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Recent decades · 1976–2026
- 2000s
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Lee Smith, Randall Kenan and Allan Gurganus gather with other authors at Brick Alley Books
Kenan, Lee Smith and Allan Gurganus shared stories at a gathering of authors at Brick Alley Books in Hillsborough. The Daily Tar Heel used the evening to report on the town as a home for writers, quoting Smith, Gurganus, Kenan, poet laureate Mike Troy and photographer Elizabeth Matheson.
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Carrboro adopts an anti-lingering ordinance at the Jones Ferry and Davie roads day-labor corner
After neighbors complained about conditions at the corner where day laborers, many of them Latino, waited for contractors, the Board of Aldermen approved an ordinance barring waiting at the intersection of Jones Ferry and Davie roads from 11 a.m. to 5 a.m. In September 2007 the board had also approved an action plan and a motion to create a designated space for day laborers.
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Lydia Lavelle is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen
In her first run for office Lavelle led the field of aldermen candidates with 1,656 votes, about 25 percent, ahead of two-term incumbent Joal Hall Broun and Dan Coleman. She lived in the northern part of town Carrboro had recently annexed, and Mayor Mark Chilton read her first-place finish as a sign that voters were ready to move past the annexation fight.
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Daniel Okun dies in Chapel Hill
Okun, Kenan Professor of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, died in Chapel Hill of complications of leukemia at age 90.
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The Rathskeller on Amber Alley closes over unpaid taxes
Owner Francis Henry shut the Rathskeller in December 2007 after it failed to pay withholding taxes, ending a restaurant Ted Danziger had opened in 1948. Its contents were sold at auction in February 2008.
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A four-story brick parking deck is built at Nash and Kollock streets
A four-story parking deck with a brick veneer and a corner stair and elevator tower was built in 2008 at 104-106 Nash and Kollock streets, with pilasters copying those on the Gateway Center on South Churton Street.
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A fourth resettlement agency opens as Orange County arrivals stay high
Orange County recorded 194 refugee direct arrivals in fiscal year 2008-2009, from Burma, Bhutan, Iran and Iraq. The Triangle office of Church World Service opened as a fourth resettlement agency.
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David Caldwell retires as a sheriff's lieutenant to organize in Rogers Road full time
Caldwell joined the sheriff's department in 1985 after returning to the area and retired as a lieutenant in 2008 to work full time on community and social justice work. He became project director and community organizer for the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association.
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Orange County's 2030 Comprehensive Plan places county growth within the Triangle economy
The Land Use Element of Orange County's 2030 Comprehensive Plan says the county, as an integral part of the Triangle, grew nearly 50 percent from 1980 to an estimated 121,991 in 2005, and names the Research Triangle Park as part of its region, calling jobs and economic conditions a frequent catalyst for changes in population and land use. It also records the 1984 Joint Planning Agreement with Chapel Hill, extended to Carrboro in 1987, and the 1986 rural buffer plan.
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The Gateway Center replaces the old post office building at 228 South Churton Street
The commercial building put up at 228 South Churton Street to house the post office is torn down around 2007, and the three-story Gateway Center, with shops on the ground floor and government offices above, is built on the site in 2008.
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Three alumni recreate the walk attributed to Hinton James and finish at the Old Well
Nick Becketti, Bryan Jones and Whitney Reeds set out from the coast near Wilmington in the summer of 2008 to repeat the roughly 170-mile walk attributed to Hinton James. The university says the two-week trip ended at the Old Well in Chapel Hill.
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UNC opens a second computer science building named for Brooks
UNC built a second computer science building beside Sitterson Hall and named it for Brooks, who was still working in the department; he kept his office in Sitterson Hall.
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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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Valerie Foushee finishes her UNC degree
Foushee had left the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after two years and returned later to finish, graduating in 2008 with a degree in political science and African and Afro-American studies. She was by then an Orange County commissioner.
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The Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District is enlarged in the National Register
On January 30, 2008 the National Park Service listed a boundary increase for the Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District, enlarging the district in the National Register of Historic Places.
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Eve Carson, UNC’s Student Body President, is killed
Eve Marie Carson, 22, UNC's student body president and a Morehead-Cain Scholar from Athens, Georgia, was abducted from her Chapel Hill home early on March 5, 2008, robbed and shot on Hillcrest Road near campus. Demario Atwater pleaded guilty in 2010, and a Hillsborough jury convicted Laurence Lovette on December 20, 2011.
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Thousands gather on Polk Place to remember Eve Carson
On the day student body president Eve Carson was killed, thousands gathered on UNC's Polk Place for a moment of silence.
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Jay Miller buys the empty Murphey School and begins restoring it
Jay Miller bought the school, vacant since 1986, in March 2008 and began restoring it with the State Historic Preservation Office for use as a retreat center for nonprofit groups and a rental site for events.
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Fred Battle steps down as president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP
Fred Battle announced his resignation as president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP after almost fifteen years in the post, during which he helped revive the branch. First vice president Eugene Farrar was to succeed him on June 1.
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Holden Thorp serves as tenth chancellor at Chapel Hill
Thorp, a UNC alumnus and chemist, took office on July 1, 2008 and spent his first day with student leaders at the Campus Y. He left in 2013 to become provost at Washington University in St. Louis.
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Allan Gurganus speaks at Holden Thorp's installation as chancellor
At the University Day ceremony on Polk Place installing Holden Thorp as UNC's tenth chancellor, Gurganus, who had known Thorp since childhood, spoke before Thorp's address and hailed a North Carolinian as chancellor.
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Reviewers reject the Reverend Archibald Currie House
Staff recommended against the Orange County house because of alterations and a lack of architectural significance, and on October 16, 2008 the committee voted unanimously to follow staff on the central and southeastern requests.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2008 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Notre Dame, 2–1, in the national final.
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Commissioners drop Eubanks Road and choose two other transfer station candidates
Conceding that the 2007 choice had not adequately weighed its effect on Rogers Road, the commissioners voted 5 to 1 to pursue two other sites, the 143-acre Howell property and an OWASA tract in Bingham Township.
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Burma Art Therapy Project begins in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools
The Art Therapy Institute began a school-based art therapy program for adolescent refugees from Burma in partnership with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and the refugee community in Orange County. A later UNC evaluation estimated that about 400 Burmese families lived in the county.
