founding or opening · West Union and North Nash streets, Hillsborough Orange County builds a brick school for Black students in Hillsboro

    Under a PWA-aided building program the county built an eight-room brick school for Black children in Hillsboro in 1935-36, with an auditorium, steam heat and plumbing. High school grades are first reported there for 1938-39, as the Hillsborough High School for Negroes; it became Central High School.

  151. Property or economic transaction · Berry Brick House, 208 West Queen Street, Hillsborough The Berry Brick House leaves the Berry family after 131 years

    The Berry family sold the West Queen Street brick house in 1936 to Mr. and Mrs. F. S. McLarty, who added rear dormers and perhaps the front ones. The McLartys sold it in 1943 to Mr. and Mrs. F. Ross Porter.

  152. Closing or ending · UNC campus south of the Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill The PWA withdraws its grant for the Institute of Government building

    Coates won two thirty-day extensions, the first from President Roosevelt at Senator Josiah Bailey's request, and in February 1936 was allowed to let a contract on his word that the money was in hand. The promised materials and cash never fully came through, and in the summer of 1936 PWA administrator H. G. Baity rescinded the grant; a brief revival by Interior Secretary Harold Ickes in 1937 also failed.

  153. Property or economic transaction · West Union and North Nash streets, Hillsborough The county school board buys land for a new Black school in Hillsboro

    The Orange County Board of Education bought the Hillsboro colored school site from Louis Wilson and George Mayo, paying $1,100 to each. The new school for Black students went up there that year.

  154. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill A new Chapel Hill High School opens on Columbia Street

    Chapel Hill's new high school for white students, beside the Pittsboro road on what is now South Columbia Street, opened to classes on October 5, 1936, three weeks late. Built for $106,000 with Public Works Administration aid to plans by Atwood and Weeks, it came in the same federal program that built an addition at the Orange County Training School.

  155. Naming or commemoration · Hillsborough Military Academy site, Barracks Road, West Hillsborough The Historic American Buildings Survey records the academy barracks

    By the Depression the empty Barracks of the old military academy sheltered homeless families. In 1937 the Historic American Buildings Survey measured and photographed it, a year before it was torn down.

  156. Property or economic transaction · Parks-Richmond House, 175 West King Street, Hillsborough The Parks family sells the Parks-Richmond House to J. W. and Marguerite Richmond

    The house at 175 West King Street, which D. C. Parks had used as the office, reception room and dining room of his hotel, stayed in the Parks family until 1937, when it was sold to J. W. and Marguerite Richmond. It now operates as the Inn at Teardrops.

  157. Construction or physical change · Parks-Richmond Kitchen, South Wake Street, Hillsborough The Parks-Richmond kitchen is moved west to face South Wake Street

    The kitchen of the Parks-Richmond House, built about 1870, is moved west around 1937 and becomes a house fronting South Wake Street.

  158. Founding or opening · UNC campus, Chapel Hill The first of the new women's dormitories, later Alderman Residence Hall, opens

    Built in 1937 with Public Works Administration money, the university's new women's dormitory, later named for Edwin Alderman for his support of women's education, was occupied by September 1937. Two more women's dormitories, later Kenan and McIver, opened in September 1939.

  159. Construction or physical change · Faucett House, Faucette Mill Road, Hillsborough vicinity F. Vernon Altvater restores the Faucett House and joins a moved early house to it as a wing

    F. Vernon Altvater and his wife, who bought the Faucett House tract in 1937, restored the house between 1938 and 1940 and called it the Coach House. They took down the early 1800s Naile Johnson House from the St. Mary's Road area and rebuilt it as the rear wing.

  160. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill post office opens on Franklin Street

    A new federal post office was built in two stages on the site of the old one at Franklin and Henderson streets, begun in July 1937. Postal workers moved into its rear section early in 1938 while the old building was torn down and the front half built, and the finished post office began full operation on July 5, 1938.

