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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,368 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. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

  2. 1910s
  3. Health or relief action · First Baptist Church, Hillsborough Baptist pastor S. W. Oldham and his wife nurse the sick in the flu epidemic

    During the influenza epidemic the Baptist pastor S. W. Oldham and his wife cared for the sick of Hillsborough, a neighbor recalled in the Baptist paper Charity and Children.

  4. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill Red Cross treasurer Dr. J. M. Bullitt resigns to enlist in the Army Medical Corps

    In the spring of 1918 Dr. J. M. Bullitt, who had set up the chapter's monthly subscription plan, resigned as treasurer to enlist in the Medical Corps of the United States Army. Dr. J. M. Bell succeeded him, and after about a month Dr. W. M. Dey took over when Bell went to Washington for government work.

  5. Construction or physical change · 109 Center Street, Carrboro Durham Hosiery sets up looping machines in a Center Street house

    After the former school at 109 Center Street was lengthened at its north end, the company, out of room in Mill No. 4, installed extra looping machines there for closing the toes of hose. It became a house again a few years later, once the mill was enlarged.

  6. 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.

  7. Statistic or record · Orange County Federal and state agriculture departments survey Orange County's soils

    Crews from the U.S. and North Carolina departments of agriculture mapped the county's soils during the 1918 field season. E. S. Vanatta's report, published in 1921, identified twenty-three soil types.

  8. Life event · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel Hill Former mayor Algernon Barbee is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    Algernon Barbee (1840-1918), once mayor of Chapel Hill, was buried in the cemetery.

  9. Founding or opening · Guthrie's movie theatre, later the Standard Theatre, West Franklin Street west of Graham Street, Chapel Hill Henry Guthrie opens a movie theatre on West Franklin Street

    Henry "Buddy" Guthrie opened a picture house just west of Graham Street, in the blocks where Black families were settling. Under Davie O'Kelly it became the Standard Theatre.

  10. Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough Ida Lloyd becomes the first clerk in the county superintendent's office

    Ida Lloyd was hired as office assistant to the county superintendent in 1918, the first to hold the post, and worked under R. H. Claytor, Glenn Proffit and G. P. Carr for about forty-two years.

  11. Construction or physical change · UNC, Chapel Hill John Nolen recommends a site for the engineering building

    As plans took shape for the School of Applied Science building paid for by the 1917 bonds, planner John Nolen advised placing it between Memorial Hall and the Peabody Building and chose a spot for a flagpole. He promised broader campus plans by the June 1918 commencement.

  12. Closing or ending · Old Commons Hall, East Cameron Avenue, UNC campus, Chapel Hill Old Commons Hall is taken down

    The 1885 building that had served the university as ballroom, gymnasium, dining hall and basketball court was still in use in March 1918 but was gone by January 1919, when the Tar Heel wrote that 'Old Commons is no more'.

  13. Protest or organizing · Orange County Orange County women's committees sell $59,600 in Third Liberty Loan bonds

    With Harriet M. Berry of Chapel Hill as county chairman, women organized in every township made $59,600 of the county's $99,150 in Third Liberty Loan sales, more than two-thirds of the allotment. Mrs. T. J. Wilson's Chapel Hill committee took 85 subscriptions for $18,500 and the Hillsborough committee raised $36,000.

  14. Founding or opening · Hillsborough The Bivins Liner Company begins making tobacco hogshead liners in Hillsborough

    Founded in 1918 as the Bivins Liner Company and later called the Hines Liner Company, the firm made the hoops that hold tobacco hogshead heads in place. It also ran a lumber and planing mill nearby.

  15. Storyline · 20 events · Chapel Hill The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press

    Frederick Koch's Carolina Playmakers, organized in 1918, and the University of North Carolina Press, founded in 1922, made Chapel Hill a place where plays and books were made as well as read.

  16. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill The Carolina Playmakers are organized

    Frederick H. Koch organized the Carolina Playmakers at UNC.

  17. Construction or physical change · Ernest P. Cox House, 112 Bellevue Street, West Hillsborough The Ernest P. Cox House is built on Bellevue Street

    The one-story hip-roofed house with projecting gabled wings and a wraparound porch at 112 Bellevue Street is the best preserved of West Hillsborough's one-story houses of the period.

  18. Statistic or record · Orange County The Orange County Red Cross counts 850 knitted articles and 41,396 dressings for

    During 1918 the chapter and its branches at Cedar Grove, New Hope and Oaks sent 850 knitted articles to Atlanta and fourteen boxes holding 41,396 bandages and surgical dressings. The history adds that the Black auxiliary did little sewing but drew in Black members.

  19. Founding or opening · Temple of Truth The Temple of Truth is organized

    Henry Thompson, R. C. Turner and others organized the Temple of Truth, a United Holy Church congregation, and built its church in 1918.

  20. Construction or physical change · Mill No. 4 (now Carr Mill), Carrboro The power house wing of Mill No. 4 is raised to two full stories

    In 1918 Durham Hosiery Mills built the original power house wing of Mill No. 4 up to two full stories and gave it a taller two-story tower on the north side.

  21. Law, policy or court · UNC, Chapel Hill The trustees approve a three-year wartime engineering degree

    Before the SATC arrived, the trustees approved an accelerated engineering course leading to a bachelor's degree in three years, with military training and military French. Students were deferred while enrolled and then went on to army or navy service.

  22. 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.

  23. Closing or ending · UNC, Chapel Hill University Day is canceled because of the influenza epidemic

    Fear of the influenza epidemic led the university to cancel its University Day observance in the fall of 1918. The literary societies also failed to meet that fall.

  24. Protest or organizing · UNC, Chapel Hill University janitors organize with the Industrial Workers of the World

    Black janitors at the university formed an affiliate of the IWW and weighed a strike for higher wages as the spring term closed. Business manager Charles T. Woollen answered that he would hire a new crew from Durham, and the effort faded. That fall all the campus help lost their jobs when the SATC took over the buildings.

  25. Construction or physical change · Roberson building, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill W. S. Roberson builds a two-store brick building west of the Bank of Chapel Hill

    Roberson's building, nearly finished in 1918, held two stores. In the early 1920s the Peoples Bank took the western half and the Lowe brothers' Chapel Hill Hardware the eastern.

  26. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Red Cross moves its workrooms into the Zeta Psi fraternity hall

    After its first home, a Main Street store lent by Mayor W. S. Roberson, was sold to the People's Bank, the chapter moved on January 1, 1918, into the lower floor of the Zeta Psi fraternity hall, offered by the university's Upsilon chapter.

  27. Hillsborough C. H. Robertson becomes chairman of the Orange County Red Cross executive committee

    At the chapter's first meeting of 1918, Robertson was elected unanimously to succeed the Rev. Thomas M. Grant, who had moved away, as chairman of the executive committee. He led the committee through the end of the war and signed the chapter's history as its chairman.

  28. Disaster or outbreak · Occoneechee Farm, Hillsborough A winter cyclone wrecks the dairy barn at Occoneechee Farm

    A storm on a Friday night damaged every building on Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm and demolished the dairy barn, killing a number of blooded cows. Carr began rebuilding at once.

  29. Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill school children organize a Junior Red Cross auxiliary

    The Chapel Hill School Auxiliary to the Red Cross was organized in January 1918 with 132 members. The girls sewed refugee garments and hospital supplies, 130 children planted home gardens, and the boys built shipping boxes for the Red Cross in the school basement.

  30. Disaster or outbreak · Efland The Efland excelsior mills burn

    Fire destroyed the Efland Excelsior Mills, four miles from Hillsborough, with a loss estimated at $15,000 plus about $3,000 in wood. The fire was believed to have been set.