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North Carolina Cancer Hospital opens
The North Carolina Cancer Hospital opened as the clinical home of UNC Lineberger.
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Orange County builds a three-story office building on West Margaret Lane
The three-story brick Orange County Government Offices building at 131 West Margaret Lane, fifteen bays wide, went up behind the site of the new main library; it was under construction in 2008 aerial photographs and is dated 2009.
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Penny Rich is elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council
Rich won a seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council in 2009 and served until 2012, working on land use, planning, public transit, affordable housing and economic development.
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Work begins on improvements to Fairview Park
Construction started in 2009 on parking, playgrounds, picnic shelters and basketball courts at the park, which had until then been little more than the residents' ball field.
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Lucinda Munger becomes Orange County library services director
Lucinda Munger became library services director for Orange County, heading the main library in Hillsborough and three branches.
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Sheriff Pendergrass defends Orange County's enrollment in Secure Communities
At a county commissioners' meeting, Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass explained his decision to enroll the Orange County jail in the federal Secure Communities pilot, which checks the fingerprints of people booked into jail against federal databases including immigration records. Commissioners, who had resolved in 2007 not to join the 287(g) program, raised concerns but took no action.
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The first Eve Marie Carson Scholar is announced
Students, friends and family turned Carson's plan for a student-run scholarship into the Eve Marie Carson Scholarship. The first scholar, a junior, received funding for a summer experience and aid toward senior-year tuition.
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Rebuilt Boshamer Stadium opens on Ridge Road
UNC opened its $26 million rebuilt baseball stadium, on the footprint of the old Boshamer, with a home opener against VMI before about 2,800 fans. Work began in October 2007, and the field was named Bryson Field.
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Cliff's Meat Market is honored for serving Carrboro's Spanish-speaking customers
Cliff's Meat Market in Carrboro received Orange County's Pauli Murray Award in the business category; owner Cliff Collins was nominated for reaching out to the Spanish-speaking community. The butcher shop, open since 1973, had hired Latino staff as Spanish-speaking customers began asking for cuts in Spanish.
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Commissioners reject closing the Carrboro and Cedar Grove branch libraries
Facing recession cuts while opening the new Hillsborough main library, the county manager proposed closing the Carrboro branch at McDougle School and the Cedar Grove branch and moving their staff to the new building. After opposition from Commissioner Mike Nelson, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen and residents, commissioners rejected the closures and used reserve funds to staff the new library in the budget adopted in June 2009.
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Several thousand gather in the Pit on the anniversary of Eve Carson's death
Students, faculty and staff met in the Pit, where friends spoke about Carson, Chancellor Holden Thorp recalled her service, the Clef Hangers sang and the Bell Tower tolled Hark the Sound.
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Chapel Hill council received the Rogers Road Small Area Plan Task Force's final report
Council members Mark Kleinschmidt and Bill Strom presented the report, and the council voted 9 to 0 to send it to advisory boards, Carrboro, Orange County, OWASA and the city schools, with a joint public hearing planned for October 2009. Rev. Robert Campbell of RENA thanked the council for giving the community a voice.
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UNC men’s basketball wins the 2009 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Michigan State, 89–72, to win the national title.
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Marian Cheek Jackson Center opens at St. Joseph CME Church
The Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History held its ribbon cutting on the second floor of the H.W. Baldwin Fellowship Hall at St. Joseph C.M.E. Church. It is named for Marian Cheek Jackson, the church historian and lifelong Pine Knolls resident.
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UNC's library exhibited Rogers Road family histories drawn from Emily Eidenier Pearce's book
The exhibit We're All Family Here: Preserving Community Heritage in the Rogers Road Neighborhood of Chapel Hill introduced families who had shaped the area from the 1700s on. It was inspired by Pearce's 2009 history Rogers Road, which RENA presents as part of its History Project.
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Town Council approves the Carolina North development agreement and U-1 zoning
After ten joint work sessions with trustees and hearings on May 11, June 15 and June 22, the Town Council approved a 20-year development agreement for Carolina North and rezoned the in-town portion of the tract to University-1, authorizing about 3 million square feet on 133 acres.
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Merge Records marks its 20th anniversary with the XX Merge festival
The label held four nights at Cat's Cradle and a finale at UNC's Memorial Hall, with film screenings at the Ackland Art Museum and a free show at the Orange County Social Club in Carrboro.
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Murphey School is listed in the National Register
On August 20, 2009 the National Park Service listed Murphey School near Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
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The Greenbridge condominium towers topped out on West Rosemary Street
The 10-story and 7-story Greenbridge towers, with 98 condominium units, rose on the former Black business block that had held the Mason Motel. Northside residents opposed the project in an open letter, and restaurant owner Mildred "Mama Dip" Council said rising property values threatened her business.
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Chapel Hill dedicates the Peace and Justice Plaza marker
The town unveiled a granite marker at Peace and Justice Plaza, in front of the old post office on Franklin Street, naming nine local activists: Charlotte Adams, Hank Anderson, James Brittian, Joe Herzenberg, Mildred Ringwalt, Hubert Robinson, Joe Straley, Lucy Straley and Gloria Williams. The Town Council had named the plaza in 2006 and set criteria for later honorees.
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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.
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Commissioner Mike Nelson announces he will not seek re-election
County Commissioner and former Carrboro mayor Mike Nelson announced that he would not run for re-election to the Orange County board.
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Mark Kleinschmidt is elected mayor of Chapel Hill
Kleinschmidt won 4,006 votes to Matt Czajkowski's 3,766 with all 21 precincts reporting, succeeding Kevin Foy, who had endorsed him. He was Chapel Hill's first openly gay mayor and the third openly gay man elected mayor in North Carolina, after Mike Nelson in Carrboro.
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UNC field hockey wins the 2009 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2009 NCAA field hockey title against Maryland.
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Flyleaf Books opens
Flyleaf Books, an independent bookstore in the Midtown Market shopping center on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Chapel Hill, opened in November 2009 with a soft opening set for November 16. Jamie Fiocco, Sarah Carr and Land Arnold ran the store, and its grand opening followed on January 9, 2010.
