Chronology

The Cedar Grove Rural Crossroads Historic District is listed in the National Register

On April 23, 1998 the National Park Service listed the Cedar Grove Rural Crossroads Historic District in Cedar Grove in the National Register of Historic Places.

State and university leaders welcome UNC President Molly Broad at a dinner in Chapel Hill

On the eve of her inauguration as the 15th president of the UNC system, hundreds of state and university leaders, including Gov. Jim Hunt and former presidents Bill Friday and C. D. Spangler, gathered at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center to welcome Molly Corbett Broad.

People: William C. Friday · C. D. Spangler Jr.

Mike Fox is named UNC head baseball coach

Athletic director Dick Baddour hired Fox, a former Tar Heel second baseman, as the 24th head coach in UNC baseball history. He came from 15 seasons at N.C. Wesleyan College and took over before the 1999 season.

Elson Floyd receives a C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award

Floyd, then executive vice chancellor, received UNC's Massey Award for service to the University, weeks before leaving for the presidency of Western Michigan University.

Carrboro renames its community park for Hank Anderson

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to rename Carrboro Community Park on N.C. 54 for Alderman Henry "Hank" Anderson III, on a motion by Alderman Jacquelyn Gist. The 55-acre park is one of the town's largest.

People: Jacquelyn Gist

Chapel Hill sets conditions for new solid waste sites before handing control to the county

The council unanimously directed its Landfill Owners Group members to secure a construction and demolition waste site by fall 1998, naming land on the north side of Eubanks Road next to the landfill, with eminent domain if needed, and the Greene Tract as options. It said pending solid waste issues had to be settled before any change in governance.

The Carolina Inn joins the Study List

The committee approved the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill for the Study List on July 9, 1998, among twenty public requests from the central and southeastern regions. The same meeting recommended the West Chapel Hill Historic District for nomination, and the inn's own nomination followed on April 8, 1999.

Subject: The Carolina Inn · West Chapel Hill Historic District

The Old Tavern and White Oak Grove School join the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the log Old Tavern at 419 Hillsborough Street, Chapel Hill, and the White Oak Grove School for Black children near Cedar Grove on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

Subject: White Oak Grove School · Old Tavern (419 Hillsborough Street)

Chapel Hill backs countywide funding to extend water lines to the Rogers Road neighborhood

By a 7 to 2 vote the council said water service lines for the community around the landfill should be paid for from a countywide revenue source so that all county residents share the cost, and opposed using the sales tax for those benefits.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board adopts its school assignment and reassignment policy

Policy 4150 set the rules the district followed when it redrew attendance lines. As revised on April 2, 2009, its priorities for reassignment were walk zones, full use of buildings and equity, meaning balanced family income and achievement among schools and short travel times.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

Administrative law judge recommends state recognition of the Occaneechi Band

After a contested case hearing that ran from February 1997 to July 1998, an administrative law judge recommended that the Commission of Indian Affairs grant the Occaneechi Band tribal recognition.

The West Chapel Hill Historic District is listed in the National Register

On December 31, 1998 the National Park Service listed the West Chapel Hill Historic District in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: West Chapel Hill Historic District

Community Land Trust in Orange County is incorporated

Local activists and governments incorporated the Community Land Trust in Orange County to keep homes permanently affordable through ground leases.

El Centro Latino serves Latino residents from Carrboro

El Centro Latino, incorporated in 1999, provided educational and social services, advocacy and cultural activities for Latinos in and around Orange County from Carrboro. It closed the day before Thanksgiving 2009 after funding losses and eight executive directors in ten years.

Fairview residents build a baseball field on a former dump

Residents built a ball field on the site of an old dump in 1999 and started a league to use it. For a decade it and a set of swings were about all Fairview Park had.

Subject: Fairview Park

Joal Hall Broun joins the Carrboro Board of Aldermen

In early 1999 Joal Hall Broun, an assistant public defender, was appointed to fill out the term of the late Alderman Hank Anderson, and she won election to the board that fall. She served on the board until 2011.

People: Joal Hall Broun · Hank Anderson

The solid waste interlocal agreement set 60 acres of the Greene Tract aside as Headwaters Preserve

The 1999 Solid Waste Management Interlocal Agreement set the terms for disposing of the 104 acres that stayed in joint ownership and allowed 60 acres to be deeded to Orange County, which became the Headwaters Preserve. In 2002 the three governments adopted a resolution identifying acreage on the joint portion for preservation and affordable housing.

Two large rear wings are added to the Ira Ellis House

Owner Thomas Rankin added two-story weatherboarded wings at the back of the brick house, one in 1999 and one in 2005, forming a U around a rear courtyard; a darkroom and a large pond came about 2000. The state later judged the additions too large for the house to qualify for the National Register.

Subject: Rev. Ira Ellis House (Little Ayr Mount)

Willie Scroggs is UNC's point person for the 1999 Special Olympics World Summer Games

As an athletics administrator Scroggs was the university's point person for the Special Olympics World Summer Games, part of which were held in Chapel Hill.

Mama Dip's Kitchen moves across West Rosemary Street into a new building at number 408

Mildred "Mama Dip" Council's restaurant, serving Southern country cooking since 1976, moved from across the street into a new building at 408 West Rosemary Street in February 1999.

People: Mildred Council

Subject: Mama Dip’s Kitchen

Hickory Grove School near Carrboro joins the Study List

On April 8, 1999 the committee approved Hickory Grove School, listed on the agenda under Carrboro, with the day's other central and southeastern public requests. Staff had recommended all of them except a Chatham County house.

The Cabe-Pratt-Harris House is listed in the National Register

On April 27, 1999 the National Park Service listed the Cabe-Pratt-Harris House near Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

Chancellor Michael Hooker dies in office

Hooker was chief administrative officer at Chapel Hill from July 1, 1995 until his death on June 29, 1999. He was found to have lymphoma in January 1999 and took medical leave from April, when William O. McCoy served as acting chancellor.

