Chronology

Herbert Aptheker returns to speak at UNC in Greenlaw Hall

Twenty-five years after he was kept off campus, Aptheker spoke to students and faculty in Greenlaw Hall in a visit arranged by anthropology professor Don Nonini.

Part of Speaker Ban controversy, 1963–1968 · 29 events

People: Herbert Aptheker

The William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education is dedicated

UNC dedicated its continuing education center, named for William and Ida Friday, on April 12, 1991. Friday described it as "the citizens' classroom."

The Ray-Kenion farms and the Charles Davis Farm join the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Ray-Kenion rural historic district and the Charles Davis Farm on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. Both came to the committee as public requests, two years before the county survey was finished.

Subject: Charles Davis Farm

Joe Hakan becomes chairman of the chamber of commerce

Joe Hakan became chairman of the chamber's board of directors and led it out of a budget deficit, cutting salaries and staff and hiring a lower-paid director.

William F. Little serves as acting provost

Little served as acting provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs between the departure of J. Dennis O'Connor and the arrival of a new provost.

Nirvana plays Cat's Cradle

Nirvana played the club's West Franklin Street room ten days after the release of Nevermind; Pearl Jam also played the Cradle in 1991, to about 100 people.

Subject: Cat’s Cradle

Forest Hazel publishes his study of the Occaneechi-Saponi Texas community

Southern Indian Studies printed Forest Hazel's account of the Occaneechi from Occaneechi Town on the Eno in 1701 to the Texas community of his own day, tying the excavated village near Hillsborough to living Indian families. Hazel had begun the research in 1984 from land, court, marriage, census and military records and from family oral histories.

Part of Occaneechi Town and the Great Trading Path · 48 events

Kelly Lally and Ruth Little survey the historic buildings of Chapel Hill Township

From December 1991 to April 1992 architectural historians Kelly Lally and Ruth Little drove every road in Chapel Hill Township outside the Chapel Hill and Carrboro limits and recorded 160 historic properties in detail, the first phase of a county-wide survey of Orange County buildings.

A tornado strikes Fairview, killing two people and destroying 29 houses

The 1992 tornado was probably the largest physical change to the neighborhood after its streets were paved. Rebuilding the lost houses renewed residents' sense of community and drew town attention and new infrastructure.

Baptist conventions disassociate from Binkley

State and Southern conventions acted after the church licensed an openly gay ministerial candidate.

Carvings of Prince's circus parade move to the Alumni Center

Carvings made from the circus parade illustrations in The Southern Part of Heaven, long displayed at the Carolina Inn, were moved in 1992 to the George Watts Hill Alumni Center.

People: Carl Boettcher

Subject: The Carolina Inn

Daniel Pollitt retires from the UNC law faculty

Pollitt, by then a Kenan professor of law, retired from teaching in 1992 after more than 35 years at UNC. The Daily Tar Heel credited him with founding the North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, opposing the Speaker Ban and helping to integrate the university.

Subject: UNC School of Law

Local 506 opens on West Franklin Street

Glenn Boothe opened Local 506, an all-ages rock club for emerging and local bands, at 506 West Franklin Street and owned it for about a decade.

Merge Records moves into an office in Carrboro

After working out of several Chapel Hill houses, Merge took space at 120 East Main Street in Carrboro, upstairs from the Armadillo Grill; it moved to a Chapel Hill house in 1996 and to Durham in 2001.

People: Mac McCaughan · Laura Ballance

Merge releases its first full-length, Superchunk's Tossing Seeds

The Superchunk singles collection Tossing Seeds (Singles 89–91) was Merge's first full-length release and its first CD.

People: Mac McCaughan · Laura Ballance

Michael R. Smith becomes director of the Institute of Government

Smith, who had found the Institute by chance as a law student in 1978, was named director in 1992, the third after Coates to lead it, following John Sanders and Henry Lewis. He later headed it with the title of dean once it became the UNC School of Government.

Subject: Institute of Government

Orange, Person and Caswell make their Hyconeechee libraries county departments

The Hyconeechee Regional Library board and the three county governments made each county library a department of its own county, responsible for procurement, personnel, accounting, travel and facility maintenance. The regional library kept regional policy, collection development, grants and the regional budget under a joint contract with the counties.

Subject: Orange County Public Library

Polvo releases its debut album Cor-Crane secret on Merge

The Chapel Hill quartet's first album came out on Merge in 1992, followed by Today's Active Lifestyles on Merge in 1993.

Shelby Foote receives the Charles Frankel Prize

The National Endowment for the Humanities gave Shelby Foote the Charles Frankel Prize, the award now called the National Humanities Medal, as novelist, historian and principal commentator of the PBS documentary The Civil War.

Smithies lab develops the first cystic fibrosis animal model

Smithies's laboratory at UNC used his gene-targeting method to produce the first animal model of cystic fibrosis.