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Sammy Slade is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen
Slade, a carpenter with a psychology degree from UNC who was raised in Bogota and Chapel Hill, won a seat on the Board of Aldermen in November 2009 and was reelected in 2013. He went on to serve fourteen years on the town's governing board.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2009 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Stanford, 1–0, in the national final.
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Commissioners vote to truck county trash to Durham's transfer station
After OWASA refused to sell or swap land for a transfer station and Chapel Hill withdrew its Millhouse Road property, the Board of Commissioners voted to haul county trash to Durham's transfer station for three to five years while the towns and county weighed a longer-term plan.
- 2010s
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2010 census counts the Hispanic or Latino population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill
The 2010 census counted 11,017 Hispanic or Latino residents in Orange County, 2,603 in Chapel Hill and 1,921 in Carrboro, as compiled in the NC Office of State Budget and Management's LINC Census Population dataset.
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El Centro Hispano opens a Carrboro office
El Centro Hispano, founded in Durham in 1992, added a Carrboro office in 2010 after El Centro Latino closed. It planned a resources office, legal and tax clinic, tutoring, ESL classes and an HIV prevention program at Carrboro Plaza on N.C. 54, beside a new Latino Community Credit Union branch.
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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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RENA opened its first community center on Edgar Road
Three years after incorporating as a nonprofit, the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association opened a small community center on Edgar Road so the neighborhood had a place of its own to gather and run programs.
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The 2010 census counts the Asian American population of Carrboro and Chapel Hill
Asian Americans were 8 percent of Carrboro's 19,582 residents and 12 percent of Chapel Hill's 57,233. Chinese residents were the largest Asian group in both towns, while people from Burma made up a fifth of Carrboro's Asian population and 6 percent of Chapel Hill's; 24 percent of Carrboro residents and 16 percent of Chapel Hill's were born abroad.
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The Cameron coachman's quarters on South Cameron Street are restored
The one-room brick coachman's quarters built about 1830 for Paul Cameron's Burnside estate, which had lost its roof and chimney, is carefully restored around 2010 at 209 South Cameron Street.
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Transplanting Traditions Community Farm begins with refugee farmers from Burma
Kelly Owensby started Transplanting Traditions in 2010 with three years of federal Office of Refugee Resettlement funding, after meeting Karen families at a community garden run by the Orange County Partnership for Young Children. In the first year 44 people from Burma turned a pasture into a farm.
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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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UNC discloses possible academic misconduct in its football program
An NCAA and university inquiry into agent benefits to football players, set off by a player's tweet on May 31, 2010, turned up possible academic misconduct by a tutor, which Thorp announced at a press conference. Later investigation found grade changes and classes that did not meet in the African and Afro-American studies department.
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UNC starts the Building Integrated Communities program
The Latino Migration Project began Building Integrated Communities, which Gill co-founded, to help North Carolina local governments plan with immigrant and refugee residents. Each partner community works with the program for about two years.
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Orange County Main Library opens on Margaret Lane
The county's new 23,500-square-foot Main Library at 137 West Margaret Lane in Hillsborough held its grand opening on January 8, 2010, after planning that began with a task force in 2000 and a groundbreaking in April 2008. It added a teen center, a 90-person meeting room and a local history area.
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Ralph Frasier speaks at the Sonja Haynes Stone Center
Ralph Frasier, one of UNC's first three Black undergraduates, gave a free public talk in the Hitchcock Room of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History. He had left the university in 1958 without a degree.
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The Eve Marie Carson Garden is dedicated on Polk Place
UNC dedicated a garden behind the Campus Y in memory of Eve Carson and of all students who die before they graduate. A stone slab carries a quotation from her, and private gifts paid for it.
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Daniel H. Pollitt dies in Chapel Hill
Pollitt died in Chapel Hill on March 5, 2010. His honors included the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the Thomas Jefferson Award and the Order of the Golden Fleece.
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The Eno Cotton Mill joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Eno Cotton Mill in West Hillsborough on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
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Chapel Hill adopts an inclusionary zoning ordinance
The Town Council unanimously passed an ordinance requiring for-sale developments of five or more units to make 10 to 15 percent of them affordable to households earning 65 to 80 percent of area median income, or to give land, housing or cash in lieu. It took effect in 2011 and does not cover rental projects.
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The Chapel Hill Museum closes its physical site
The Chapel Hill Museum closed to the public on July 11, 2010, after 14 years in the town-owned former library building on East Franklin Street. Its trustees said the Town Council's budget offer of $20,250 fell short of the $49,000 supporters had sought for building upkeep, and staff planned to find new homes for its artifacts.
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Orange County Public Library begins lending eBooks and Kindles
In the 2010-11 budget year the library added an eBook collection and Kindle readers, provided through donations from the Friends of the Orange County Public Library. The next year it added an OverDrive eBook collection for download to patrons' own devices.
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Orange County Public Library forms a Teen Advisory Board
The library completed its first year of teen programming in the 2010-11 budget year and established a Teen Advisory Board.
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Orange County closes the Cedar Grove Branch Library
The county closed the Cedar Grove Branch Library, northern Orange County's only staffed library, effective August 1, 2010, citing 502 registered borrowers and a cost per patron far above other branches. Its materials and computers went to the main library and the Cybrary, and some Cedar Grove items were reused in 40 Literacy Bag outreach kits.
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UNC honors its first three Black undergraduates, 55 years on
John Lewis Brandon and LeRoy and Ralph Frasier returned to UNC for a weekend of tributes marking 55 years since they enrolled, including a Friday dinner at which the Rev. William Barber called them heroes.
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The Captain John S. Pope Farm joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Captain John S. Pope Farm near Cedar Grove on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
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Brick memorial holding three recovered gravestones is dedicated at Margaret Lane Cemetery
A brick monument designed and built by town employee Sam Dunevant was unveiled at the cemetery entrance, holding three gravestones recovered during earlier restoration, for Daniel Whitted, W. O. Parker and Nancy Wheatting. About fifty people attended, including descendants, and Mayor Tom Stevens spoke.
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First Big Star's Third concert is staged at Cat's Cradle
Stamey served as musical director for a live staging of Big Star's 1975 album Third, which debuted at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro before later shows in London and at South by Southwest in 2012.
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Karen Shelton receives UNC's C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award
The university gave Shelton its C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award for her long service to Carolina. She had been inducted into the campus honor society the Order of the Golden Fleece in March 2002.