  31. Law, policy or court · UNC, Chapel Hill The trustees give the faculty a second $250 raise

    Following a $250 raise in September 1917, the trustees added another $250 in January 1918, bringing a full professor's top pay to $3,000. Graham turned down the increase in his own salary, from $4,000 to $6,000, that the board had voted at the 1917 commencement.

  32. Property or economic transaction · Orange County The county agent buys a carload of pigs to sell to farmers at cost

    With extension work revived in wartime, the commissioners advanced money for County Agent Chance to buy young pigs and sell them to county residents for cash at cost. E. S. Vanatta, who came that year to make the soil survey, followed him as agent until February 1921.

  33. Law, policy or court · Schley Farmers' Union delegates at Schley ask that no wheat be threshed before July 15

    At J. Cheshire Webb's request, the county's Farmers' Union, in convention at Schley on March 30, 1918, resolved to favor a Food Administration rule that no threshing machine start before July 15, to protect crop cultivation. Webb issued the order, and only two farmers broke it; both paid to the Red Cross.

  34. Founding or opening · Orange County The county agrees to pay for a home demonstration agent

    The commissioners ordered two-thirds of an $800 salary paid for a home demonstration agent, with the school board paying the rest. The work stopped after the war and did not resume until 1935.

  35. Award or honor · Hillsborough Orange County raises its Third Liberty Loan honor flag at the court house

    The county subscribed $99,150 to the Third Liberty Loan against a $75,000 allotment, and on May 9, 1918, raised its Honor Flag at the court house, with Judge Bond of Edenton speaking. Hillsborough had raised its own town Honor Flag at the cross streets on May 2.

  36. Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough Mrs. J. Cheshire Webb is named the Orange County Red Cross's director of woman's work

    At the request of Mrs. John W. Grant, the executive committee named Mrs. J. Cheshire Webb director of woman's work on May 11, 1918, and set supervisors over the work: Sue B. Hayes for surgical dressings, Mrs. S. Strudwick for hospital garments, Mrs. W. H. Webb for supplies and shipping, and Henrietta P. Collins as chief clerk.

  37. Statistic or record · Hillsborough Orange County Red Cross knitters report more than 1,100 garments in seven months

    Mrs. C. H. Robertson, chairman of knitting, reported in May 1918 that from September 10, 1917 to April 10, 1918 the chapter bought 381 pounds of yarn for $877.03 and its knitters made 234 sweaters, 211 mufflers, 214 wristlets, 521 socks and 6 helmets. The count included work taken over from the Navy League when its knitting merged into the Red Cross.

  38. Founding or opening · Oaks The Orange County Red Cross accepts a branch at Oaks

    On May 11, 1918, the chapter's executive committee read and accepted the Oaks community's petition to join as a branch. Oaks joined Cedar Grove and New Hope as branches of the Hillsborough chapter.

  39. Health or relief action · Orange County The Orange County Red Cross raises $4,294 in its second War Fund drive

    A drive led by F. A. McNeer ran May 20-27, 1918, after ministers across the county preached on Red Cross Sunday, May 19. It raised $4,294.38, and the chapter sent $3,300 to national headquarters and kept about a quarter for local work.

  40. Appointment, election or service · Orange County Jean Blue enlists as a Red Cross nurse and goes to France

    Jean Blue enlisted in Unit 65 from Watts Hospital on May 27, 1918, trained at Camp Lee and in New York, and sailed for France at the start of September. At Brest she nursed soldiers with influenza and wounded men on their way home.

  41. Protest or organizing · Orange County The Orange County Red Cross sends literature to women in outlying communities to start Red Cross work

    On May 31, 1918, after accepting the Oaks branch's certificate of organization, the chapter sent Red Cross literature to Nellie Perry at Cane Creek, Mrs. Cain Roberts near St. Mary's and Mrs. Clyde Compton at Carr in hopes of organized work there. Carr became a branch that August.

  42. Health or relief action · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill more than doubles its Red Cross War Fund quota

    Assessed $500 in the Red Cross War Fund drive of May 1918, the Chapel Hill chapter raised it within a few days and turned in $1,156.60 by the drive's close, under Dr. J. M. Bell with J. S. Holmes.

  43. Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill Frederick H. Koch is hired as professor of dramatic literature

    Recruited by Edwin Greenlaw from the University of North Dakota, where he had founded the Dakota Playmakers, Frederick Henry Koch signed in late May 1918 at $2,500 a year to teach dramatic literature, a title he chose. He arrived that summer meaning to build a folk drama program in North Carolina.

  44. Award or honor · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill A subdued wartime commencement honors the governor, Senator Overman and the Rev. W. D. Moss

    With about a third of the class of 1918 already in camps, the university gave honorary degrees to Governor Bickett, Senator Lee S. Overman, Edwin Mims and the Presbyterian pastor W. D. Moss. Frederic C. Howe, immigration commissioner at New York, gave the address.

  45. Protest or organizing · Orange County The Council of Defense extends into township community councils

    At a court house meeting on June 15, 1918, J. Cheshire Webb organized community councils of defense for each of the seven townships, choosing the township over the school district as the unit. Their charge was to support every war activity without forming new organizations.

  46. Violence or armed conflict · Cedar Grove Marine Samuel Maris Wilkerson of Cedar Grove dies of wounds in France

    Samuel Maris Wilkerson of Cedar Grove enlisted in the Marine Corps on December 8, 1917, and served with the 5th Marines in France. Reported wounded on June 15, 1918, he died of his wounds on June 17.

  47. Naming or commemoration · Hillsborough Hillsborough dedicates a tablet crediting Daniel Boone with an expedition from the Old State House

    During a day of patriotic meetings and a war bond drive, Hillsborough dedicated a steel tablet at the site of the Old State House stating that frontiersmen under Richard Henderson, led by Daniel Boone, set out from there for Kentucky on March 17, 1776. A Trading Path tablet was added to the monument on July 4, 1931. The inscription is disputed: the American Revolution tour AmRevNC says Boone was not with the party that left the courthouse that day.

  48. Property or economic transaction · Orange County Orange County pledges three-quarters of its War Savings quota in a June drive

    The county's War Savings Stamps quota was $331,400, about $20 a person. A drive June 23-28, 1918, pledged 75 percent of it, and a second drive September 9-14 sought the rest; the county finished with $272,956 pledged and $264,370 sold.

  49. Award or honor · UNC, Chapel Hill Kameichi Kato becomes the first Asian student to finish a four-year degree

    Kato, from Hiroshima, Japan, graduated with the Class of 1918, the first Asian student to earn a four-year degree at the university. He had organized Epsilon Phi Delta, a society for the study of Japanese-American relations.

  50. Naming or commemoration · McCorkle Place, UNC, Chapel Hill The Class of 1918 plants a shoot of the Davie Poplar

    Worried that the lightning-struck Davie Poplar might die, the seniors planted a rooted shoot of it that William Long of Chapel Hill had raised. Both trees were still standing a century later.

  51. Health or relief action · Hillsborough The Orange County Red Cross's June box of 8,000 compresses goes straight to France

    The chapter's June 1918 box to headquarters held 8,000 compresses, which were sent on to France without repacking, as the executive committee heard on July 19.

  52. Founding or opening · UNC, Chapel Hill The university gets an ROTC unit under Lt. Col. Gustave W. S. Stevens

    With the university's ROTC application finally approved, the army called Lieutenant Colonel Gustave W. S. Stevens out of retirement in New Orleans and sent him to Chapel Hill in June 1918 to run the program. He stayed on to command the campus when the SATC replaced it.