Reviewers turn down the Blyden and Roberta Jackson House as too recent

Staff recommended against the Chapel Hill house, built about 1960, because the case for it rested on people still living and it did not meet the National Register test for properties less than fifty years old. The committee followed staff on July 8, 1999.

People: Roberta Bowles Hodges Jackson

Commission of Indian Affairs rejects the judge's recommendation and denies Occaneechi recognition

At a June 11, 1999 hearing the Commission of Indian Affairs voted against the administrative law judge's recommendation, and on July 11 it issued a Final Agency Decision denying the petition. The band appealed to Orange County Superior Court on August 16, 1999, which affirmed the denial.

Hilliard Caldwell announces he will not seek another term as a Carrboro alderman

Caldwell said he would not run again and named controlled growth as the board's major achievement. The Daily Tar Heel counted 16 years of service under four Carrboro mayors.

People: Mike Nelson

UNC President Molly Broad names William McCoy to lead Chapel Hill after Chancellor Hooker's death

After Chancellor Michael Hooker died of cancer in June 1999, UNC system president Molly Broad appointed William O. McCoy, who had served as acting chancellor during Hooker's medical leave, to lead UNC-Chapel Hill until a permanent chancellor was chosen.

People: Michael Hooker

The Carolina Inn is listed in the National Register

On August 6, 1999 the National Park Service listed the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: The Carolina Inn

A county survey proposes a St. Mary's Road rural historic district

With a state Certified Local Government grant won in late 1998, Orange County hired GAI Consultants to survey six miles of St. Mary's Road from US 70 to the Durham line. Its August 1999 report recorded 20 historic places and recommended a rural historic district along the old Trading Path route.

Chapel Hill lets Orange County commissioners pick the next construction and demolition landfill site

With the existing construction and demolition landfill expected to fill by summer 2000, the council voted 9 to 0 to let the Board of Commissioners select an in-county replacement site on its behalf, citing time pressure and the expected transfer of solid waste authority to the county.

Jacquelyn Dowd Hall receives the National Humanities Medal

President Clinton presented Hall with a National Humanities Medal as founder and director of UNC-Chapel Hill's Southern Oral History Program and a scholar of the New South.

People: Bill Clinton

Montrose joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed Montrose, William A. Graham's home in Hillsborough from 1842 to 1874, on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

Subject: Montrose

The David Faucette House is listed in the National Register

On November 22, 1999 the National Park Service listed the David Faucette House near Efland in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: David Faucette House (The Elms)

2000 census counts the Hispanic or Latino population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill

The 2000 census counted 5,273 Hispanic or Latino residents in Orange County (4.5% of 118,227), 2,062 in Carrboro (12.3% of 16,782) and 1,506 in the Orange County part of Chapel Hill (3.2% of 46,798). Census Bureau report PHC-1-35, Table 3.

Census counts Orange County residents working in Durham County in

Of 60,860 employed Orange County residents in Census 2000, 16,470 (about 27 percent) worked in Durham County, 35,053 worked in Orange County and 4,212 worked in Wake County.

Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in

Census 2000 counted 118,227 people in Orange County, 46,798 in the Orange County part of Chapel Hill and 16,782 in Carrboro, according to the county's published table.

Central Elementary School gets a second large addition

Around 2000 another large addition was built across the center of Central Elementary School's front on Hayes Street in Hillsborough, following the 1975 addition by John James Croft.

Subject: Central High and Central Elementary, Hillsborough

Flynt Fabrics and Finishing closes the former Bellevue mill

The shutdown of the Flynt Fabrics and Finishing Company, successor to the Bellevue Manufacturing Company, in 2000 followed the Eno mill's 1984 closing and dealt Hillsborough a second economic blow. The mill buildings still stand between the town and West Hillsborough.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

Stella Nickerson serves as interim principal of Frank Porter Graham Elementary

After eighteen or nineteen years as a classroom teacher at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School and ten years as an assistant principal, Stella Nickerson served as interim principal in the 2000-2001 school year.

Fire guts the Jade Palace restaurant on East Main Street in Carrboro

A midday fire ripped through the building at 103 East Main Street that housed Jenny and Francis Chan's Jade Palace, leaving the restaurant's future in doubt. The Chans reopened, and the restaurant was still at that address in 2007.

The Thomas Jefferson Hogan House joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Thomas Jefferson Hogan House near Calvander on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

Subject: Thomas and Mary Hogan House

The Board of Governors elects James Moeser chancellor at the Carolina Inn

At a Board of Governors meeting in the Carolina Inn ballroom, UNC system president Molly Broad introduced University of Nebraska-Lincoln chancellor James Moeser, and the board unanimously elected him the ninth chancellor at Chapel Hill, ending an eight-month search.

People: James Moeser

Subject: The Carolina Inn

County Library Services Task Force recommends expanding library service across Orange County

In June 2000 the Board of Commissioners created a 14-member Library Services Task Force to study county library service. Its 2001 report recommended raising library funding to the state per-capita average, starting library projects in the northern and southern parts of the county together, building an Orange County heritage center, and offering Internet-based library service in the Carrboro Century Center.

Subject: Orange County Public Library

The land trust sells its first home, in Carrboro

The first land trust home was sold in June 2000 in Carrboro. By then the organization had helped create nearly 100 affordable housing opportunities in Chapel Hill.

Jesse Jackson receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom

President Bill Clinton presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jesse Jackson at a White House ceremony.

People: Bill Clinton

James Moeser serves as ninth chancellor at Chapel Hill

Moeser, a music scholar who had led the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, became chancellor on August 15, 2000. His years included the Carolina First campaign, which raised 2.38 billion dollars; he announced in September 2007 that he would step down on June 30, 2008.