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Occaneechi Band pays off its land and moves the tribal office to the homeland site
The band paid its land mortgage in full and relocated its tribal office to the Homeland Preservation Project site in Alamance County.
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Transplanting Traditions begins farming at the Irvin Nature Preserve
After Triangle Land Conservancy began working with the farm in 2010 to find more land, Transplanting Traditions held its first growing season at the conservancy's J. Logan and Elinor Moore Irvin Nature Preserve, off Jones Ferry Road, in 2011.
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James Taylor wins the National Medal of Arts
The White House named James Taylor among the 2010 National Medal of Arts recipients for his contributions to American music, citing his voice, his guitar playing and his catalogue of songs. President Obama presented the medals at the White House on March 2, 2011.
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Orange County commissioners raised the landfill tipping fee to pay for Rogers Road remediation
Commissioners raised the tipping fee from $52 to $57 a ton to create a remediation fund of about $50,000 to $60,000 a year for water and sewer connections, cleanup of illegal dumping and a community center in Rogers Road. The county also moved $750,000 out of its solid waste reserve for the same purpose. Chapel Hill and Carrboro objected to the timing of the fee.
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UNC graduates wear Alexander Julian's true-blue recycled gowns
UNC's new commencement gowns, designed by Alexander Julian in true Carolina blue with white piping and made from recycled plastic bottles in North and South Carolina mills, were first worn at the May 2011 Commencement.
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The A & M Grill in Mebane closes after 63 years
The A & M Grill, run by three generations of the McAdams family, served its last meals at 401 East Center Street. Co-founder George Crawford Amick died three weeks later.
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Commissioners drop a proposed bookmobile and fund year-round Sunday hours at the main library
The manager's recommended 2011-12 budget included $317,315 for a new bookmobile, $252,500 of it to finance the vehicle. Commissioners did not approve it and instead allocated $128,500 to expand service, including 60 hours a week with year-round Sundays at the main library from September 1, more Kindles, and more money for books, databases and programs.
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Council freezes building in Northside and Pine Knolls for six months
The council voted 7-0 for a six-month development moratorium in Northside and Pine Knolls, backdated to May 23, 2011, while a community plan was drafted. Jackson Center staff helped organize residents in support.
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Rebecca Clark's name is added to the Peace and Justice Plaza plaque
Clark, Yonni Chapman, the Rev. Charles M. Jones and Dan Pollitt were honored after their deaths for their work for civil rights, social justice and equality in Chapel Hill. Their names were added to the plaque at Peace and Justice Plaza, in front of the historic post office on Franklin Street.
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Demonstrators re-read Julian Carr's 1913 dedication speech at the monument and unveil a mock plaque
A campus demonstration read Carr's dedication-day speech aloud at the statue and unveiled a new plaque of its own giving the monument's history. The Daily Tar Heel reported a further Real Silent Sam movement protest on the statue's history later that month.
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The Eno Cotton Mill is listed in the National Register
On September 1, 2011 the National Park Service listed the Eno Cotton Mill in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
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Speaker Ban marker dedicated at the McCorkle Place wall
On University Day a bronze marker naming the twelve student plaintiffs was dedicated at the wall where Wilkinson and Aptheker spoke, a gift of Anne Dickson Fogleman and Robert Dickson.
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Karen Community of North Carolina is incorporated in Chapel Hill
The Karen Community of North Carolina was registered as a nonprofit corporation with a Chapel Hill principal office and Eh Tha Pwee as registered agent. In May 2012 he estimated that about 400 Karen families lived in Orange County.
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Commissioners decide not to extend the life of the landfill
The Board of Commissioners voted not to extend the landfill and approved cleanup of 50 illegal dump sites. In April 2011 it had postponed a decision on deepening the landfill, which could have added capacity to 2018.
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UNC men’s soccer wins the 2011 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Charlotte to win the 2011 NCAA men’s soccer championship.
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Asian Americans are the largest racial minority in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools and in Chapel Hill
By 2012 Asian Americans outnumbered every other minority group in the school district and in the town of Chapel Hill. In 2012-13 they were 15 percent of district students and 31 percent at Seawell Elementary, where many Chinese immigrant families had settled.
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Asif Khan founds the Refugee Community Partnership
Asif Khan, then a UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduate, founded the Refugee Community Partnership to strengthen support networks among refugee families in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. The organization, now based in Carrboro, runs help lines that include Karen and Burmese.
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Penny Rich is elected to the Orange County Board of Commissioners
Rich was elected a county commissioner in 2012 and served two terms, to 2020, working on economic development, job creation, affordable housing, transportation and social justice.
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Section 74A parents organize to stay out of the Northside redistricting
Parents in the Larkspur, Parkside and Northwood neighborhoods, most of the vocal ones recent Chinese immigrants, started an online group, met at the Chinese school, petitioned the board with hundreds of signatures and wrote letters to the Chapel Hill News. They backed Plan 4.1, the only draft that kept their children at Seawell, and drew up alternative assignment plans of their own.
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The Asian American Parent Advisory Council declines to back the Section 74A parents
The council, a parent group formed to represent Asian American families in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, said in a letter to the Chapel Hill News that it did not see the redistricting as a racial matter and would not join the opposition. Its vice chair said she also hoped to counter a growing belief that Asian American parents were racist.
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The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board decides to build a new Northside Elementary on the old school's site
The board announced a new elementary school on the grounds of the Northside school that had closed in 1966, to carry the Northside name. Black families in the Northside neighborhood, whose children had been bused to other schools for decades, welcomed it as a return of their school.
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UNC confers an honorary Doctor of Laws on Thomas W. Lambeth
The university gave Lambeth an honorary degree for public service and philanthropy, citing his two years as chair of its Board of Trustees.
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Council adopts the Northside and Pine Knolls community plan
The council approved three resolutions under the plan, amending both conservation districts with building rules effective February 1, 2012 and a four-vehicle-per-lot parking limit effective September 1, 2012.
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Commissioners set the landfill's closing date and created the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood Task Force
On the night the Orange County commissioners voted to close the landfill on June 30, 2013, they also authorized an eight-member task force, with two members each from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, the county and RENA, to recommend how to deliver sewer service and a community center and how to guard against displacement. An interim report was due that August and a final report to the Assembly of Governments on December 6, 2012.