  53. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Orange County holds a Fourth of July war rally on the UNC campus

    At the Governor's request the UNC Summer School invited the county to its July 4, 1918 celebration, and at least 3,000 people came for a parade, a flag raising and S. M. Gattis's address in Memorial Hall. The county Council of Defense met in Gerrard Hall, and Adolph Vermont's pageant on French-American friendship played in Battle's Park.

  54. Health or relief action · Hillsborough The Orange County Red Cross sends $120 for canteen work among troops passing through Raleigh

    Answering James H. Pou's appeal, the executive committee voted on John W. Graham's motion on July 19, 1918 to send $120 from chapter funds to Mrs. William Grimes of the Raleigh chapter for troops passing through Raleigh. The same meeting reported War Fund receipts of $4,294.38.

  55. Health or relief action · Orange County Eight Orange County women enroll in the U.S. Student Nurse Reserve

    A canvass of the county by the Woman's Committee in July 1918 for the U.S. Student Nurse Reserve enrolled eight young women, six white and two Black.

  56. Founding or opening · Carr The Orange County Red Cross grants a branch to Carr precinct

    At its August 12, 1918 meeting the chapter granted Carr precinct's petition to become a branch, its fourth after Cedar Grove, New Hope and Oaks. The same meeting heard headquarters' advice to stop giving comfort kits to men leaving for camp.

  57. Health or relief action · Hillsborough A four-church committee raises $504 for Jewish war relief

    About the middle of August 1918 a campaign for the Jewish Relief Fund, run by men from the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches, raised $504.

  58. Founding or opening · Palmer Grove Methodist Church Palmer Grove Methodist Church is organized

    A revival that began on August 4, 1918 in the new Palmer's Grove schoolhouse, about three and a half miles northwest of Hillsboro, closed with the organizing of a Methodist church with seventeen members; the people meant to build a church soon. Lefler and Wager name E. T. Blakely, R. T. Murdock and T. H. Yates among its leaders.

  59. Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Red Cross starts a conservation committee that ships nut shells for gas masks

    The chapter appointed a Committee on Conservation under Mrs. M. H. Stacy on September 1, 1918. On November 20 it shipped four barrels of nut shells for gas masks and seventeen pounds of tin foil.

  60. Founding or opening · Hillsborough The Hillsborough Community Chorus formally organizes

    Already singing at patriotic gatherings, the chorus organized at the Hillsborough Library on September 2, 1918, with Mrs. W. D. Benton as director, and gave the Red Cross $73 from an August concert. It later planned four concerts a year to help the Daughters of the Confederacy build a public library as a memorial to the county's Confederate soldiers.

  61. Founding or opening · Hillsborough The Orange County Red Cross forms a canteen committee to give packages to men leaving for camp

    On September 2, 1918 the chapter appointed a canteen committee of five women, each to add another, with authority to buy supplies for packages worth up to a dollar for men leaving Hillsborough for camp. In October the Chapel Hill chapter offered to share the cost, since the men came from all parts of the county.

  62. Publication, speech or performance · Hillsborough A War Savings rally in Hillsborough welcomes home wounded volunteer Jim Cheshire

    On the night of Registration Day, September 12, 1918, a crowd packed the court house for a War Savings rally to hear two of Pershing's soldiers. One was Jim Cheshire, the first man to volunteer from the town and the first to come home, sent back wounded to train troops. That day 1,727 county men registered for the draft.

  63. Protest or organizing · Hillsborough Orange County organizes for the United War Work drive

    A court house meeting on September 19, 1918, elected N. W. Brown county chairman for the United War Work drive. The county raised $7,485; Carrboro gave $1,240 on a $500 quota, and Hillsborough Township, under Elizabeth Cornelius, gave $2,300.

  64. Law, policy or court · UNC, Chapel Hill The Students' Army Training Corps takes over the campus

    Registration, put off to September 24 and 25, opened a year run by the army: dormitories became Barracks 1 through 8, Swain Hall the Mess Hall, and the year was cut into twelve-week quarters with classes grouped by age. About seven hundred enrolled, nearly all of them required to take a course on the issues of the war, and the commander worked from the Sigma Chi house.

  65. Chapel Hill Capt. J. Stuart Allen returns to command the students outside the SATC

    When the Students' Army Training Corps took over the campus in the fall of 1918, about 300 students too young or otherwise ineligible had to room in the village. Capt. J. Stuart Allen, back for a second year, commanded their non-SATC training company, which drilled on the old class field.

  66. Appointment, election or service · Flag pole, UNC campus, Chapel Hill 750 University students are inducted into the Students' Army Training Corps

    At noon on October 1, 1918, about 750 University students took the oath at the campus flag pole from Lt. Col. Stevens, the commandant, and became members of the Students' Army Training Corps, at the same moment as students at about 500 colleges across the country. President Edward Kidder Graham gave the address, and the corps was reviewed from the steps of the Alumni Building.

  67. Statistic or record · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill Red Cross membership grows to 687

    The Chapel Hill chapter, which had enrolled 71 members at its first meeting in 1917, counted 687 members on October 1, 1918.

  68. Law, policy or court · Orange County Orange County's new Board of Health orders churches, schools and theatres closed and forbids all meetings

    After the state Council of Defense warned county chairmen of the spread of Spanish influenza, they formed a County Board of Health, which on October 7 ordered the closing of all churches, schools and theatres and forbade meetings of every kind, the disease having already broken out in the community. Red Cross members carried most of the relief work that followed.

  69. Violence or armed conflict · Chapel Hill Lt. Joseph Henry Johnston of Chapel Hill is killed in France

    Joseph Henry Johnston of Chapel Hill Route 2 volunteered in May 1917, trained at Fort Oglethorpe and became a first lieutenant in the 322nd Infantry, 81st Division. He was killed in France on October 15, 1918.

  70. Statistic or record · Chapel Hill The Tar Heel counts some 300 student cases and three deaths as the three-week campus quarantine eases

    Confined to the campus for three weeks, the Student Army Training Corps men had their first leave on Saturday, October 19, under orders not to leave town. The paper counted about 300 cases among the students, three deaths and 35 still in the college infirmary, credited the second-year medical students with keeping the toll low, and noted that both of the university's physicians, Dr. Mangum and Dr. MacNider, had fallen ill.

  71. Life event · Chapel Hill President Edward Kidder Graham dies of influenza and pneumonia at his home in Chapel Hill

    Graham, 42, president since 1914 and regional director of the Student Army Training Corps for the South Atlantic states, died on Saturday night after five days' illness. The SATC battalion escorted the funeral, conducted at the grave by W. D. Moss of the Presbyterian church; Josephus Daniels and Newton D. Baker sent tributes.

  72. Health or relief action · Hillsborough The Orange County Red Cross organizes volunteer nursing for the epidemic

    Meeting on October 26, 1918, with the county influenza relief committee, the chapter named T. N. Webb and Nellie Russell to take requests for nurses in the West Hill and Hillsborough school districts and canvassed the town for volunteers. Chester Turner and Ross Turner, a Black man, served as volunteer nurses wherever needed.

  73. Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill The trustees make Marvin H. Stacy chairman of the faculty with a president's powers

    Five days after Graham's death the trustees named his dean, Marvin Hendrix Stacy, chairman of the faculty with the full powers of the presidency. Stacy named Harry W. Chase acting dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and the trustees agreed.

  74. Protest or organizing · Hillsborough A Black committee of the women's Liberty Loan organization raises $1,350 in Hillsborough Township

    In the Fourth Liberty Loan the Hillsborough Township women's committee included a committee of Black residents, among them Annie Renshaw, Fannie Benton and Christianna Ferribow, who raised $1,350 from 27 Black subscribers.

  75. Health or relief action · Black school, Chapel Hill Black residents keep an influenza soup kitchen at the Black school

    During the 1918 epidemic in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, Black residents ran a soup kitchen at the Black school and looked after the sick in their settlement, work the Chapel Hill Red Cross history singled out.