Orange County and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools put the McDougle branch library under contract

A contract between Orange County and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Board of Education made the public library in the McDougle schools a branch of the Orange County Public Library, with a county-employed branch librarian. The schools provided space and utilities, the county paid for furnishings, insurance, janitorial service and staff stipends, and branch hours were not to overlap school hours.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · McDougle School · Orange County Public Library

Jones Grove pays off its mortgage and adds a steeple built by a deacon

The congregation marked the end of its mortgage along with the year's improvements: new carpet, lights and pew cushions, and a steeple that deacon Gotha C. Watkins built and gave.

Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

John Bunting becomes Carolina's head football coach

John Bunting, a former Tar Heel linebacker and 1972 UNC graduate, was named head football coach at the University of North Carolina after assistant jobs in the NFL.

Doug Marlette teaches at UNC as a Distinguished Visiting Professor of journalism

Hillsborough cartoonist Doug Marlette served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, teaching courses on the editorial cartoon and on humor writing.

Doug Marlette's novel The Bridge, set in a fictional Hillsborough, stirs the town's writers

Marlette's first novel, The Bridge, is set in the fictional town of Eno, modeled on Hillsborough, where he lived and worked. Some of Hillsborough's writers took offense at characters based on them, and the manager of the Bull's Head Bookshop in Chapel Hill cancelled a reading.

People: Allan Gurganus

Emma Torian Jones gives her home lot beside Ridge Road School to Jones Grove Church

Emma Torian Jones donated the lot west of the school, where she and her husband had lived since the 1960s, to Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church; the house was later torn down, returning the ground to woods. The Torian heirs had also deeded the school parcel to the church.

Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church · Ridge Road School

Land trust and housing corporation merge as the Orange Community Housing and Land Trust

The Community Land Trust in Orange County merged with the Orange Community Housing Corporation under the name Orange Community Housing and Land Trust. It reached 100 homes in 2005 and 230 by 2014.

Mark Kleinschmidt serves on the Chapel Hill Town Council

Kleinschmidt was elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council in 2001 and served until 2009. He was executive director of the Fair Trial Initiative and a former board president of the state ACLU affiliate.

Penny Rich is appointed to the OWASA board

Chapel Hill appointed Rich to the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board in 2001, and she served two three-year terms through 2007. She helped write water conservation policy during a severe drought.

UNC awards Gladys Coates an honorary doctor of laws

At ninety-nine, Gladys Coates, who had worked beside her husband in building the Institute and spent decades researching the University's past, received an honorary LL.D. from the University.

UNC's School of Law founds the Center for Civil Rights with Julius Chambers as its first director

The UNC School of Law established the Center for Civil Rights in Chapel Hill in 2001, with Julius Chambers as its first director, Dean Gene Nichol, and John Charles Boger as deputy director. The center worked on inequalities facing minority and low-income communities.

Subject: UNC School of Law

The Thomas and Mary Hogan House is listed in the National Register

On January 26, 2001 the National Park Service listed the Thomas and Mary Hogan House near Carrboro in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Thomas and Mary Hogan House

Shannon Ravenel leaves Algonquin's editorial directorship for her own imprint

Ravenel stepped down as editorial director of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill to choose books for Shannon Ravenel Books, an imprint within Algonquin, by then a division of Workman Publishing.

The St. Mary's Road area and the Occoneechee Speedway join the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the farm landscape along St. Mary's Road studied in the 1999 survey, and the Occoneechee Speedway near Hillsborough, on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. The meeting's minutes are lost; the placements rest on the annotated agenda.

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway

Hyconeechee Regional Library receives a Gates Foundation grant for public computers

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation committed $58,581 to Hyconeechee Regional Library in Hillsborough to expand public access to computers and the Internet.

Subject: Orange County Public Library

NC Court of Appeals rules the Occaneechi recognition recommendation stands

The Court of Appeals reversed the Orange County Superior Court and held that because the Commission of Indian Affairs missed its statutory deadline, the administrative law judge's recommendation for recognition became the final agency decision by operation of law. It remanded the case for an order consistent with that holding.

Bunting's Tar Heels beat sixth-ranked Florida State 41-9 at home

In Carolina's 2001 home opener, moved after the September 11 attacks postponed the SMU game, Bunting's team beat Bobby Bowden's Florida State 41-9 for his first win as head coach.

Subject: Kenan Stadium

Town Council approves UNC's main-campus Development Plan under OI-4 zoning

The Chapel Hill Town Council approved the university's Development Plan covering 582 acres of the main campus in the Office/Institutional-4 district, proposing 41 new buildings, 8 parking decks and new roads, about 5.9 million square feet in all, to carry out the 2001 Campus Master Plan.

Montrose is listed in the National Register

On October 18, 2001 the National Park Service listed Montrose in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Montrose

A police substation with community services opens in Fairview

In 2002 a police substation, shared with other community programs, opened on Rainey Street.

A state highway marker for Elizabeth Keckly goes up on North Churton Street in Hillsborough

North Carolina highway marker G-115, cast in 2002, stands on North Churton Street at Union Street in Hillsborough. It records Keckly as a Burwell family slave who lived there in the 1830s, bought her freedom in 1855, dressed Mary Todd Lincoln and published her memoir in 1868.

Doug Marlette is inducted into the UNC Journalism Hall of Fame

UNC's journalism school inducted Doug Marlette, then living in Hillsborough, into its Journalism Hall of Fame.

Harvey Beech receives the General Alumni Association's Distinguished Service Medal

The General Alumni Association awarded Beech its Distinguished Service Medal in 2002. The citation, read at the Annual Alumni Luncheon, called him the inspiration behind the Black Alumni Reunion and noted the scholarship endowment he set up at the university.