UNC awards Shelby Foote an honorary Doctor of Letters

UNC-Chapel Hill conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters on Shelby Foote, a UNC student from 1935 to 1937, for his fiction and his three-volume narrative history of the Civil War.

UNC renames its admissions building Jackson Hall for Blyden and Roberta Jackson

The university renamed the former Navy Hall and Monogram Club building on Country Club Road, home of the admissions office since 1972, as Blyden and Roberta Jackson Hall. The Jacksons had retired from teaching in 1981.

People: Roberta Bowles Hodges Jackson

Jeff MacNelly pledges $25,000 toward a UNC journalism professorship honoring Jim Shumaker

Jeff MacNelly pledged $25,000 to the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication toward the James H. Shumaker Term Professorship. Shumaker had edited the Chapel Hill Weekly when MacNelly drew for it as a student.

Subject: The Chapel Hill Weekly

The Herndon House bungalow at Airport Road and Stephens Street is torn down

The story-and-a-half bungalow at 113 Stephens Street, sided in brown wood shingles with a porch on tapered columns over stone piers, stood until February 1992. A low stone wall and steps were left at the property line.

The state adds the Elms, Little Ayr Mount and Maple Hill near Hillsborough to the Study List

Public requests for three houses outside Hillsborough came before the committee on April 9, 1992: the Faucette House, known as the Elms; Little Ayr Mount; and Maple Hill. Staff raised no questions about them, and the committee approved them with the other central and southeastern applications.

Subject: Jacob Jackson Farm (Maple Hill) · David Faucette House (The Elms) · Rev. Ira Ellis House (Little Ayr Mount)

The Black Cultural Center holds a reception for alumnus Randall Kenan

UNC's Black Cultural Center held a reception for Kenan, a 1985 graduate, on the publication of his story collection Let the Dead Bury Their Dead; the Bull's Head Bookshop held an autograph party for the book the same day.

Subject: Sonja Haynes Stone Center (Black Cultural Center)

Goetha C. Whitmore, one of the oldest Occaneechi elders, dies at 97

Goetha C. Whitmore of Alamance County died at 97. He remembered his grandfather Andrew Whitmore speaking a language other than English, which his father translated for him, and his memory underlay much of Forest Hazel's history of the Texas community, which Hazel dedicated to him.

Part of Occaneechi Town and the Great Trading Path · 48 events

The state adds ten Chapel Hill Township farms and buildings to the Study List

Ruth Little, co-principal investigator for the first phase of the Orange County survey, presented ten properties from Chapel Hill Township on July 8, 1992, and the National Register Advisory Committee approved all of them. They ran from the Smith-Cole House and the two Couch farms to Bethel Baptist Church and Murphy School.

Subject: Murphey School · Bethel Baptist Church

Orange County jury finds three former UNC officials discriminated against police officer Keith Edwards

A jury ruled that former UNC officials John DeVitto, Charles Mauer and Robert Sherman had discriminated by race and gender against Keith Edwards, an 18-year veteran of the UNC police, and ordered them to pay $116,000 in damages. Alan McSurely, her lawyer, won his first jury trial with the case.

Lizzie Mae Collins opens Lizzie Mae's Southern Kitchen

Lizzie Mae Collins opened a restaurant serving Southern cooking and gave jobs to people she knew who were trying to leave crime and drug use behind. By late 1993 she told the Daily Tar Heel the business was struggling and she was running the kitchen alone.

The Colonial Revival gas station at 100 East Franklin Street is torn down

The one-story, gabled brick filling station, built between 1949 and 1960 at the west end of the 100 block of East Franklin Street, was demolished in August 1992.

Fire damages the store building at 119 East Franklin Street

A two-story brick commercial building of 1915-25, with crenellated brickwork and grouped upper windows, was damaged by fire in September 1992, the month the survey was finished.

Maggie's Muffins moves to West Main Street and becomes Maggie's Cafe and Espresso

Jane Hamborsky's bakery, open on Weaver Street since 1989, moved to "the corner of Main and Main" in Carrboro in September 1992 and renamed itself Maggie's Cafe and Espresso. The larger space let it add lunch.

Reviewers turn down Tinnin Plantation near Efland for the Study List

Staff recommended rejecting the plantation because alterations had cost it much of its historic fabric, and on October 8, 1992 the committee accepted the recommendation. The applicant was to be told that the investigators of the countywide Orange County survey, then about to start, would look at the property again when their work was done.

Jody Carter and Todd Peck survey rural Orange County buildings

From October 1992 to July 1993 Jody Carter and Todd Peck drove every passable road in Orange County outside Chapel Hill Township and the Hillsborough town limits, recording 507 buildings and complexes at least fifty years old and taking down oral history where they could.

Richard Petty receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom

President George H. W. Bush presented Petty the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his stock car racing career, citing his rise from humble beginnings in Level Cross, North Carolina.

People: George Bush

Brenda Stephens becomes director of the Orange County library system

Brenda W. Stephens, who had started her library career driving the county bookmobile in 1976, became director of the Orange County Library System in 1993. By the end of that year North Carolina Libraries identified her as director of the Hyconeechee Regional Library, and a 2025 profile calls her the first Black director of a regional library system in the state.