  76. Health or relief action · Carrboro Carrboro opens an influenza diet kitchen in the mill club rooms

    When influenza spread from the university to Carrboro, a volunteer nursing committee worked night and day, and J. S. Carr gave the club rooms for a diet kitchen and paid its costs. For two weeks Mrs. R. B. Lawson and Mrs. Arthur Blackwood served at least seven gallons of soup a day, and orderlies checked homes each morning.

  77. Disaster or outbreak · Cedar Grove Cedar Grove Township counts about 375 influenza cases and four deaths

    Cedar Grove Township had about 375 cases of Spanish influenza and only four deaths, and the epidemic there lasted until the second week of December 1918.

  78. Health or relief action · University hospital, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill women nurse influenza patients as volunteers in the University hospital

    When influenza broke out after the University opened in the fall of 1918, the Red Cross offered its help to the physicians, and for weeks Helen Shell, Katherine Bourne and Mrs. K. J. Brown nursed as volunteers in the University hospital while other women helped stricken families in the village.

  79. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Chase takes charge of the college and then the faculty after two deaths

    Chase was appointed acting dean of the College of Liberal Arts after President Edward Kidder Graham died in October 1918, and chairman of the faculty after Marvin H. Stacy died in January 1919.

  80. Health or relief action · Hillsborough Eno Mill opens an influenza diet kitchen at West Hill school

    When influenza reached the Eno Mill district, the mill opened and paid for a diet kitchen at the West Hill school for about seven weeks, run by home demonstration agent Elizabeth Cornelius. It fed as many as 150 people a day, and the mill hired nurses for the sick.

  81. Disaster or outbreak · Carrboro Influenza epidemic strikes Chapel Hill

    Spanish influenza swept the University in early October 1918, putting the campus and its student soldiers under a three-week quarantine. By October 23 about 300 students had been ill and three had died, and President Edward Kidder Graham died of influenza and pneumonia on October 26.

  82. Health or relief action · Chapel Hill Members of the Woman's Association make 120 gauze masks for the campus Hospital Corps

    Meeting in small groups during the epidemic, women of the university's Woman's Association sewed 120 gauze masks and sent them to the infirmary for the Hospital Corps. The county's 1919 war record, summing up the association's work that fall, counts 150 influenza masks.

  83. Life event · Chapel Hill Nurse Bessie Roper dies after nursing UNC students through influenza

    Miss Roper left a paid nursing job to care for university students with influenza and stayed at her post while ill herself until doctors made her stop. She developed pneumonia and died within days.

  84. Property or economic transaction · Orange County Orange County subscribes $331,700 to the Fourth Liberty Loan despite the influenza ban

    The county meeting planned for Liberty Day, October 12, 1918, was called off when the epidemic closed public gatherings, but Orange subscribed $331,700 against a $300,000 allotment. Hillsborough Township gave about $175,000 on a $55,000 allotment, and the women's committees raised $227,300.

  85. Health or relief action · Hillsborough The Orange County Red Cross ships 2,682 pounds of clothing for Belgian relief

    In October 1918 the chapter shipped eleven boxes holding 2,682 pounds of clothing for Belgian relief and sent 706 linen articles, valued at $234.90, for soldiers in French hospitals. The Oaks branch, unable to send clothing, gave $40 for Belgian relief.

  86. Publication, speech or performance · UNC, Chapel Hill The university publishes the North Carolina Club's study of county life

    The extension program issued a 188-page report on the counties built on the North Carolina Club's research, in which E. C. Branson called county government the least creditable institution in the country. The study later fed the 1920s county government reforms.

  87. Health or relief action · Chapel Hill UNC's women students make masks and arm bands for the emergency hospitals

    In the first days of the epidemic the Red Cross called on the co-eds to make face masks for doctors and nurses in the emergency hospitals. They made 286 masks and 170 arm bands for hospital attendants.

  88. Violence or armed conflict · Hillsborough Chandler J. Cates of Hillsborough dies of wounds after the armistice

    Chandler J. Cates of Company F, 120th Infantry, 30th Division, was severely wounded on October 17, 1918, after distinguished service, and taken to hospitals in France and England. He died of his wounds on November 20, 1918.

  89. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Red Cross elects A. H. Patterson chairman at its annual meeting

    At its annual meeting on Thursday, November 21, 1918, the chapter elected Dr. A. H. Patterson chairman, with Alice Noble vice-chairman, Nellie Roberson secretary and Dudley Carroll treasurer. Earlier that fall George Howe had resigned for his duties on the University's Student Army Training Corps committee, and J. M. Bell had taken his place.

  90. Statistic or record · UNC, Chapel Hill About 2,240 university men are in uniform when the war ends

    At the armistice about 2,240 university men, counting alumni and faculty, were in service. The Alumni Review's October to December issues listed 33 dead, and the only faculty member killed was Lt. Joseph Henry Johnston of the School of Education.

  91. Construction or physical change · University Inn, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Red Cross moves its workroom to the University Inn

    After the armistice of November 11, 1918, the chapter left the Zeta Psi fraternity hall for roomy quarters in the University Inn that the University provided.

  92. Health or relief action · Hillsborough The Orange County Red Cross mails 111 Christmas boxes to men overseas

    In November 1918 a chapter committee inspected, packed and mailed 111 Christmas boxes for men in the American Expeditionary Forces. A hundred comfort kits that Mrs. C. H. Robertson's workers had made for a Capt. Davies, which could not be shipped to him, went instead to fill a headquarters order for Italian comfort kits.

  93. Health or relief action · Chapel Hill The university Woman's Association holds a Thanksgiving peace festival

    To pay for layettes and other war relief, the Woman's Association planned a Thanksgiving Peace Celebration: a Gypsy Festival moved by rain into the Y.M.C.A., ending with a pageant in Gerrard Hall. It raised $350, $150 of it for the United War Fund.

  94. Naming or commemoration · Gerrard Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill A memorial service for President Graham fills Gerrard Hall

    Every seat in Gerrard Hall was taken for the formal memorial service for Edward Kidder Graham, held after the epidemic had eased. Horace Williams and R. D. W. Connor spoke, and J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton read a tribute from C. Alphonso Smith.

  95. Closing or ending · UNC, Chapel Hill The SATC is demobilized and half its men leave Chapel Hill

    Demobilization of the Students' Army Training Corps was completed on December 10, 1918, ending military control of the campus, and half of the SATC men left on the next train. Faculty judged the arrangement a failure because the university had answered to two masters.

  96. Life event · Chapel Hill Sgt. Charles Battle Wills of Chapel Hill dies of pneumonia overseas

    Charles Battle Wills of Chapel Hill enlisted June 19, 1917, and served as a sergeant in Battery C, 113th Field Artillery, 30th Division. He died of pneumonia overseas on Christmas Day 1918, and L. P. McLendon paid him tribute at the Chapel Hill homecoming.

  97. Disaster or outbreak · Orange County A second influenza wave strikes Cedar Grove, Efland and Hillsborough

    After Christmas 1918 a second epidemic spread through the county and was very bad at Cedar Grove, Efland and Hillsborough. This time schools and churches stayed open, and the outbreak slowly died down.

  98. Chapel Hill Edwin Greenlaw becomes dean of the Graduate School

    Greenlaw became the third dean of UNC's Graduate School and led it until he left for Johns Hopkins in 1925.

  99. Statistic or record · Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Red Cross signs 550 members in its 1918 Christmas Roll Call

    J. S. Holmes chaired the chapter's Christmas Roll Call of 1918, which secured 550 members. The school's Junior Red Cross auxiliary enrolled 310 in the same roll call, with every grade of the graded school at full membership.