Institute of Government names a Knapp Building courtyard for Gladys Coates

After Gladys Hall Coates died at 100 at her Chapel Hill home on September 25, 2002, the Institute of Government named a garden courtyard and veranda beside the former auditorium in the Knapp Building's east wing in her memory.

Subject: Institute of Government

Orange County agrees to build a new construction and demolition landfill tied to a recycling ordinance

Because the construction and demolition landfill on Eubanks Road would fill around 2003, the Board of Commissioners agreed to build a new one only if certain bulky materials had to be recycled. The Regulated Recyclable Materials Ordinance took effect on October 1, 2002.

William R. Ferris joins UNC as senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South

Folklorist William R. Ferris joined the UNC-Chapel Hill faculty in 2002 as senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South, professor of history and adjunct professor in the Curriculum in Folklore.

State reviewers approve the Occoneechee Speedway nomination despite Hillsborough's objection

Hillsborough's historic preservation commission approved the nomination, but the mayor objected after a vote of the town commissioners, because the old track lay in the path of a possible north-south bypass. Commissioner Ken Chavious asked the committee on February 14, 2002 to weigh the town's traffic needs. Members replied that only eligibility was before them and approved the nomination unanimously, with one member leaving the room because he consulted on the bypass.

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway

Frances Hargraves dies at her Caldwell Street home

Frances Neal Hargraves, a retired Chapel Hill-Carrboro teacher and community volunteer, died at her home on Caldwell Street. Her funeral at St. Paul AME Church, where she had taught Sunday school for 53 years, filled the church and its annex, and the church planned a memorial garden in her name.

Subject: St. Paul AME Church

UNC public health students complete a community study of Fairview

After interviewing residents in 2001 and 2002, students in the UNC Department of Health Behavior and Health Education issued an action-oriented community diagnosis of Fairview. It is one of the few written histories of Hillsborough's northern Black neighborhoods.

Subject: UNC School of Public Health

Orange County commissioners take up a request to name the Morgan Creek bridge for James Taylor

The Orange County Board of Commissioners was set to vote on a resolution asking the state Board of Transportation to name the U.S. 15-501 bridge over Morgan Creek in Chapel Hill after James Taylor. Alan E. Rimer made the request for the Chapel Hill Museum board, which was planning an exhibition on Taylor.

Subject: Chapel Hill Museum

The Bellevue mill joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Belle-Vue Manufacturing Company mill in West Hillsborough on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

VilCom takes over WCHL's operations and brings the station back to Chapel Hill

Curtis Media kept ownership, but Heavner's VilCom took charge of the station's operations, planned a move to VilCom Circle in Chapel Hill by November 1 and an all-news and talk format, and aimed to make WCHL again the reference point for news of Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

Subject: WCHL radio

Gladys Coates dies at one hundred

Gladys Coates, partner in the founding of the Institute of Government and a student of the University's history, died at a hundred. After a service at the Chapel of the Cross she was buried beside Albert Coates in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, across the road from the School of Government.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Chapel of the Cross · Institute of Government

Elizabeth Spencer gives the Thomas Wolfe Prize lecture at UNC

Spencer received UNC's third Thomas Wolfe Prize, given by the English department to writers with distinguished bodies of work, and gave the free public Thomas Wolfe Lecture in the Hanes Art Center auditorium.

UNC's Naval Armory joins the Study List

The committee placed the Naval Armory on the UNC campus on the Study List on October 10, 2002, as one of the central and southeastern public requests it approved with staff recommendations.

Chancellor Moeser announces the Carolina Covenant

The Carolina Covenant promised children of low-income families a chance to graduate from UNC without debt, working 10 to 12 hours a week in a campus work-study job, with grants and scholarships meeting the rest of their need.

Holy Family Catholic Church in Hillsborough holds its first Spanish Mass

Holy Family parish in Hillsborough, which had grown from about 107 families in 1986 to about 250 in 1999, celebrated its first Spanish Mass in 2003 as Latino members joined the congregation. By 2012 the parish counted about 680 families and held a Sunday Spanish Mass alongside its three other services.

Mark Chilton serves on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen

Chilton moved to Carrboro and sat on the Board of Aldermen from 2003 to 2005, the seat from which he ran for mayor. He was working as an attorney and a broker and living in downtown Carrboro.

Orange County Public Library moves its catalog to the Polaris system

The library replaced its Galaxy automation system with Polaris. County budgets later list remote access to the online catalog and to patrons' own library accounts through Polaris.

Subject: Orange County Public Library

Randall Kenan teaches creative writing on the UNC faculty

Kenan joined UNC's English and Comparative Literature faculty full time in 2003 and taught fiction, nonfiction and food writing until his death in August 2020 at his home in Hillsborough.

The Watson-Whisnant House is moved from Burnsville to South Occoneechee Street

The Queen Anne house built about 1898 in Burnsville by banker and lawyer Frank Watson was moved across the state and set on a new brick foundation at 209 South Occoneechee Street, replacing a mobile home.

Town forms the Horace Williams Citizens Committee to shape review of the tract

Chapel Hill formed the Horace Williams Citizens Committee in 2003 to advise on development proposals for the university's Horace Williams tract, and the Town Council adopted the committee's March 2004 final report as town policy.

UNC Health Care expands Interpreter Services as Spanish-speaking patients increase

After a 2003 summary on the state of Hispanic health was presented to the UNC Health Care executive board, the system added Interpreter Services resources from 2003 to 2007. UNC Hospitals handled nearly 40,000 interpreter consults in 2005-2006.

Subject: UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital)

A tie vote keeps Person Hall off the Study List

UNC's campus preservation specialist Paul Kapp asked that Person Hall, already a contributing building in the Chapel Hill Historic District, be recognized on its own. Staff doubted how much of what was visible predated a 1977 renovation and urged the university to treat its old buildings as a district. On February 13, 2003 a motion to place the hall on the Study List split three to three, the chair voted no, and the committee deferred it; the Beta Theta Pi house was also deferred to await a possible Fraternity Court district.