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Carrboro aldermen approve criteria for siting a freestanding library
The Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to approve criteria, recommended to the Orange County commissioners, for siting a freestanding southwest Orange County library in Carrboro, whose county branch was then housed in McDougle School. Aldermen ranked transit, walking and cycling access first, while Nerys Levy of the Friends of the Carrboro Branch Library asked for ample parking for older patrons and stressed access to computers and information.
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New Roots interview records the history of the Spanish Mass at St. Thomas More
Luis Royo, coordinator of Hispanic ministries at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Chapel Hill, told New Roots interviewer Kelsey Jost-Creegan that the parish's Spanish Mass went back almost twenty years. He said his coordinator post had existed for about ten years and that he was its fourth holder.
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School Board converts Frank Porter Graham Elementary into a Spanish dual-language magnet school
After a district report named serving students with limited English and closing the achievement gap as the main purposes of dual language, and after forums that included sessions for Spanish-speaking and Karen and Burmese families, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board approved converting Frank Porter Graham Elementary into a Spanish-English magnet school. It reopened as the district's first dual-language magnet on August 26, 2013, with more than 500 students.
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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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Hyconeechee Regional Library is dissolved
The regional library Orange County had shared with Person and Caswell counties closed on July 1, 2012, ending the county's annual matching contribution and leaving the Orange County Public Library to operate as a county system on its own. In the following budget year the county moved library software costs into its IT department, absorbed a lower state aid estimate, and replaced the Polaris catalog system with Sierra.
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Orange County Main Library introduces RFID self-checkout
During the 2012–13 fiscal year the Main Library in Hillsborough put radio frequency identification tags and self-checkout stations into service. Patrons used self-checkout for 63 percent of transactions, above the library's 50 percent goal, and the next year's objective was 70 percent.
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Refugee Support Center opens in Carrboro
The Refugee Support Center, a volunteer-based nonprofit in Carrboro, was established in July 2012 to serve refugees in Orange County. Its main client groups are from Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Syria, and it offers Karen interpretation.
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Chancellor Thorp announces his resignation
After two years of scandals in the football program and the African and Afro-American studies department, and a fundraiser's resignation over personal trips, Thorp announced he would resign. Students and faculty held a rally asking him to stay.
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William C. Friday dies at his Chapel Hill home
Friday, president of the University of North Carolina from 1956 to 1986 and a longtime Chapel Hill resident, died in his sleep at home on October 12, 2012, at 92.
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UNC women’s soccer wins the 2012 NCAA national championship
UNC defeated Penn State, 4–1, in the national final.
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The school board votes 5-2 for the attendance plan that fills the new Northside Elementary
After two months of public hearings on four draft plans, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board chose Plan 2.1, which spread at-risk students most evenly among the elementary schools and reassigned about 1,045 children. Most came from the two schools nearest Northside, including crowded Seawell Elementary, and the whole Section 74A area north of town was moved.
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A new Northside Elementary opened on the old Training School grounds
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools opened a new Northside Elementary on the former Orange County Training School site. In 2012 neighbors had rallied to make sure the new school kept the Northside name.
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Cat's Cradle opens the Back Room
The club added a second room holding about 200 people beside its main hall at 300 East Main Street.
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Ethel Fuller Neville dies at 99 in the stone house on Cobb Street
Ethel Fuller Neville, widowed in 1960, lived at 107 Cobb Street until her death in 2013 at 99. Her five children all took part in the local civil rights movement, and son Calvin became a stonemason trained by the Campbells. The house stood mostly empty afterward.
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Lee Charter School, the first charter school proposed for Chapel Hill, fails to open
The school, meant to serve minority and low-income students and narrow the achievement gap, had been set to open in fall 2012 and was put off a year while it looked for land and space. It then broke with its parent company and never opened, and most Section 74A families sent their children to Northside.
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Neighbors form the Rogers Road Community Unity Board
The Community Unity Board brought together leaders from every sub-neighborhood of Rogers-Eubanks, among them Historic Rogers Road, Billabong, TallyHo, Meadow Run, Phoenix Place and Sandberg, for continuing talks about the area's future. RENA and the Jackson Center reconvened it in 2015 for the planning work the three governments had asked for.
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Orange County Public Library adopts its first strategic plan
The FY 2013–14 county budget reported that the library was creating a strategic plan, and county capital documents later refer to the approved Library Strategic Plan 2013–16, which charged the library with serving rural residents. The county called the 2017–2020 plan the library's second.
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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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Walter Horton becomes Carrboro's first African American police chief
Town Manager David Andrews named Captain Walter Horton, a Carrboro native who joined the department in 1993, to succeed retiring Chief Carolyn Hutchison. Horton led the department until he retired in early 2021.
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Foster's Market in Chapel Hill passes to Sera Cuni and Susan White
Sera Cuni, who had managed Foster's Market in Chapel Hill since 2008, bought the market with her partner Susan White and later renamed it The Root Cellar.
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Radius Pizzeria opens in the old savings and loan building on North Churton Street
Mick and Kate Carroll opened Radius Pizzeria, later Radius Pizzeria & Pub, at 112 North Churton Street in downtown Hillsborough.
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John S. Pope Farm is listed in the National Register
The Capt. John S. Pope Farm at 6909 Efland-Cedar Grove Road, near Cedar Grove, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on April 23, 2013. The Pope family has farmed the tract, now in organic tobacco, since at least 1870, and its two-story I-house dates from about 1870 to 1874.
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UNC women’s lacrosse wins the 2013 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2013 NCAA women’s lacrosse championship.
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William J. Barber II speaks at a rally at Silent Sam on its 100th anniversary
On the Confederate monument's 100th anniversary, William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP, spoke at a rally at its foot organized by the Real Silent Sam Committee, saying the statue had never been silent.
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EPA accepted RENA's civil rights complaint over water and sewer service for investigation
The EPA Office of Civil Rights took up the question whether the Orange County Planning and Inspections Department had intentionally discriminated on the basis of race by denying water and sewer service to the African American residents of Rogers Road. RENA had filed the complaint with the U.S. Justice Department, which referred it to several federal agencies, and it was joined to an earlier complaint against OWASA accepted on November 23, 2009.