  161. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Town Hall, Rosemary and Columbia streets, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill auctions off its old town hall to clear the site for a new one

    With WPA money available for 45 percent of a new building, the town decided to rebuild on its own lot at Rosemary and Columbia streets. The old town hall, whose courtroom the Weekly called filthy, was sold at auction and hauled away.

  162. Construction or physical change · North side of East Franklin Street opposite Graham Memorial, Chapel Hill Coates clears the old Pickard Hotel and Ledbetter lots on Franklin Street for the Institute building

    With the campus site no longer available, Coates arranged to buy two lots on the north side of Franklin Street facing Graham Memorial, the university-controlled Ledbetter property and the privately owned old Pickard Hotel property, for $8,700. In late September he borrowed to clear them; the old buildings came down, and the excavation filled with water through a wet winter until town officials called it a nuisance.

  163. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove Cedar Grove Methodist Church's stone building goes up

    The stone church replaced earlier facilities serving the congregation. Masons laid its cornerstone in late November 1939 at the request of the pastor, S. F. Nicks.

  164. Construction or physical change · Institute of Government building, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Construction begins on the Institute of Government building on Franklin Street

    A $10,000 gift from Will Reynolds, given after Congressman William Umstead won an IRS ruling that the Institute was a charity, paid for the land. Gifts from Gordon and Bowman Gray covered half of the $50,000 cost and Julian Price's Jefferson Standard Life lent the rest on Coates's signature, against more than half his salary, for a scaled-down Federal-style building of three floors over a raised basement.

  165. Construction or physical change · Cane Creek, about twelve miles southwest of Chapel Hill (7923 Morning Ridge Lane) Sample and Ina Forbus make the old Morrow's Mill on Cane Creek their home

    Sample B. Forbus, later director of Watts Hospital, and the writer Ina B. Forbus bought the 1878 grist mill on Cane Creek in 1938 and converted it into their permanent home in 1939, keeping its hand-hewn beams and setting millstones in the garden. The mill had run until 1930.

  166. Naming or commemoration · Hill Music Hall and Institute of Government building, Chapel Hill House Speaker William Bankhead dedicates the Institute of Government building

    On the eve of Thanksgiving a standing-room crowd in Hill Music Hall heard Bankhead, Governor Clyde Hoey and President Frank Graham praise Coates, with eight of the state's eleven congressmen and former governor O. Max Gardner on hand. A reception followed in Graham Memorial, and guests stayed for the Virginia football game the next day.

  167. 1940s
  168. Construction or physical change · Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill The Carolina Inn completes the first of its rear additions

    The Carolina Inn, which Arthur Nash designed for John Sprunt Hill, gained a rear addition in 1940, the first of three (later ones in 1970 and 1995) that tracked the university's growth.

  169. Closing or ending · Burnside grounds, South Cameron Street, Hillsborough The James Hogg House on the Burnside grounds is torn down

    The house associated with James Hogg, the Revolutionary-era merchant, was demolished in the 1940s. The remains of one chimney still stand northeast of Burnside.

  170. Naming or commemoration · Alexander Dickson House (Johnston headquarters), near the junction of NC 86 and the Durham road, outside Hillsborough Col. John K. Ross-Duggan holds 75th-anniversary exercises at the restored Johnston headquarters house

    Col. John K. Ross-Duggan, who with his wife had restored the Dickson house outside Hillsborough, marked the 75th anniversary of the war's end there with afternoon exercises and a special postal cachet showing the house. A. H. Graham and W. B. Umstead of Durham were to speak.

  171. Life event · Chapel Hill Horace Williams dies and is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    Williams died at eighty-two and was buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. He left all of his property to the university in trust, the income to pay for fellowships in philosophy.

  172. Naming or commemoration · Weaver House, 116 Walters Road, Carrboro Sara Thomas Watters buys the Weaver House and its road takes her name

    Alexander and Leta Hogan, owners since 1910, sold the old Weaver place to Watters. The dirt lane to it, formerly Old Hillsborough Road, was renamed Watters Road about then; a mapmaker misread the name and it has been Walters Road since.