Subject: Person Hall · Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House

Roy Williams is named head coach of UNC men's basketball

Williams left Kansas a week after losing the NCAA championship game and was introduced in Chapel Hill as UNC's head coach, succeeding Matt Doherty.

People: Matt Doherty

The U.S. 15-501 bridge over Morgan Creek is named the James Taylor Bridge

The 1987 bridge on U.S. 15-501 South, a mile from Taylor's boyhood home, was named the James Taylor Bridge at a public ceremony at the Dean Smith Center held by the N.C. Department of Transportation and the Chapel Hill Museum. Taylor attended.

Subject: Chapel Hill Museum

General Assembly writes Occaneechi recognition into state law

Session Law 2003-54 (House Bill 746), ratified May 19 and signed May 20, 2003, added G.S. 71A-7.2 designating the Indians of the Little Texas settlement in Pleasant Grove Township as the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation of North Carolina. The same act recognized the Meherrin Tribe and updated the Lumbee statute.

The Bellevue Manufacturing Company is listed in the National Register

On August 28, 2003 the National Park Service listed the Bellevue Manufacturing Company in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

The Beta Theta Pi house joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house in Chapel Hill on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

Subject: Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House

Mel and Zora Rashkis Elementary School is dedicated

Hundreds of students, parents and residents attended the dedication of the district's newest elementary school, which opened that August. The school board named it for Mel and Zora Rashkis for their work with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools since they moved to the area in 1962.

People: Mel Rashkis

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

Charles E. Daye receives the Thomas Jefferson Award

Law professor Charles E. Daye won the Thomas Jefferson Award in 2004, the year after he co-authored a brief that helped persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to preserve affirmative action in college and university admissions.

Occaneechi Band buys 25 acres for its tribal grounds

The band bought a 25-acre tract of former tobacco farmland near Dailey Store Road in northeastern Alamance County, the first land it had held as a tribe in over two centuries. The site became its ceremonial ground, open-air museum and tribal center.

The Henry W. Lewis classroom is dedicated in the Knapp-Sanders Building

The Institute of Government named a classroom for Lewis in its renovated Knapp-Sanders Building.

People: Henry Wilkins Lewis

Subject: Institute of Government

UNC School of Medicine starts CAMPOS to train Spanish-speaking physicians

Marco Alemán and colleagues founded the Comprehensive Advanced Medical Program of Spanish in 2004 to prepare medical students to care for Spanish-speaking patients without relying on interpreters. Its first class graduated in 2008, and students do yearly service with Spanish-speaking communities.

Subject: UNC School of Medicine

Valerie Foushee is elected to the Orange County Board of Commissioners

Foushee served on the Orange County Board of Commissioners from 2004 to 2012. Her official House biography says she was the first African American woman to chair the county commission.

Second library task force calls for a new main library of 30,000 to 65,000 square feet

A second Library Services Task Force, appointed in January 2004, recommended building a centrally located main library of 30,000 to 65,000 square feet sized for 2025 population estimates, a southwest branch in Carrboro combining the McDougle branch and the Cybrary, and an Orange County heritage center.

Subject: Orange County Public Library · McDougle School

Robert Campbell petitioned Chapel Hill for bus service to the Rogers Road neighborhood

Minister Robert Campbell asked the Chapel Hill council to extend free transit service to the Rogers Road community, noting that it lacked sidewalks and sewer service and that children walked along the landfill's heavy truck route. He suggested rerouting underused Airport Road buses.

People: Robert Campbell

Subject: Chapel Hill Transit

Chapel Hill enacts the Northside neighborhood conservation district

After residents asked for protection from student-rental conversions, the council enacted the town's first neighborhood conservation district, a zoning overlay limiting house size and height in Northside. An advisory committee drafted it through 2003 before a January 21, 2004 public hearing.

Cedar Grove Branch Library opens in northern Orange County

Orange County opened the Cedar Grove Branch Library in two rooms of the Northern Human Services Center, a former school, to serve Cedar Grove and northern Orange. Budgets describe books, Spanish-language materials, children's and adult programs, computer classes and materials borrowed from other regional libraries.

Part of Cedar Grove and rural northern Orange · 80 events

Subject: Orange County Public Library

UNC dedicates the William E. Scroggs locker room at Kenan Stadium

Lacrosse alumni and the Educational Foundation paid to refurbish the men's lacrosse locker room at the old Kenan Field House, and it was dedicated in Scroggs's name before lacrosse alumni and fans.

Subject: Kenan Stadium

The Carrboro Cybrary opens in the Century Center

The Cybrary, a branch of the Orange County Public Library focused on computer and Internet access, opened in Room 5 of the Carrboro Century Center with five computer stations, current books and a paperback exchange. The Town of Carrboro provided the space. It closed on January 31, 2025, when its services moved to the Southern Branch Library.

Subject: Orange County Public Library · Carrboro Baptist Church (Century Center)

Vis Art Video closes its West Franklin Street store

Owner Andrea Kubachko said in March 2004 that the Vis Art Video store at 301 West Franklin Street would close at the end of August, when its five-year lease ran out, citing high rent and slow business.

John Dee Holeman plays a free blues concert at Graham Memorial

John Dee Holeman, accompanied by Billy Stevens, played a free noon concert at Graham Memorial on September 30, 2004, in the Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence's Thursdays on the Terrace series. Many of that semester's concerts tied in with William Ferris's course on Southern music.

People: William R. Ferris

Subject: Graham Memorial

Allan Gurganus speaks at the Festival for a Better Future rally on McCorkle Place

Gurganus was a featured speaker, with law dean Gene Nichol and state Senator Ellie Kinnaird, at the Festival for a Better Future, a pre-election rally sponsored by several campus organizations on McCorkle Place.