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Rogers Road landfill closes
The landfill closed at noon on Saturday, June 29, 2013 after 41 years, with a ceremony at which Rogers Road residents symbolically locked the service entrance. The closure plan called for a synthetic cap covered with soil and vegetation, vented so that the county's methane recovery system, which feeds power to UNC buildings, could keep running.
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The Thomas Willis Lambeth Distinguished Chair in Public Policy begins
The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation funded a five-year chair at UNC honoring Lambeth's retirement, and three professors were named to it from July 1, 2013.
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Dean Smith is named a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
President Obama named Smith among sixteen recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, citing his 36 seasons as UNC's head basketball coach (1961-1997), two national championships, a 96 percent graduation rate among his players and his civil rights advocacy.
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Ellie Kinnaird resigns her state senate seat
Kinnaird announced her resignation after nine terms, saying she could not get anything done in the short session as one of seventeen Democrats in a fifty-member chamber. She said she would instead work with churches and community groups to help voters obtain the photo identification the state had just begun to require. Democrats from the counties she represented were to choose her successor.
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Carol Folt is installed as chancellor at Chapel Hill
Folt was installed as the eleventh chancellor of the university on University Day in Polk Place, the first woman to hold the post. Chief Justice Sarah Parker administered the oath, and system president Tom Ross presided and presented the chancellor's medallion.
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Mary E. Grant buys the Efland Home cottage at the Graham estate sale
After an auction held to settle James Barnard Graham's estate, Mary E. Grant bought the cottage and its 2.4 acres on November 13, 2013; the building was nominated to the National Register four years later.
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Lydia Lavelle takes office as Carrboro mayor, the first openly lesbian mayor in North Carolina
Lydia Lavelle, who ran unopposed for mayor in the fall 2013 election, was sworn in on December 3, 2013 as North Carolina's first openly lesbian mayor. Aldermen Randee Haven-O'Donnell, Sammy Slade and Jacquelyn Gist were sworn in for new terms at the same meeting.
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Chapel Hill extended its extraterritorial jurisdiction over the Historic Rogers Road area
Because none of the neighborhood lay inside Chapel Hill's limits, the town could not legally spend money on its sewer, so the council held a public hearing set for October 15, 2014 on bringing its part of the area under the town's extraterritorial jurisdiction. Afterward the neighborhood was split between Carrboro and Chapel Hill's ETJ.
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Mark Chilton compiles a land grant atlas of old Orange County
Chilton wrote The Land Grant Atlas of Old Orange County, Volume 2: The Saxapahaw Old Fields, tracing title to about a thousand parcels between 1728 and 1818 in western Orange and eastern Alamance counties. He found that roughly 95 percent of the county's deed records for 1752 to 1781 were lost after a Tory official buried the deed books and they rotted.
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NEH funds public access to the New Roots oral history archive
The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded UNC-Chapel Hill a Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant (PW-51527-14) to open public access to New Roots interviews through a bilingual digital archive.
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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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RENA and the Jackson Center produced the Historic and Vibrant Rogers Road report
The Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association and the Marian Cheek Jackson Center put together survey analysis and community feedback on the neighborhood's future. Two years later the same partners ran the planning process behind Mapping our Community's Future.
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Eric Van Loon presents his Carolina Story to the alumni association board
The General Alumni Association published Van Loon’s My Carolina Story, given as a member of its board of directors. In it he recounts chairing the Carolina Political Union and signing the Speaker Ban lawsuit as one of a dozen students who were plaintiffs.
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Additional documentation for the Hillsborough Historic District is accepted by the National Register
On January 22, 2014 the National Park Service accepted a new survey and history of the Hillsborough Historic District, the first full update of the 1973 listing, documenting the town's buildings from the colonial period to the 1960s.
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Mark Chilton wins the register of deeds primary on a same-sex marriage pledge
Chilton took just over 42 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, beating the incumbent register of deeds, Deborah Brooks, and a second challenger. He had campaigned on a promise to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite the state ban, and because no Republican filed, the primary settled the office.
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Willie Scroggs retires as a senior associate athletic director at UNC
Scroggs retired at the end of June 2014 after decades overseeing athletics facilities at Carolina, including work at Carmichael Arena, Boshamer Stadium, Kenan Stadium, Woollen Gym and the Eddie Smith Field House.
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Anne Firor Scott is awarded the 2013 National Humanities Medal
Scott, a Duke University historian, received the 2013 National Humanities Medal for pioneering the study of southern women. The citation credits her research with establishing women's history as vital to understanding the American South.
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Merge Records holds its 25th anniversary festival in Carrboro
Merge marked 25 years with a festival built around Cat's Cradle, ending with an outdoor show in the club's parking lot that organizers expected to draw about 3,000 people after the indoor nights sold out. Passes were sold through the Cat's Cradle website.
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Same-sex couples begin receiving marriage licenses in Orange County
A federal judge struck down North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage late on Friday, October 10, 2014, by which time the Orange County Register of Deeds office in Hillsborough had closed for the day. The office issued its first licences to same-sex couples when it reopened on Monday, October 13, with Carrboro mayor Lydia Lavelle and Alicia Stemper first in line; the two married at the Carrboro Town Commons on October 25, 2014.
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Carrboro aldermen declare the town a welcoming community for immigrant children
The Board of Aldermen unanimously passed a resolution declaring Carrboro a welcoming community for minors fleeing violence and affirming immigrant children's right to attend public school regardless of immigration status. The Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the ACLU of North Carolina helped develop it.
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The county-funded Rogers Road Community Center opened at 101 Edgar Street
Orange County commissioners awarded a $522,488 contract to Riggs-Harrod Builders of Durham on April 1, 2014 after a first round of bids came in at two to three times the authorized budget and the building was redesigned. The larger center, with a community room, kitchen, computer lab and outdoor courts, opened that December a short walk from RENA's 2010 building.
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Cannie Bacon Lloyd and Bob Lloyd open Bacon's Meat Market on North Churton Street
Bacon's Meat Market, a family-run meat market, deli and sandwich shop, opened at the corner of North Churton and Corbin streets. Cannie Bacon Lloyd said her father had told her Hillsborough needed one.
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Frederick Brooks retires after 51 years at UNC
Brooks, who had supervised more than 40 doctoral students and taught into his 80s, retired from the computer science department after 51 years at the university.