  173. Construction or physical change · NC 54, east of Hatch Road, near Carrboro Walter Creech rebuilds a moved antebellum house as a Colonial Revival home on NC 54

    In 1941 a two-story frame house from before the Civil War was hauled from Chatham County, turned with its gable end to the road and given one-story wings in the Colonial Revival manner.

  174. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Construction begins on the Negro Community Center

    Work on the Negro Community Center began on January 9, 1941, with Clarence Webb directing a crew of 20 and Charles Craig, the Black architect and contractor who drew the plans, helping supervise. A WPA grant paid most of the cost, and Black masons, carpenters and other workers donated their labor.

  175. Appointment, election or service · Central High School (now Hillsborough Elementary), 402 North Nash Street, Hillsborough A. L. Stanback succeeds E. C. Hester as principal of Hillsborough's high school for Black students

    Albert Leon Stanback, a teacher at the Hillsboro High School for Negroes, replaced its first principal, E. C. Hester, in 1942. The school took the name Central High School the next year, and Stanback later pushed for the Cedar Grove consolidated school to take the lower grades.

  176. Construction or physical change · Cabe-Pratt-Harris House (Riverbend Farm), off Pleasant Green Road near the Eno River Douglas and Frances Hill buy the Cabe-Pratt-Harris House and add a large rear wing

    The Hills bought the house and about 180 acres from the Harris family in 1942 and soon added a rear wing, removing the old boxed stair to the loft. The farm's later name, Riverbend Farm, dates from the twentieth century.

  177. Disaster or outbreak · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill High School burns

    Fire destroyed the Chapel Hill high school building on South Columbia Street, then the Pittsboro highway, early on Saturday, August 8, 1942. The school board arranged to hold grades 10 to 12 in rooms at the Baptist church and the ninth grade at the elementary school, and wartime material shortages delayed a new building for years.

  178. Construction or physical change · Hasell-Nash House, 116 West Queen Street, Hillsborough Dr. H. W. Moore restores the Hasell-Nash House with architect Archie Royal Davis

    Dr. H. W. Moore restored the Federal-style Hasell-Nash House on West Queen Street with the help of architect Archie Royal Davis, who extended the rear of the two side wings around 1943.

  179. Construction or physical change · Old Orange County Courthouse, 104 East King Street, Hillsborough The 1844 Orange County Courthouse is rehabilitated

    The county rehabilitated its courthouse of about 1844 in 1943 and later added an annex, but the building stayed too small, and a new courthouse was finished just south of it in 1954.

  180. Naming or commemoration · West Union and North Nash streets, Hillsborough The Hillsborough High School for Negroes takes the name Central High School

    Under principal A. L. Stanback, the school for Black students in Hillsborough changed its name to Central High School in 1943.

  181. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

  182. Property or economic transaction · Hill House, West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill John Scott Trotter sells the Hill House on West Franklin Street to the Baptist church

    Trotter sold the Hill House, next to the Baptist church, to the congregation, which went on renting out its apartments. In 1958 the town's first public library opened in one of its rooms.

  183. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill The Negro Community Center opens for community use

    After the Navy Pre-Flight School wound down, the community center returned to town control on October 24, 1945 and opened to Black residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. By December a nursery school filled the basement, and an all-Black board chaired by Hubert Roberson ran the building under the Town Recreation Commission.

  184. Construction or physical change · 405 West Franklin Street, at Kenan Street, Chapel Hill An old house said to contain part of the Nunn Tavern is moved across Kenan Street for the bus station

    To clear the lot for the new bus station, a large two-story house was hauled across Kenan Street to 405 West Franklin, where W. W. McCauley later lived. Bryant traces the house to a section of the Nunn Tavern of about 1776, which had already been moved to this lot in 1923 when the Baptist church was built at Franklin and Columbia.

  185. Statistic or record · West Union and North Nash streets, Hillsborough Central High School adds a twelfth grade

    Central High School, the county's high school for Black students in Hillsborough, added a twelfth grade for the 1946-47 school year. By 1949-50 it served 443 elementary and 206 high school students.