  100. Naming or commemoration · Governor's office, Raleigh (for UNC, Chapel Hill) Trustees and faculty back a $150,000 student building as Edward Kidder Graham's memorial

    A joint committee of trustees and faculty, meeting in the governor's office in mid-December, agreed to raise $150,000 privately for the student activities building Graham had hoped for, to stand where Person Hall was. Albert Coates ran the drive and by the end of January 1919 announced $20,000 pledged by students, $14,500 of it in one night.

  101. Chapel Hill Acting dean of students A. H. Patterson reports on drinking at the spring dances

    When complaints about drinking at the revived spring dances reached President Chase, Patterson, whom Chase had made acting dean of students, blamed most of it on visiting alumni and said there was little he could do about the newer dances.

  102. Appointment, election or service · Orange County Alexander H. Graham becomes chair of the Orange County Democratic Party

    After his discharge from the Army as a captain in 1919, Alexander H. "Sandy" Graham of Hillsborough was elected chair of the Orange County Democratic Party.

  103. Chapel Hill Alice Noble writes the history of the Chapel Hill Red Cross chapter

    As chapter historian, Alice Noble signed the Chapel Hill chapter's account of its war work, from the 1917 first aid class through the 1919 welcome home for soldiers and sailors in Memorial Hall.

  104. Protest or organizing · North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), 201 Redman Crossing, Efland Charlotte Hawkins Brown starts the clubwomen's drive for a home for delinquent Black girls

    As president of the North Carolina Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, Charlotte Hawkins Brown of Palmer Memorial Institute began a public campaign in late 1919 for a reformatory for Black girls, the same year the legislature set up juvenile courts. The drive led to the Efland Home in western Orange County.

  105. Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill Chase keeps E. C. Branson at Chapel Hill with a Kenan professorship

    When the University of Virginia tried to hire the rural sociologist to rebuild his program in Charlottesville, Chase made Branson a Kenan professor with $1,000 more in pay, and he stayed.

  106. Chapel Hill Dudley D. Carroll leads UNC's School of Commerce

    Carroll came to UNC as professor of economics in 1918 and became dean of the School of Commerce, which he helped plan, holding the post for thirty-one years.

  107. Chapel Hill Edgar Wallace Knight joins the UNC faculty

    Knight, who had taught education at Trinity College, joined the University of North Carolina faculty in 1919, and Chapel Hill remained his home from then on.

  108. Chapel Hill Eric A. Abernethy becomes the university physician

    After he came home from the war, the university hired Dr. Eric A. Abernethy as its campus physician, in charge of the infirmary. UNC A to Z calls him the first person to hold the post and says he brought modern ideas about sanitation and medical practice to the campus.

  109. Chapel Hill Eugene C. Branson proposes calling the planned social science school the School of Public Welfare

    Branson had urged a school of social science on Graham in 1916. In 1919, worried that "social science" sounded like socialism to North Carolinians, he proposed the name School of Public Welfare, which John Sprunt Hill endorsed, and suggested Hill endow it.

  110. Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill Frank Porter Graham becomes dean of students

    Chase brought Graham back from the Marines over the summer to fill the new post of dean of students, in charge of discipline and of reviving student government after the SATC, while also teaching history. He agreed to try it for a year.

  111. Publication, speech or performance · Gerrard Hall, Chapel Hill Frederick Koch reads A Christmas Carol in Gerrard Hall

    Koch brought his annual reading of Dickens's A Christmas Carol to UNC when he arrived in 1918. The Raleigh News and Observer described a 1919 reading in Gerrard Hall, with carols by university singing groups in the two intermissions, and he gave the reading 39 times on the UNC campus.

  112. Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill George Howe becomes dean of the College of Liberal Arts

    Howe, professor of Latin since 1903, took over the College of Liberal Arts in 1919 to handle academic affairs while the new dean of students handled discipline.

  113. Founding or opening · Carolina Confectionery, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Gus Paviakis opens the Carolina Confectionery, later the Carolina Coffee Shop

    Paviakis opened the Carolina Confectionery in the space the University Athletic Shop had used. George Livas and James Gust later bought it and renamed it the Carolina Coffee Shop.

  114. Property or economic transaction · 219 North Churton Street, Hillsborough Houston J. Walker buys the James A. Cheek House from Annie Gray Ruffin

    Annie Gray Ruffin, widowed since she and Allen J. Ruffin bought the Cheek house in 1908, sold it to Houston J. Walker. Three years later Walker and his son Allen H. Walker Sr. opened Walker's Funeral Home in Hillsborough.

  115. Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill Inez Koonce Stacy becomes the University's adviser to women

    After Clara Lingle left, the post went to Inez Koonce Stacy, widow of acting president Marvin Stacy. For years she was the only woman on the regular University payroll apart from stenographers and library aides.

  116. Property or economic transaction · Webb-Patterson House (Mid-Lawn), 131 East Queen Street, Hillsborough James Webb Jr.'s house Mid-Lawn is sold to David and Elizabeth Patterson

    In 1919 Mid-Lawn, the Italianate house James Webb Jr. built in 1881 at East Queen and North Cameron streets, was sold to David and Elizabeth Patterson. It has since been known as the Webb-Patterson House.

  117. Construction or physical change · Orange County Korean lespedeza is introduced on Orange County farms

    By 1919 farmers had been persuaded to try Korean lespedeza and nearly a thousand acres were grown that year. The legume became the county's main hay crop and winter cover.

  118. Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill Lenoir Chambers is hired to teach journalism and run the University news service

    Chase recruited Chambers, a newspaperman then still in France, to teach a journalism course and manage the University's news service, arranging the job through his father while Chambers was crossing the Atlantic.

  119. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Luther Hodges leads the UNC student council and his senior class

    Hodges worked his way through the University of North Carolina, where he was president of the student council and of his senior class. He graduated in 1919.

  120. 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.

  121. Founding or opening · UNC School of Law, Chapel Hill Oscar Efird organizes the Law School Association

    Law teacher Oscar Ogburn Efird turned the school's loose moot courts into appellate-style law clubs under a Law School Association. It faded after he left the next year.

  122. Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill Paul John Weaver is hired as the University's first director of music

    Chase completed the hiring, begun by Graham, of Weaver of St. Louis as the first director of music, a full professor at $2,750. Chase asked him to take music education out to the state's schools, as Frederick Koch was doing with drama.

  123. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill, Phillips Hall Phillips Hall opens, named for three Phillips family teachers

    Phillips Hall opened on the Chapel Hill campus in 1919, honoring three members of the Phillips family who taught at the university in the nineteenth century: James Phillips, his son Charles Phillips and his grandson William Battle Phillips.

  124. Property or economic transaction · 121 (later 125) South Columbia Street, Chapel Hill Sallie Hemphill, later Sallie Markham Michie, buys the house at 121 South Columbia Street

    Sallie Michie bought the two-story house next to what became the Ackland Art Museum in 1919 and kept it for 73 years, refusing for decades to sell it to the University.

  125. Construction or physical change · Bacon Farm, 4123 St. Mary's Road, east of Hillsborough The Bacon farm on St. Mary's Road takes up dairying

    After the First World War the owners of the Bacon Farm switched to dairying, building a large gambrel-roofed dairy barn and two frame milking parlors behind the house, which was remodeled as a bungalow in the same years.

  126. Founding or opening · Carrboro The Bank of Chapel Hill opens a branch, the Bank of Carrboro

    The Bank of Chapel Hill raised its capital in the summer of 1919 so it could open a bank in the mill town, and the Bank of Carrboro opened for business on a Saturday late that fall. Deposits on the first day came to more than $30,000.