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Hillsborough votes to remove "Confederate Memorial" lettering from the former library
The 1934 public library building on North Churton Street, home of the Orange County Historical Museum since 1983, still carried part of its "Confederate Memorial Library 1934" sign. After museum leaders asked in June 2015 to take the words down, saying some Black residents felt unwelcome, the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners voted that year to remove the sign from the pediment.
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Mark Kleinschmidt leaves the Chapel Hill mayor's office
Kleinschmidt served as mayor from his election in November 2009 until 2015.
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New community house opens
The men’s shelter moved to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
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Orange County commissioners approve a letter of intent toward a Southern Branch Library in Carrboro
The Board of County Commissioners approved a letter of intent setting the terms for negotiating the development and construction of a Southern Branch Library in downtown Carrboro. The new branch, then hoped for around 2017, was to replace both the Carrboro Branch in McDougle Middle School and the Cybrary in the Century Center.
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Saunders Hall is renamed Carolina Hall
UNC trustees approved the name change in May 2015; the building received its new name that August.
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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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Frank Heath tells the Carrboro Board of Aldermen that the Cat's Cradle has outgrown its building
At the second public hearing on a proposed arts and innovation center and hotel at East Main Street, Heath said the Cat's Cradle and the ArtsCenter were both too big for their buildings and that expansion had become urgent. He called it a dilemma for a small town with two successful arts organizations.
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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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About 2,000 people hold a vigil in UNC's Pit for Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha
The day after the three were killed, an estimated 2,000 people gathered at the Pit on the UNC campus. Speakers included Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke, Deah's brother Farris Barakat, Chancellors Carol L. Folt and Randy Woodson, and Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt.
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The Chapel Hill Historic District grows, but the university asks to stay out
When the committee reviewed the boundary increase and added documentation for the Chapel Hill Historic District on February 12, 2015, a member asked why the campus portion was not enlarged. Staff explained that UNC's administration had specifically asked not to be included. The committee approved the nomination with eight others.
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UNC, Self-Help, the Jackson Center and the town launch the Northside neighborhood initiative
UNC-Chapel Hill committed a $3 million, 10-year, no-interest loan to Self-Help to buy Northside homes as they came on the market and hold them in a land bank for affordable resale or rental. The Jackson Center and the Town of Chapel Hill were partners.
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The Chapel Hill Historic District is enlarged in the National Register
On April 16, 2015 the National Park Service listed a boundary increase for the Chapel Hill Historic District, enlarging the district in the National Register of Historic Places.
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Carrboro's Center for Employment and Leadership for day laborers opens
El Centro Hispano, the Carrboro Day Laborer Task Force, Orange County Justice United and the Town of Carrboro opened a workers' center for day laborers at 201 W. Weaver St., which organizers called the first in North Carolina. The opening began with a march from the Jones Ferry and Davie roads corner and followed about ten years of planning.
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Hillsborough's Old Town Cemetery joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed Hillsborough's Old Town Cemetery behind the Presbyterian church on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
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UNC and the Dental Foundation of North Carolina set up the Deah Barakat and Yusor Abu-Salha Memorial Award
The university and the Dental Foundation of North Carolina established a memorial award in the names of Deah Barakat and Yusor Abu-Salha, to be presented for the first time in the 2015-16 academic year.
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Orange County Public Library begins lending Wi-Fi hotspots
In the 2015–16 fiscal year the library and county IT staff piloted lending Wi-Fi hotspots to residents of southern Orange County and added hotspots to the lending collection at its libraries. Federal CARES Act money later doubled the hotspot inventory to meet pandemic demand.
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Annie Dillard receives the National Humanities Medal
President Barack Obama presented Dillard with the 2014 National Humanities Medal at a White House ceremony for her reflections on human life and nature. The Associated Press identified her then as Annie Dillard of Key West, Florida.
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UNC dental students hold the first DEAH DAY of service
More than 350 students of the UNC School of Dentistry gave nearly 1,200 hours to 22 local organizations, from Habitat for Humanity in Efland to Table in Carrboro, in memory of Deah Barakat and Yusor Abu-Salha. DEAH DAY stands for Directing Efforts And Honoring Deah And Yusor, and the school was still holding it in 2024.
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Aziz Sancar wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Sancar, Tomas Lindahl and Paul Modrich for mechanistic studies of DNA repair. The academy listed Sancar at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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State highway marker honoring Carl T. Durham is dedicated at N.C. 54 and Carl Durham Road
Durham's daughters Anne Novak and Peggy Wall, other relatives and county officials gathered for the dedication of the marker. The ceremony recalled his 22 years in Congress and the 1951 amendments, written with Senator Hubert Humphrey, that created the prescription and over-the-counter drug classes.
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Bill Thorpe and Dean Smith are added to the Peace and Justice Plaza marker
At a town Peace and Justice Celebration, the names of former Council member Bill Thorpe and UNC basketball coach Dean Smith were added to the granite marker, which already honored 13 local leaders. Thorpe's son William spoke about him.
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James Taylor wins the Presidential Medal of Freedom
The White House named James Taylor among the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom for more than 40 years of recording and touring, citing his baritone voice and his guitar playing.
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Patrick Dougherty builds A Sight to Behold on the Hillsborough Riverwalk
The Hillsborough Arts Council commissioned the stickwork sculpture, which Dougherty built along the Riverwalk with about 190 volunteers from saplings gathered at Ayr Mount and in the Waterstone development.
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County capital plan budgets a Southern Branch library at 203 South Greensboro Street
Orange County's FY 2016–21 capital plan scheduled $6,375,000 in FY 2017–18 to design and build a Southern Branch library replacing the Cybrary and the Carrboro branch at McDougle School, after commissioners directed staff to work with Carrboro on siting it on the town-owned 203 South Greensboro Street property. The plan projected ten staff positions, two of them moved from existing Carrboro library operations.
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Cup-A-Joe moves down West King Street to a larger shop at number 112
Owners Brooke Erceg and Ryan Creery moved their coffee shop from 600 square feet at 120 West King Street to 1,600 square feet at 112 West King, former real estate offices, with room to bake on site.