  186. Construction or physical change · Hillsborough The county board approves twelve classrooms and a gymnasium for Central School

    The board approved a building program of twelve classrooms and a gymnasium at Central, the county's school for Black students in Hillsborough.

  187. Construction or physical change · 132 North Churton Street, Hillsborough A wartime Army garage from Camp Butner is moved to North Churton Street

    A one-story garage of concrete block and weatherboard, built at Camp Butner in 1942, was moved to 132 North Churton Street in Hillsborough in 1947. It still has five of its original wooden overhead doors.

  188. Migration or settlement · Chapel Hill Architect James Webb moves to Chapel Hill to help start UNC's planning program

    James Webb, an architect and planner trained at Berkeley and MIT who had worked for William Wurster, came to Chapel Hill in 1947 to help John Parker set up the university's program in city and regional planning. He taught there until 1975 and kept a private practice that brought San Francisco Bay area modernism to the town.

  189. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill The first section of the new Chapel Hill High School opens on West Franklin Street

    After five years in borrowed rooms, Chapel Hill's white high school moved into a new building on West Franklin Street, whose first section was paid for largely with insurance money from the 1942 fire. That section was nearly ready in late 1946, and the 1947 school year opened with an assembly in front of the new building.

  190. Construction or physical change · Colonial Inn, West King Street, Hillsborough Paul Henderson reopens the restored Colonial Inn in Hillsborough

    Col. Paul Henderson bought the run-down inn on West King Street in 1946 and restored it as a hotel and dining room, managed by Martin Henderson. About 100 people came to the formal opening of the dining hall, a Hillsboro Merchants Association dinner addressed by R. B. House.

  191. Construction or physical change · Round Hill Road, Chapel Hill Architect James Webb designs a modernist house on Round Hill Road for Norman Eliason

    One of Webb's first Chapel Hill commissions was a modest low-gabled house for English professor Norman Eliason and his wife, with a broad carport at the front and a covered walk leading to the door.

  192. Construction or physical change · Montrose, 320 St. Mary's Road, Hillsborough Lt. Gov. Alexander Graham has Watts Carr remodel Montrose as a Colonial Revival house

    In 1948 Lt. Gov. Alexander Graham and his wife hired Durham architect Watts Carr to turn the Victorian house at Montrose into a Colonial Revival one, with a high hipped roof, side wings and a Georgian Revival entrance. Carr helped work in mantels, doors and trim from old Orange County houses, including double doors from the Burwell School.

  193. Disaster or outbreak · 115 Battle Lane, Chapel Hill Fire damages the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority house, the old Graham home on Battle Lane

    A fire that began in the attic of the Alpha Gamma Delta house on Battle Lane, built for Edward Kidder Graham and still owned by his son, did about $6,000 in damage and left nine students without a home. Students carried out the furniture within ten minutes while a crowd of about 650 watched.

  194. Statistic or record · Central High School, North Nash and West Union streets, Hillsborough Central High's 1949-50 reports show 649 pupils and crowded classrooms

    Central High School served 443 elementary and 206 high school students with twelve and eight teachers. Its library of 1,120 books also served the Black community, but nine of its eleven elementary classrooms were too small.

  195. Property or economic transaction · Moorefields, SR 1135, near Hillsborough Edward T. Draper-Savage buys Moorefields and begins restoring it

    Edward T. Draper-Savage, related to the Moore family by marriage, acquired Moorefields and began its restoration. The 1972 nomination found the house in excellent condition.

  196. Chapel Hill Jim and John Webb design the Spearman house, the first of their Whitehead Circle houses

    The Webb firm designed a house at 418 Whitehead Circle for Walter Spearman of the UNC School of Journalism and his wife Mary, placed around a large rock that juts from the site. It was the first of five houses the brothers designed on the street.

  197. Chapel Hill Jim and John Webb open their office in the old Methodist church on Rosemary Street

    The brothers opened a planning and architecture practice in the left side of the 1853 Methodist church at Rosemary and Henderson streets, which had been used as a garage. In the early 1970s they bought the building and turned all of it into offices.