  127. Construction or physical change · Bellevue Manufacturing Company, South Nash Street at Eno Street, West Hillsborough The Bellevue mill changes over from steam to electric power

    The mill was built to run belt-driven machinery from a steam engine. By 1919 it ran partly on electricity, and by the mid-1920s it had changed over completely, with individual motors on the machines and the belt-way removed.

  128. Founding or opening · Forest Theatre, Battle Park, Chapel Hill The Forest Theatre, an outdoor amphitheatre, is built at the edge of Battle Park

    The university's open-air theatre on the western edge of Battle Park dates from 1919. It now carries the name of drama professor Frederick Koch.

  129. Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill The University carries out a building program under President Chase

    William M. Kendal of McKim, Mead and White planned an expansion for 3,000 students, proposing twenty-one new buildings. By December 1928 the University had built nine dormitories (eight for men, one for women) and Saunders, Murphey, Manning and Venable halls, with Bingham Hall and the library nearly done, and had remodeled the old campus buildings. Faculty above the rank of instructor grew from 66 to 158 over the decade.

  130. Law, policy or court · Hillsborough The clerk of superior court becomes judge of Orange County's juvenile court

    A 1919 state law required a juvenile court in every county. In Orange, as in most counties, the clerk of superior court was made its judge.

  131. Statistic or record · Orange County The county war record lists 23 Orange County servicemen who died in the war

    Annie Sutton Cameron's record for the Council of Defense lists 23 Orange County soldiers killed in action or dead of wounds or disease, four of them Black. The list includes men from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Blackwood and Rougemont.

  132. Appointment, election or service · UNC campus, Chapel Hill The university hires Aberthaw and McKim, Mead and White for its expansion

    For the postwar building program the university engaged the Aberthaw firm in 1919 to survey the campus and rework its plan, and by May 1920 it had retained the New York firm of McKim, Mead and White, led by William Kendall, as consulting architects for red brick Colonial Revival buildings. Local supervision came later, under Thomas C. Atwood from 1921, with H. P. Alan Montgomery and, from 1922, Arthur C. Nash.

  133. Law, policy or court · Orange County The county board decides to turn every one-teacher school into a two-teacher school

    In January 1919 the board resolved to convert all of its one-teacher schools to two teachers, the same meeting at which it bought water coolers and erasers for the classrooms and raised the superintendent's pay.

  134. Disaster or outbreak · Fraternity Row, behind Hill Hall, UNC campus, Chapel Hill Fire destroys three fraternity houses on Fraternity Row and nearly takes the Carnegie Library

    Fire broke out about 2 a.m. and destroyed the Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Pi Kappa Phi and Sigma Nu houses at the lower end of Fraternity Row, a private lane behind the Carnegie Library. The library, about thirty feet from the Sigma Nu house, lost only some window panes and had water damage. The university then bought land across South Columbia Street and swapped it with the fraternities for their old lots, which led to the fraternity courts of the 1920s.

  135. Life event · Chapel Hill Acting president Marvin Hendrix Stacy dies of influenza

    Stacy, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and chairman of the faculty with a president's powers since Graham's death, died on Tuesday morning after several days' serious illness, the second university head lost to the pandemic in three months. The pandemic led the university to appoint its first university physician, Eric Alonzo Abernethy.

  136. Statistic or record · UNC, Chapel Hill Enrollment drops to 759 for the postwar winter quarter

    When the winter quarter opened after the SATC left, 759 students registered, the lowest count in more than a decade. Officials hoped returning soldiers would add about 150 in March.

  137. Life event · Senlac, Chapel Hill Former president Kemp Plummer Battle dies at Senlac

    Kemp Plummer Battle, who helped reopen the university in 1875, served as its president from 1876 and wrote its history, died in his sleep at Senlac, his home at the edge of campus. He had turned 87 in December, and his death came two weeks after Stacy's.

  138. Property or economic transaction · Gerrard Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill Students open the Graham Memorial fund drive in Gerrard Hall

    At a student rally led by Albert Coates, with William H. Bobbitt and Luther Hodges also speaking, students and faculty pledged $20,000 toward a building now budgeted at $150,000. The drive reached about $70,000 by its June deadline and $120,000 by the end of 1919.

  139. Closing or ending · Orange County The Woman's Committee of the Council of Defense is discharged

    Gov. Bickett advised in February 1919 that the legislature would not fund the Council of Defense, and on February 15 the state chairman gave all members of the Woman's Committee an honorable discharge, ending the county organization.

  140. Construction or physical change · University of North Carolina campus, Chapel Hill Planner John Nolen delivers a campus plan for the university

    Hired by the university's new buildings committees, John Nolen produced a campus plan in February 1919 that laid out fourteen new buildings, among them classrooms, a gymnasium and three dormitories. The university then engaged McKim, Mead and White and local architects to carry it out.

  141. Health or relief action · Orange County Orange County raises $2,075.84 for Armenian relief

    An Armenian Relief campaign led by Dr. E. C. Branson ran from February 21 to March 6, 1919, and raised $2,075.84. Much of it came through the county's white and Black schools; Nellie Russell led Hillsborough Township.

  142. Chapel Hill Richard H. Lewis chairs the trustees' search for a new university president

    After Edward Kidder Graham's death, the trustees named a search committee chaired by Dr. Richard H. Lewis of Raleigh, which met students and faculty on the campus in mid-February. In mid-May it put forward Frank L. McVey, Robert J. Aley and Harry W. Chase, with McVey its favorite.

  143. Law, policy or court · UNC, Chapel Hill UNC faculty adopt a three-quarter academic year

    Under Chase's guidance the faculty dropped the old two-term year for three quarters at its February 1919 meeting, keeping a lesson of the wartime SATC schedule. Students back in January could finish two-thirds of a year's work in six months.

  144. Gerrard Hall Gerrard Hall memorial service for Marvin H. Stacy

    Students, faculty and friends met in Gerrard Hall to remember Stacy, who had died of influenza on January 21. Former president Francis P. Venable, a childhood friend, and Albert Coates for the students spoke.

  145. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Carolina Playmakers present their first bill

    The first bill included Thomas Wolfe’s The Return of Buck Gavin, with Wolfe in the title role.

  146. Law, policy or court · General Assembly, Raleigh (for UNC, Chapel Hill) The General Assembly grants the University's full $215,000 request

    The 1919 legislature approved all $215,000 a year that Chase sought, up from $165,000, and added $20,000 toward a deficit of about $47,000. With the raises that took effect in September 1919, University pay stood about a quarter above 1914.

  147. Construction or physical change · Hillsborough The county board commits $20,000 to a new Hillsboro school as a memorial to the county's war dead

    The board first offered Hillsboro $5,000 for a new school plant if the town raised $2,500, then settled on $20,000, and asked that the building honor the men of the county killed in the First World War. It offered Carrboro $2,500 on condition that voters there pass a $20,000 bond issue.

  148. Law, policy or court · Orange County The county board sets out to close small weak schools and merge them with nearby ones

    After visiting Orange Grove, which it kept as a three-teacher school, the board stated its aim of shutting small and inefficient schools and consolidating them with neighbors. The policy guided its building and busing decisions through the 1920s and 1930s.

  149. Statistic or record · Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Red Cross reports 66 cases of supplies shipped since its founding

    The chapter's report of woman's work to April 12, 1919 counted 66 cases shipped from its workroom and auxiliaries: 200 comfort kits, 306 oakum pads, 8,155 dressings, 1,004 hospital garments, 20 cases of refugee clothing weighing 2,500 pounds, 235 Christmas packages and about 725 knitted articles.

  150. Orange County Edgar Wallace Knight becomes assistant superintendent of Orange County schools

    In April 1919, the year he joined the UNC faculty, Knight was hired as assistant to county superintendent R. H. Claytor; the board agreed to pay him $40 a month, though later biographies describe the post as unpaid. He was still styled assistant superintendent of schools in 1923.