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Hillsborough hires hmwPreservation to survey buildings outside its historic district
With a Historic Preservation Fund grant from the state preservation office, the town contracted in 2016 for a survey of older buildings inside the town limits but outside the National Register district, where only eleven had been recorded. Heather Slane and Megan Privett did the fieldwork in February and March 2017, fully recording about fifty properties and five mid-century neighborhoods.
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The Nash house is rehabilitated to its 1926 appearance from Arthur Nash's own blueprints
The work reopened the front porch, restored a window, rebuilt the studio mantel, added a balustrade over the carport copied from the old sleeping-porch rail and uncovered part of the rear fanlight. The kitchen and two upstairs baths were modernized.
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New Roots launches its bilingual digital archive
New Roots/Nuevas Raíces launched a Spanish and English website with more than 150 digitized interviews, including audio recordings, abstracts and full transcripts. UNC's University Libraries handled digitization, cataloging and preservation.
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An enlargement of the West Chapel Hill district joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed an enlargement of the West Chapel Hill Historic District on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
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Joal Broun is sworn in to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board
The district said Broun, a former Carrboro alderman then directing the state's lobbying compliance division, was sworn in to fill the seat left by Michelle Brownstein's resignation. She had also served on the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board and the Orange County Dispute Settlement Center.
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Carrboro Board of Aldermen calls for the repeal of House Bill 2 at a Saturday special meeting
Three days after the General Assembly passed and Governor Pat McCrory signed House Bill 2, the Board met in special session and adopted a resolution affirming the dignity of LGBT people, calling for the law's repeal and urging other North Carolina governments to use it as a model, then adopted a second resolution condemning by name the legislators and governor who enacted it. Both passed six to none with Jacquelyn Gist absent, and the Board asked staff to raise the town's rainbow pride flags on March 28.
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Bona Fide Sandwich Co. opens at 104 North Churton Street
The owners of the Wooden Nickel Pub, LaPlace and Hillsborough BBQ Company opened a sandwich shop at 104 North Churton Street.
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Smithies and Sancar give replica Nobel medals to UNC
At a Davis Library gathering, Oliver Smithies and Aziz Sancar presented gold-plated bronze replicas of their Nobel Prize medals to the university. Chancellor Carol Folt recounted that Sancar had led the search committee that brought Nobuyo Maeda and Smithies to UNC.
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UNC women’s lacrosse wins the 2016 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2016 NCAA women’s lacrosse championship.
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UNC men’s lacrosse wins the 2016 NCAA national championship
UNC won the 2016 NCAA men’s lacrosse championship.
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RENA and the Jackson Center published the Rogers Road community plan commissioned by the three governments
In July 2015 Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro asked the Marian Cheek Jackson Center and RENA to run a community-first planning process as sewer design advanced. The resulting report, built from nine Unity Board sessions and two rounds of interviews, set four priorities for the neighborhood and became the reference document for the later zoning districts and Greene Tract resolutions.
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Arthur Nash's house joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the house the university architect Arthur C. Nash built for his family in Chapel Hill on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
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Cedar Grove Community Center opens with a self-service library station
Orange County dedicated the renovated Cedar Grove Community Center, once home to the Cedar Grove Negro School, in June 2016, with a self-serve library station beside the building. The $180,000 kiosk offered automated borrowing in northern Orange County without a staffed branch; the county's FY 2021–22 budget ended support for it, citing poor performance and low patron use.
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UNC names scholarships for its first Black undergraduates and other "firsts"
At University Day, UNC named existing grants and fellowships for 21 people who were firsts in its history, among them John L. Brandon, Ralph K. Frasier and LeRoy B. Frasier Jr., its first Black undergraduates.
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Orange County voters approve a $5 million affordable housing bond
More than 65 percent of voters approved $5 million in bonds for affordable housing, alongside a $120 million school bond that passed with 75.5 percent.
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Mildred Council receives EmPOWERment's first POWER award
At a gala at the Friday Center, basketball coach Roy Williams presented Mildred "Mama Dip" Council with the inaugural POWER award from EmPOWERment Inc., a group promoting affordable housing and economic development in Chapel Hill's neediest neighborhoods. The honor came in the month of her restaurant's 40th anniversary.
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UNC puts Oliver Smithies's research notebooks online
UNC released digitized copies of the research notebooks Smithies had kept since his graduate student days, while he was still working in his lab at 91.
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Rebuilding of the Occaneechi replica village in Hillsborough begins
Tribal members, community volunteers, Orange County and the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough began rebuilding a smaller replica village in River Park, funded by a $20,000 budget set aside in 2015. The new village has a palisade and four huts.
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A stone gateway honoring Northside's freedom fighters was opened at Rosemary and Roberson streets
The gateway of Chatham stone carries eight black granite slabs with civil rights images and quotations from oral history interviews. It was opened with a ribbon cutting at the first Northside Festival, as the Jackson Center renamed its annual celebration.
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Barbara Foushee receives the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP's Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award
The branch gave Foushee its Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Service Award for work promoting diversity and social justice. She was then the branch's secretary.
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Hongbin Gu is elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council, its first Asian American member
Gu, an immigrant from mainland China and principal of Chapel Hill's first Chinese school, had counseled Section 74A parents during the 2012 redistricting fight. She won a council seat in 2017.
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William J. Barber II gives the Weil Lecture on American Citizenship
William J. Barber II delivered UNC's 2017 Weil Lecture on American Citizenship in Moeser Auditorium, Hill Hall, speaking on the morality of citizenship.
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Carrboro accepts a community climate action plan
The Board of Aldermen accepted a plan setting out steps residents could take to cut greenhouse gas emissions, extending the Energy and Climate Protection Plan the town had adopted in 2014 for its own operations. The two plans aimed at an 80 percent cut from 2010 emission levels by 2030. Sammy Slade was the board's leading advocate for the town's climate policy.
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The North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls at Efland joins the Study List
Orange County submitted the Study List application for the former Efland home with the owner's knowledge, and the committee approved it with the other central region requests on February 9, 2017. A member asked whether the grounds had been assessed for archaeology; none had.
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The state finds the Ira Ellis House and Hall's Mill site not eligible for the National Register
Reviewing a survey for replacing the Hall's Mill Road bridge over the Eno, the State Historic Preservation Office agreed that the Ellis House, the Hall's Mill site and a proposed rural district around them did not qualify for the National Register, while the David Faucette House across the road remained eligible.
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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.