People: Ellie Kinnaird

A Charlie Justice monument is dedicated at UNC's Kenan Football Center

A bronze sculpture of Justice in his number 22 uniform, 8 feet 6 inches tall, was dedicated at the west entrance of the Frank H. Kenan Football Center near the Sonja Haynes Stone Center. Private donations paid for it, and it was proposed by his teammate Joe Neikirk with Charlie Loudermilk and Hugh Morton.

UNC retires the Cornelia Phillips Spencer Bell Award after Yonni Chapman's campaign

Chancellor James Moeser retired the Bell Award, given yearly since 1994 to a woman for outstanding contributions to the university, after graduate student Yonni Chapman led a campaign against it over Spencer's white supremacist and sexist views.

People: James Moeser · Cornelia Phillips Spencer

A house already moved once from Occoneechee Mountain is moved to 116 North Nash Street

The house at 116 North Nash Street, built about 1910 on Occoneechee Mountain and moved to Collins Avenue in the 1950s, is moved again in 2005 to its present lot in the district.

Andy Griffith gives his career memorabilia to Wilson Library

Griffith donated his collection of career memorabilia, including a guitar, to the Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library, the same year he was among the first three recipients of the Carolina Performing Arts Lifetime Achievement Award.

Subject: UNC Libraries

Baity Hill graduate and family housing opens on former Baity land

UNC completed the Baity Hill housing complex in 2005 on land once owned by Herman G. and Elizabeth Chesley Baity, whose family home stands on the grounds. It replaced Odum Village.

Subject: Victory Village and Odum Village

Carrboro formed the New Horizons task force for the Rogers Road area

Carrboro created the New Horizons task force to serve residents of the Rogers Road area it was annexing. The town's Rogers Road sidewalk and bus stop project, begun in 2018, grew out of the task force's work.

El Futuro runs a bilingual mental health clinic in Carrboro

El Futuro, a Latino mental health nonprofit started by psychiatrist Luke Smith, opened a Carrboro office in 2005, a year after its Siler City clinic. The Carrboro location closed in 2015 for lack of funding.

Mark Chilton serves four terms as mayor of Carrboro

Chilton was mayor of Carrboro from 2005 to 2013. Supporters held a roast in October 2013 to mark the end of his fourth term and about twenty years in local office.

Occaneechi Band establishes a permanent ceremonial ground on its new land

The band established a permanent ceremonial ground on the Alamance County tract, which later hosted its powwow and its annual School Days for area students.

Randee Haven-O'Donnell is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen

After serving on the Carrboro Planning Board and other town advisory boards, Haven-O'Donnell won a seat on the Board of Aldermen in 2005, the first of five consecutive terms. She had moved to Carrboro in 1978 and taught in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.

Refugees from Burma are among the first recorded direct arrivals in Orange County

Orange County Health Department figures record 19 refugee direct arrivals in fiscal year 2005-2006, from Burma, Cuba and Iran. At the time one resettlement agency, Lutheran Family Services, served the Triangle.

The storefront at 109 West King Street is restored and its pent roof removed

In 2005 the storefront of 109 West King Street was restored, with a recessed entrance between copper-framed plate-glass windows, and the shingled pent roof added in the 1980s was taken off.

Turnip Patch Park is made on a deep lot between West King Street and West Margaret Lane

A small park with a playground and a footbridge over a ravine was made around 2005 on the lot at 333 West King Street, which runs through to West Margaret Lane along South Occoneechee Street. A small building stood there on the 1924 and 1943 Sanborn maps.

Reviewers reject the Great Oaks Plantation House, moved to Chapel Hill from near Greensboro

Staff recommended denial because the house had been moved more than forty miles from near Greensboro to Chapel Hill and had lost its geographic setting. Asked whether its architecture could outweigh the move, staff replied that the program valued place over fine carpentry, and on February 10, 2005 the committee accepted the recommendation. The same vote put the Cates-Dodson-Minnis House near Hillsborough on the Study List.

The Cates-Dodson-Minnis House joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Cates-Dodson-Minnis farmhouse west of Chapel Hill on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

Subject: Cates-Dodson-Minnis Farm

The Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House is listed in the National Register

On April 20, 2005 the National Park Service listed the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House

Chapel Hill renames Airport Road as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard

At a ceremony beginning outside Town Hall, Airport Road became Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the small Martin Luther King Street became Jackie Robinson Street. Fred Battle, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, had led the push for the change after noticing that the only public facilities named for Black people were in Black neighborhoods.

People: Bill Thorpe

The Strayhorn house in Carrboro joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Strayhorn house in Carrboro on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. Check whether this is the Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House before linking.

Subject: Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House and William Strayhorn House

Chapel Hill council took up how to carry out a Rogers Road small area plan

Under a 2002 resolution adopted jointly by Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, Chapel Hill had agreed to plan the residential area west of the Greene Tract around Rogers and Purefoy roads, including an affordable housing site. The manager recommended starting after four neighborhood conservation districts were finished, with the Planning Board leading.

UNC Libraries opens the exhibit Slavery and the Making of the University

University archivists mounted an exhibit on the enslaved and free Black people who built and served the early university, including cabinetmaker Thomas Day and poet George Moses Horton.

People: George Moses Horton

Subject: UNC Libraries

An expansion of the Rocky Ridge Farm district joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed an expansion of the Rocky Ridge Farm historic district in Chapel Hill on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

Subject: Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District (Laurel Hill)

The Unsung Founders Memorial is dedicated in McCorkle Place

The Class of 2002's gift, a black granite table held up by 300 bronze figures by artist Do-Ho Suh, honors the people of color, bond and free, who helped build the university.

People: Do-Ho Suh

Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

Andy Griffith receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom

President George W. Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Griffith, one of fourteen recipients that year, in the East Room of the White House.