  151. Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill welcomes home its World War soldiers alongside Confederate veterans

    On Saturday, May 10, 1919, a parade of Confederate veterans, returned soldiers and sailors, former student soldiers and town groups filled Franklin and Columbia Streets. Over 2,000 people crowded Memorial Hall to hear Archibald Henderson, L. P. McLendon and Joseph Hyde Pratt, with William Cain presiding.

  152. Health or relief action · Orange County Orange County raises $800 for the Salvation Army

    In a Salvation Army campaign May 16-26, 1919, South Orange under W. S. Roberson raised $300 and North Orange under R. H. Claytor raised $500.01 on a $500 quota.

  153. Property or economic transaction · Orange County Orange County subscribes $137,050 to the Victory Liberty Loan

    In the fifth, or Victory, Liberty Loan the county subscribed $137,050 against a $112,500 allotment, from 202 men, 70 women and 4 corporations. The women's committee reported $67,300 obtained by direct solicitation.

  154. Award or honor · Orange County Orange County towns and townships win honor flags in the Victory Loan

    For meeting their Victory Loan quotas, Cedar Grove, Chapel Hill, Cheeks, Eno and Hillsborough townships and the towns of Chapel Hill and Hillsborough were awarded honor flags, the Chapel Hill News reported on May 29, 1919, crediting Mayor W. S. Roberson as Victory Loan chairman. The paper said county residents had put more than a million dollars into government securities since the first Liberty Loan.

  155. Hillsborough The Orange County Red Cross commits its women workers and $300 to the soldiers' homecoming

    At the request of the homecoming chairman, Robertson called the chapter's executive committee and workers to the court house, where they agreed to decorate the town and serve the soldiers' dinner on July 16. He named Mrs. W. L. Wall chairman of the dinner, and the committee voted $300 of its $399 balance toward the celebration.

  156. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Harry W. Chase is elected president of the university

    The trustees elected Chase president of the University of North Carolina in June 1919. He had taught at Chapel Hill since September 1910 and had been chairman of the faculty since that January.

  157. Appointment, election or service · Orange County School superintendent R. H. Claytor becomes the county's first welfare superintendent

    After the 1919 law required every county to have a welfare board, the commissioners and school board jointly elected Claytor to the added post at $600 a year, half from county and half from school funds. Wiley B. Sanders took the job part time on July 5, 1920, for six months.

  158. Publication, speech or performance · Hillsborough A thunderstorm halts Esther Wake at Cameron Park during the homecoming

    University Summer School students staged Adolph Vermont's play Esther Wake, on the early history of Hillsborough and Orange County, at Cameron Park for more than 5,000 people. A heavy thunderstorm stopped it in the second act.

  159. Naming or commemoration · Hillsborough Black women of Hillsborough serve the homecoming dinner for Black soldiers and sailors

    For the July 16, 1919 homecoming, a committee of Black residents planned a separate welcome, with Minnie Berry Martin chairing the dinner and Annie Berry the serving. Black soldiers and sailors marched in the parade with Black Red Cross workers and were served dinner at the Black school house.

  160. Naming or commemoration · Hillsborough Hillsborough holds the county homecoming celebration for returned soldiers

    On July 16, 1919, about 15,000 people came to Hillsborough to welcome home Orange County's soldiers and sailors, with a parade, Gov. Bickett's address at the court house and a dinner for about a thousand guests in Cameron Park. J. Cheshire Webb chaired the celebration, and the county Red Cross voted $300 toward its cost, money the celebration fund turned out not to need.

  161. Publication, speech or performance · UNC, Chapel Hill Some 300 county officials meet at the University as the State and County Council

    Two weeks before classes, about 300 school board members, county commissioners, superintendents, health and welfare officers and juvenile judges from 76 counties met on campus to compare work under the new state welfare and school laws. Governor Thomas W. Bickett gave the welcome.

  162. Statistic or record · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill The University opens its first postwar year with a record 1,350 students

    On opening day almost 400 freshmen filled Memorial Hall to hear Chase. Enrollment reached 1,350, about 500 more than the spring before; three or four men shared rooms built for two, some 600 boarded in the village, and 80 veterans of the AEF formed a club.

  163. Competition or sporting achievement · Emerson Field, UNC, Chapel Hill Carolina plays Virginia in Chapel Hill for the first time

    The Thanksgiving Day game with Virginia, the high point of the season, was held in Chapel Hill for the first time, and more than 8,000 people crowded Emerson Field.

  164. 1920s
  165. Founding or opening · UNC, Chapel Hill A Red Cross-funded summer institute trains social workers at the University

    Before he left Emory, Howard Odum persuaded the American Red Cross to pay the summer faculty of a training institute on campus for social workers, teachers, nurses, ministers, probation officers and Red Cross, YMCA and YWCA staff. Chase let a woman instructor assist but not lead a course.

  166. Construction or physical change · North side of Mill No. 7, Carrboro A fenced playground is built beside Mill No. 7

    Around 1920 a fenced playground with swings and horseshoe pits went up on the north side of Mill No. 7, one of the projects of the mills' Industrial Democracy plan. It was taken apart in World War II so its metal could go to the war effort.

  167. Founding or opening · Highway 70, east of Hillsborough A man named Blackwelder opens a service station with a petting zoo east of Hillsborough

    In the 1920s Blackwelder built a gas station on Highway 70 east of Hillsborough and drew in drivers with animals including deer, pigs and a black bear. The building later served as a dance hall and, in the 1950s, a soda shop.

  168. Construction or physical change · Laws A service station opens across from the store at Laws

    In the 1920s a service station went up across the road from the late nineteenth-century store at the Laws crossroads, as the automobile shifted crossroads trade from the country store to the gas pump.

  169. Construction or physical change · 111 East Main Street, Carrboro A wedge-shaped brick store replaces a frame general store at 111 East Main Street

    The one-story building, nicknamed the Flatiron for its nearly triangular plan, took the place of a frame store that had sold general goods and then drugs. It served as Carrboro's post office in the early 1930s.

  170. Construction or physical change · White Cross Alston Grove Congregational Church builds its frame church near White Cross

    The Alston Grove Congregational Church near White Cross builds a front-gable frame church around 1920 beside its cemetery.

  171. Construction or physical change · 208 Glandon Drive, Gimghoul, Chapel Hill Anatomy professor Wesley George builds a Colonial Revival cottage in Gimghoul

    George Watts Carr of Durham designed Wesley George's small front-gabled, shingled house with an entrance portico at 208 Glandon Drive, a sign of the Colonial Revival taking over the Gimghoul neighborhood after its first Craftsman houses.

  172. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Archibald Henderson heads UNC's mathematics department

    Henderson succeeded his uncle, William Cain, as head of the mathematics department in 1920 and led it until he retired in 1948. He built up its graduate program and departmental library.

  173. Life event · Hillsborough Billy Strayhorn stays with his grandparents in Hillsborough and starts school

    From about age five Strayhorn came from Ohio with his mother and siblings to his grandparents' house at the corner of Margaret Lane and Hillsborough Avenue, attended his first year of school in the town, and took to the piano his grandparents kept. He returned for breaks and summers into his early teens.

  174. Publication, speech or performance · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill Biologist Edwin Grant Conklin gives the McNair lectures on evolution

    Over three evenings in Memorial Hall, the Princeton biologist dismissed the clay-molding account of creation and said scientific doctrines stood or fell on evidence alone. His lectures were printed as part of the McNair series, and Presbyterians later cited them in charging that the university ignored the terms of John Calvin McNair's bequest.