  198. Washington, D.C. A federal appeals court awards the Ackland Trust to the university at Chapel Hill

    After Duke refused Ackland's bequest, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled for UNC-Chapel Hill over Rollins College, citing the university's finances, its graduate arts program and its nearness to Duke.

  199. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Morehead Planetarium is dedicated

    Morehead Planetarium was dedicated at UNC on May 10, 1949.

  200. Appointment, election or service · Orange County Norma Snipes is appointed supervisor of the county schools for Black children

    In July 1949 the county named Norma Snipes, formerly a Jeans teacher who trained teachers, as supervisor of its schools for Black children.

  201. Property or economic transaction · Maple Hill (Jacob Jackson Farm), 2314 St. Mary's Road, near Hillsborough D. E. and Marie Hollandsworth buy Maple Hill and begin restoring it

    D. E. and Marie B. Hollandsworth bought the Jacob Jackson farmhouse on St. Mary's Road and restored its Federal block and Greek Revival wing, adding bathrooms and heat. Mrs. Hollandsworth and her daughter still owned it when it was listed in the National Register in 1994.

  202. 1950s
  203. Construction or physical change · The Barnstable, 110 Walters Road, Carrboro A Weaver farm barn is rebuilt as a house, the Barnstable

    While Sara Watters owned the Weaver House she deeded its two-story board-and-batten barn and several acres to her sister, a Charlotte interior decorator. The sister made it a dwelling with log and frame wings built from salvaged materials.

  204. Chapel Hill Jim and John Webb design a house on Stagecoach Road for Earl Wynn

    The brothers designed a long house set at an angle to the road at 900 Stagecoach Road for Earl Wynn, head of UNC's radio, motion picture and television department, with low overhanging gables, a central clerestory, vertical pine siding and bands of windows.

  205. Construction or physical change · Nash House, 124 South Boundary Street, Chapel Hill The Nash house's open sleeping porch is enclosed and a flat-roofed carport is added

    The same round of changes enclosed the rear porch, covered the original fanlight over the back door and added French doors. The nomination judges these changes minor and reversible.

  206. Construction or physical change · 412 Whitehead Circle, Chapel Hill The Webb brothers design a Whitehead Circle house for Bill and Ida Friday

    In the early 1950s James and John Webb designed a group of similar Bay area style houses on Whitehead Circle for young faculty families. The one built for William and Ida Friday at 412 Whitehead Circle is a long, plain rectangle whose translucent back wall looks out into the woods.

  207. Construction or physical change · Hume house, West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill The pre-Civil War Hume house is moved across the Chapel Hill High School grounds

    To clear ground for a new high school building, the pre-Civil War house known in turn as the Hume, Hogan and Cone house was put on rollers and moved to the west edge of the school lot, still facing Franklin Street, for use as offices and classrooms.

  208. Construction or physical change · 407 Whitehead Circle, Chapel Hill James Webb designs a house on Whitehead Circle for Joseph and Pearl Morrison

    Architect James Webb designed a modern house at 407 Whitehead Circle for Joseph L. Morrison, a member of the university's journalism faculty, and his wife Pearl. The Morrisons lived there for more than fifty years; the house was sold in 2010.

  209. Disaster or outbreak · Lochiel, northwest of Hillsborough (Benton Mill Road) Lochiel, the Fagan family home outside Hillsborough, burns to the ground

    Fire destroyed the Fagan home, the three-story frame house known as Lochiel, on a Saturday afternoon while no one was home. Only a few pieces of furniture were saved, and onlookers following the fire truck blocked it on the way back from refilling.

  210. Construction or physical change · 618 Morgan Creek Road, Chapel Hill Architect George Matsumoto draws plans for Dr. Isaac Taylor's house on Morgan Creek Road

    George Matsumoto of the State College School of Design drew the plans for the house of Dr. Isaac M. Taylor, new to the medical school faculty, in Morgan Creek Hills. The Taylors raised their children there, among them the singer James Taylor.

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A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. 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. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. 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 October 2, 2026.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026