Mike Nelson presides over his last meeting as mayor of Carrboro

At the December 6, 2005 meeting the Board of Aldermen approved the November 8 election results, in which Mark Chilton defeated Alex Zaffron for mayor, 1,337 to 776, and outgoing Mayor Michael Nelson gave his parting comments.

Part of Carrboro’s LGBTQ municipal firsts · 15 events

People: Mark Chilton

Carrboro annexed subdivisions on the west side of Rogers Road

Carrboro annexed six subdivisions north of Homestead Road, including Fox Meadow and Highlands, bringing part of the Rogers Road area inside town limits. In September 2004 the aldermen had voted 6 to 1 to go ahead even though the historic neighborhood had asked the two towns to move their annexation boundary so the community would not be split.

People: Mark Chilton

Chef Aaron Vandemark opens Panciuto on South Churton Street

Aaron Vandemark opened Panciuto, a restaurant cooking Italian-style food from ingredients grown on nearby farms. Within ten years he had six James Beard nominations for Best Chef: Southeast.

Joal Hall Broun serves as Carrboro's mayor pro tem

Town budget documents for fiscal years 2006-07 and 2007-08 list Alderman Joal Hall Broun as mayor pro tempore, serving under Mayor Mark Chilton.

People: Mark Chilton · Joal Hall Broun

Mike Nelson serves on the Orange County Board of Commissioners

Nelson placed third of seven candidates in the May 2, 2006 primary for three county commissioner seats and went on the November ballot; his papers date his service as a commissioner to 2006 through 2009.

OWASA gives Daniel Okun a lifetime achievement award

The Orange Water and Sewer Authority gave Okun a lifetime achievement award in 2006; the school credits him with leading the campaign to build the Cane Creek Dam and Reservoir in the 1980s.

The Lambeth Lectureship in public policy is established at UNC

Joel L. Fleishman established the Lambeth Lectureship at Chapel Hill in 2006 with an anonymous gift, honoring Lambeth's public policy work.

UNC hosts its first NCAA baseball regional at Boshamer Stadium since

Mike Fox's Tar Heels swept three games at the regional in Chapel Hill, then won the super regional at Alabama and went on to finish second at the College World Series.

UNC's Latino Migration Project begins the New Roots/Nuevas Raíces oral history initiative

The Latino Migration Project at UNC-Chapel Hill began New Roots/Nuevas Raíces to record stories of Latino migration, settlement and integration in North Carolina, with interviews archived through the Southern Oral History Program and University Libraries. The project has collected over 200 interviews, adding about 20 a year.

People: Hannah Gill

Hodding Carter III joins UNC as University Professor of Leadership and Public Policy

Carter, a former Mississippi newspaper editor, State Department spokesman and Knight Foundation president, joined the UNC faculty in January 2006. He later chaired the UNC Press Development Council.

UNC's Campus Master Plan update is approved

The update to the 2001 Campus Master Plan found about half of the 2001 plan's sites under construction or in design, with over six million square feet of new buildings under way, and put remaining main-campus capacity at about 4.5 million square feet; it planned residence halls to replace Odum Village on South Campus.

Subject: Victory Village and Odum Village

Bill Thorpe petitions the council to name the post office plaza for local activists

Council member Bill Thorpe presented a petition to rename the Franklin Street post office plaza for Charlotte Adams and Joe and Lucy Straley, an idea born at Joe Straley's memorial service. The council chose to hold a public hearing, and its naming committee proposed naming the plaza for an ideal with plaques for local peace and justice activists.

People: Joe Straley · Lucy Straley · Charlotte Adams

Subject: Chapel Hill Post Office and Peace and Justice Plaza

Carrboro aldermen bar police arrests based solely on civil immigration violations

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen unanimously adopted Resolution No. 123/2005-06, making it police policy not to arrest or take into custody anyone solely because they have or may have committed a civil immigration violation. The board had asked the town attorney to research the question on April 18, 2006.

People: Mark Chilton · Jacquelyn Gist · Randee Haven-O'Donnell · Joal Hall Broun

An expansion of the Chapel Hill Historic District joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed an expansion of the Chapel Hill Historic District on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

Subject: Chapel Hill Historic District

Chapel Hill enacts the Pine Knolls neighborhood conservation district

The council voted 9-0 to adopt Ordinance O-7 creating the Pine Knolls district, which bans new duplexes, caps floor area at 2,500 square feet and reduces front-yard parking. The Greenwood and Kings Mill/Morgan Creek districts were adopted the same night.

Chapel Hill names the post office plaza Peace and Justice Plaza

The Town Council named the space in front of the Franklin Street post office Peace and Justice Plaza, after a petition to honor Charlotte Adams and Joe and Lucy Straley. Lucy Straley, then 92, told the Daily Tar Heel the plaza had long been the couple's main backdrop for protest.

People: Joe Straley · Bill Thorpe · Charlotte Adams

Subject: Chapel Hill Post Office and Peace and Justice Plaza

UNC tears down West House for the Arts Common

The university demolished West House after more than two years of effort by the Save the West House Coalition to keep or move it. The trustees had voted for demolition in September 2004, and the Council of State gave final approval in July 2006.

People: James Moeser

The 1953 Orange County Courthouse in Hillsborough joins the Study List

The committee's list of properties approved for the Study List on October 12, 2006 includes the Orange County Courthouse in Hillsborough. The survey layer identifies it as the 1953 Colonial Revival courthouse on Margaret Lane, not the older courthouse listed in the National Register in 1971.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

UNC announces John Bunting will not return as football coach

Athletic director Dick Baddour told Bunting he would be relieved at the end of his sixth season, and the university announced he would not coach the Tar Heels in 2007. He coached the last five games.