  175. Founding or opening · Gravely Hill, west of Hillsborough Black families west of Hillsborough build the Gravely Hill Rosenwald School

    Black families west of Hillsborough helped pay for and build Gravely Hill School, a two-teacher Rosenwald school, in the Rosenwald Fund's 1920-21 budget year. It cost $3,200: $700 from Black residents, $2,000 in public money and $500 from the Fund.

  176. Appointment, election or service · Carrboro Braxton Bynum Lloyd serves as mayor of Carrboro

    Dr. Lloyd, who lived and practised in Carrboro, was elected a town alderman in May 1917, when T. N. Mann won the mayoralty, and served as the town's mayor in 1920 and 1921.

  177. Construction or physical change · Glenn House, 503 Oak Avenue, Carrboro Brodie Glenn, founder of Glenn Oil Company, builds a bungalow on Ragan Street

    When built, the house at 503 Oak Avenue, then Ragan Street, was the only one on the west side of the street north of Shelton Street, facing six older houses across the way.

  178. Construction or physical change · 308 Lindsay Street, Northside, Chapel Hill Carpenter Luther Hargrave builds a bungalow on Lindsay Street for his daughter's family

    In the African American section of Northside west of Church Street, carpenter Luther Hargrave built a side-gabled bungalow with a large front dormer at 308 Lindsay Street in 1920 for his daughter and her husband.

  179. Construction or physical change · Carr School, Carr community, northwest Orange County Carr School gets its second classroom

    The county board added a second room to Carr School in northwest Orange County, making it a two-room school twelve years after the first room was built.

  180. Naming or commemoration · Carrboro Carrboro's lettered streets receive names

    Until about 1920 the mill village's streets went by letters. Around then most got the names they still had in 1983; the H, I and J streets north of Mill No. 4 became Ice Avenue, Durham Street and Hosiery Street.

  181. 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.

  182. 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.

  183. Property or economic transaction · Delta Tau Delta house, West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill Delta Tau Delta buys Alice Jones's West Franklin Street property

    The Delta Tau Delta fraternity bought the West Franklin Street house and lot of Miss Alice Jones. In 1936, remodeled, the house became Dr. W. Reece Berryhill's home.

  184. Construction or physical change · Dr. Lloyd House, 406 South Greensboro Street, Carrboro Dr. Brack Lloyd has Charlie Martindale build a bungalow with Carrboro's first central heating

    Around 1920 Dr. Brack Lloyd, the village doctor, hired Chapel Hill contractor Charlie Martindale to build a large one-story bungalow at 406 South Greensboro Street. It was the first house in Carrboro with a central heating system.

  185. 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.

  186. Construction or physical change · Efland Efland Methodist Church builds a brick Gothic Revival church

    The Efland Methodist congregation builds a brick church in the Gothic Revival style on US 70 around 1920.

  187. Construction or physical change · Eno United Methodist Church, 903 Eno Street, West Hillsborough Eno Methodist Church adds rear classrooms used for West Hillsborough school classes

    A side-gabled addition built about 1920 gave the church its T plan and held classrooms where early West Hillsborough school classes met, before the West End School was built on Bellevue Avenue.

  188. Disaster or outbreak · business district, Chapel Hill Fire destroys Gooch's Café and a row of frame stores in Chapel Hill

    An early-morning fire, thought to have started in Gooch's Café, burned five frame buildings in the business district, among them Pendergraft's grocery, Peace's barber shop and Foister's book store. Summer school students carried out the bookstore's stock, and the loss was put at $35,000.

  189. Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill Floyd Council and two brothers play Chapel Hill's streets as the Chapel Hillbillies

    Chapel Hill-born blues guitarist and singer Floyd Council began performing in the 1920s with two brothers on the streets of the town, under the name the Chapel Hillbillies.

  190. Construction or physical change · Mount Sinai Road Henry and Lora Trice, a Black couple, build a farmhouse on their 36 acres

    About 1920 a story-and-a-half frame farmhouse was built for Henry and Lora Trice on the farm they owned off Mount Sinai Road. It stood empty and decaying in 1992.

  191. Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Howard W. Odum comes to Chapel Hill to lead UNC's School of Public Welfare and sociology department

    Odum, a Georgia-born sociologist who had been dean of liberal arts at Emory, arrived in Chapel Hill in 1920 to direct the School of Public Welfare and the Department of Sociology. He taught at UNC for the rest of his life.

  192. Appointment, election or service · Orange County Ida Lloyd becomes the first office assistant in the county superintendent's office

    The board hired Miss Ida Lloyd as Superintendent Claytor's first office assistant at $40 a month.

  193. Life event · UNC campus, Chapel Hill Kennon Cheek joins the janitorial staff of Venable Hall

    Cheek began working for the university as a boy, helping his father Rubin Cheek, a stonemason born in slavery in Warren County, lay the stone walls around the campus. Around 1920 he joined the janitorial staff of Venable Hall.

  194. Construction or physical change · Tapp Farm, northern Orange County Log tobacco barns are built on the Tapp Farm in far northern Orange

    A group of stuccoed log tobacco barns, each 18 feet square, was probably built in the 1920s on the Tapp Farm at the county's northern edge.

  195. Statistic or record · Orange County Louis Graves reports that Orange County has the state's biggest illicit distilling

    Writing in the New Republic, Graves said North Carolina led the country in illicit still capacity and that Orange County, home of the University, had the largest distilling operations in the state, ahead of Wilkes.

  196. Construction or physical change · Hargraves Street, Chapel Hill and Carrboro Luther R. Hargraves built the tin-roofed houses that gave Tin Top its name

    Luther R. Hargraves, a carpenter and Chapel Hill's first African American mortician, built a row of houses with tin roofs on Hargraves Street near the railroad tracks behind St. Paul AME, and the cluster became known as Tin Top or Tin Top Alley.

  197. Construction or physical change · north of Hillsborough Mars Hill Baptist Church builds a Gothic Revival frame church

    Mars Hill Baptist Church on NC 57 north of Hillsborough builds a frame Gothic Revival church in the 1920s, next to its cemetery.

  198. Founding or opening · Cedar Grove McDade Store No. 2 opens as a filling station at Cedar Grove

    McDade Store No. 2, a small frame store with a gable-front canopy over its gas pumps, was a typical 1920s country filling station at Cedar Grove.

  199. Construction or physical change · Dwight Ray House, 218 Hillsborough Road, Carrboro Merchant Dwight Ray builds a bungalow on Hillsborough Road

    Ray, co-owner of Lloyd-Ray Hardware and later an Orange County commissioner, had the one-and-a-half-story house built at 218 Hillsborough Road. Bungalows lined the road through the 1920s and early 1930s, among them one next door built for businessman Miles Andrews.

  200. Construction or physical change · Sturdivant-Mason House, 103 Fowler Street, Carrboro Merchant Luther Sturdivant builds a house in Partridge Field

    Sturdivant and his wife, longtime principal of the Carrboro Graded School, expected the empty tract called Partridge Field to become the town's new fashionable neighborhood. Knute Mann and builder John Squires soon built nearby, but by about 1940 only three more houses had followed and families were moving to the Hillsborough Road area instead.

  201. Statistic or record · Carrboro Mills own only a third of Carrboro's houses

    In 1920 Carrboro had about 280 textile workers and 223 houses, and the mills owned only about a third of those houses. Most of the rest were private, many of them rentals put up by local farmers and businessmen such as Brodie Lloyd.

  202. Construction or physical change · 1211 Palmers Grove Church Road, Hillsborough Palmer's Grove Methodist Church builds a frame church

    Two years after it was organized in the Palmer's Grove schoolhouse, the Methodist congregation northwest of Hillsborough had its modest front-gabled frame church, which the 1993 county survey dates to 1920.

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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.

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Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026