A state highway marker for Billy Strayhorn goes up in Hillsborough

The North Carolina Office of Archives and History put up marker G-125 on South Churton Street. It calls Strayhorn a jazz composer and pianist who wrote Take the A Train for the Duke Ellington Orchestra and points a quarter mile west to his boyhood home site.

A state trust fund grant pays for a larger Cedar Grove Park

Beginning in 2007, with a $500,000 grant from the North Carolina Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, the county greatly enlarged the park around the old school. It now has three ball fields, two basketball courts, a playground and parking.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

Arrivals from Burma to Orange County increase sharply

Orange County recorded 255 refugee direct arrivals in fiscal year 2007-2008, from Burma, Iran and Colombia, the highest annual figure in the 2005-2017 series. A third resettlement agency, the Triangle office of World Relief, opened.

Gold Park opens on Dimmocks Mill Road

The twenty-acre Gold Park, with walking paths, footbridges, a dog park, a soccer field and three picnic shelters, opens on Dimmocks Mill Road in 2007. It takes in the baseball field long tied to the Eno Mill.

Hannah Gill founds the Latino Migration Project at UNC

Gill started the Latino Migration Project at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to improve public understanding of Latin American migration to North Carolina. The project describes itself as an initiative of INSITE Latin America and the Caribbean.

Part of Latino migration to Carrboro and Chapel Hill · 29 events

Orange County Health Department starts an Immigrant and Refugee Health Program

During the sharp rise in arrivals from Burma, the Orange County Health Department initiated an Immigrant and Refugee Health Program. The 2018 report found Karen and Burmese were the two refugee languages most requested by the department's patients.

Part of Health care across language and immigration · 12 events

Residents founded the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association

About 85 households founded RENA as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, putting a long-running informal community alliance on a formal footing. RENA went on to organize the Coalition to End Environmental Racism and to run the neighborhood's community center.

Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association

St. Joseph CME Church and UNC begin the Northside oral history partnership

Rev. Troy Harrison and UNC professor Della Pollock began collecting oral histories in Northside, the project that grew into the Marian Cheek Jackson Center.

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

St. Paul AME Church bought land on Rogers Road for a new church campus

The Chapel Hill congregation bought more than 22 acres for a worship complex with a banquet hall, wellness center, daycare, senior and affordable housing, athletic fields and a cemetery. The land, at Rogers Road and Purefoy Drive, became the site of the planned St. Paul Village.

Subject: St. Paul AME Church

The Robert and Pearl Seymour Center opens on Homestead Road

The Chapel Hill senior center that Robert Seymour founded opened in a new building on Homestead Road in 2007 and was named for him and his wife, Pearl.

The Sancars start Carolina Turk Evi

Aziz and Gwen Sancar set up the nonprofit Carolina Turk Evi to host Turkish students and scholars at UNC and promote understanding between Turks and Americans.

UNC closes the original Boshamer Stadium with a super regional win

The Tar Heels beat South Carolina in an NCAA super regional at Boshamer Stadium, the last postseason games in the 1972 stadium, and advanced to the College World Series for the second straight year.

UNC holds the first Chuck Stone workshop for high school students

The journalism school's Chuck Stone Program for Diversity in Education and Media held its first workshop for rising high school seniors in 2007, honoring the professor who had retired two years earlier.

Beverly Scarlett is sworn in as a district court judge for Orange and Chatham counties

Appointed by Governor Mike Easley on January 19, 2007, Scarlett was sworn in to a new District 15B seat added for the growing caseload. She was Orange County's first African American district court judge.

Lightnin' Wells and John Dee Holeman play the Hillsborough Arts Council's Traditional Music Series

The Hillsborough Arts Council's 2007 Traditional Music Series presented Lightnin' Wells and John Dee Holeman at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 24, 2007, at the Masonic Lodge, 142 West King Street, in downtown Hillsborough.

Subject: Eagle Lodge

Orange County commissioners vote to put a waste transfer station at the Eubanks Road landfill

The board voted unanimously to develop a solid waste transfer station at the landfill site, following its Solid Waste Advisory Board's recommendation, over objections from Rogers Road residents. The landfill was then expected to fill in 2010.

People: Mike Nelson · Robert Campbell · Valerie Foushee

Carrboro rewrites its density bonus for affordable housing

Section 15-182.4 of Carrboro's Land Use Ordinance sets a goal that at least 15 percent of units in new residential developments be affordable and offers density bonuses or payments in lieu to meet it. The section was rewritten on June 26, 2007.

Chipotle Mexican Grill opens in the old Vis Art Video building on West Franklin Street

Chipotle opened with a ribbon-cutting at 301 West Franklin Street after more than a year of delays. Part of the wait came from cleaning solvent left in the soil from the site's years as a dry cleaner.

UNC trustees approve the Carolina North plan

The Board of Trustees approved a plan for Carolina North on the Horace Williams tract, later submitted to the town with the 2009 rezoning application; the trustees adopted Carolina North design guidelines on November 19, 2008.

Oliver Smithies wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2007 prize to Smithies, Mario Capecchi and Martin Evans for discovering principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells. Smithies was at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Rocky Ridge Farm's district expansion prompts a debate over the fifty-year rule

When staff presented the boundary increase and added documentation for the Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District on October 11, 2007, one member warned that stretching periods of significance into recent decades weakened the National Register, naming Rocky Ridge with two other nominations. Another member suggested the neighbors also claim significance for notable residents. The objecting member then moved approval of Rocky Ridge with the other routine nominations, and it passed.

Subject: Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District (Laurel Hill)

Commissioners reopen the search for a transfer station site

After Rogers Road residents and the Coalition to End Environmental Racism pressed the county, the Board of Commissioners announced it would reopen its search for a transfer station site. Eubanks Road stayed on the list while consultant Olver Inc. drew up siting criteria.

People: Robert Campbell