People: Brenda Stephens

Subject: Orange County Public Library

Chinese School at Chapel Hill is founded

The Chinese School at Chapel Hill, which teaches Chinese language and culture, was founded in 1993 in a community that had grown around UNC since graduate students from mainland China began arriving in the early 1980s. The IRS recognized it as a tax-exempt organization in December 1999.

Entertainment Weekly asks whether Chapel Hill is the next Seattle

A 1993 Entertainment Weekly article proposed Chapel Hill as Seattle's successor and questioned whether Superchunk wanted the role; Rolling Stone the same year floated Superchunk as the next Nirvana.

People: Mac McCaughan

Grant supports new farmers’ market shelters

Funding enabled preparation of the Town Commons location.

Subject: Carrboro Farmers’ Market

Hank Anderson serves on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen

Anderson was elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen in 1993 and re-elected in 1997, and the board chose him as mayor pro tem in 1994 and again in 1997. He served until his death in October 1998.

People: Mike Nelson · Jacquelyn Gist

Jenrette founds the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust with Ayr Mount

Richard Jenrette founded the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust with his gift of Ayr Mount, which became the first of his houses opened to the public. The trust, later renamed the Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation, came to own land around Ayr Mount including Poet's Walk and the Occoneechee Speedway site.

Subject: Ayr Mount · Occoneechee Speedway

Mike Nelson is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen

Nelson won a seat on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen in 1993, and as an alderman he championed the domestic partners ordinance the town adopted in 1994.

Part of Carrboro’s LGBTQ municipal firsts · 15 events

Orange County commissioners decline to fund a Carrboro library

The county commissioners turned down the Friends of the Carrboro Library's request for library funding in 1993. With a new middle school under construction, the Friends were encouraged to pursue a library in the school's media center instead.

Subject: Orange County Public Library

Shelby Foote becomes UNC's first Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence

Shelby Foote spent the fall 1993 semester at UNC as the university's first Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence.

Southern Cultures publishes its first issue from UNC's new Center for the Study of the American South

John Shelton Reed and Harry L. Watson opened the first issue of the quarterly Southern Cultures, which they called the front porch of UNC's new Center for the Study of the American South.

Squirrel Nut Zippers form near Chapel Hill

Jim Mathus and Katharine Whalen, who had moved from Chapel Hill to a farmhouse in Efland, started the band in summer 1993, played their first show that November and signed with Mammoth Records in 1994.

The George Watts Hill Alumni Center opens on Stadium Drive

The General Alumni Association dedicated its new Alumni Center on Stadium Drive in 1993, and the university named it for George Watts Hill, who had pledged a $3.5 million challenge grant when the building campaign began.

The Hamlett House at 423 West King Street burns

Fire destroys the Hamlett House at 423 West King Street in 1993, and a new house is later built on the lot.

The Long House at 112 North Nash Street is torn down

The deteriorated Long House at 112 North Nash Street is demolished in 1993, and a new house is built on the lot in 1998.

NAACP task force begins a study of UNC's employee grievance procedure

A task force chaired by Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP president James Brittian held its first meeting to evaluate UNC's grievance and appeals procedure and employee relations counseling, aiming to change state law for workers across the UNC system. Former UNC personnel director Jack Gunnells was its operations director.

Chapel Hill Town Council funds the Midway Development Commission

The council unanimously approved a $6,000 grant to promote Black-owned businesses and housing in the Midway district between Chapel Hill and Carrboro. James Brittian, NAACP president and the commission's project development coordinator, said the money would bring in millions.

The state puts the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery on the Study List

A committee member asked how the cemetery differed from other town burial grounds that held a community's leading people. Staff answered that cemeteries had to be judged one at a time and that the cemetery's clearly bounded older sections and the importance of those buried there met the test for cemeteries. The committee approved it on January 14, 1993.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Community Church joins the Unitarian Universalist Association

Members approved affiliation after years of discussion.

Subject: Community Church of Chapel Hill

Details magazine profiles the scene as "Chapel Hill-billies"

Details followed Spin with a February 1993 piece on the town's bands, and Time the same year named Chapel Hill as a possible alternative-rock boomtown.

Jesse Jackson comes to Chapel Hill during the Black Cultural Center sit-in

Jesse Jackson came to Chapel Hill while students occupied South Building for a free-standing Black Cultural Center, met first with Chancellor Hardin and urged him to call a special trustees' meeting, which Hardin refused. Sixteen students and a Chapel Hill resident were arrested that day.

Subject: Sonja Haynes Stone Center (Black Cultural Center) · South Building

Cat's Cradle closes its last Franklin Street location

The owners of the building at 206 West Franklin Street sold to a developer, and the club scheduled its last show there for May 19; Frank Heath then spent about six months looking for a new site.

People: Frank Heath

Subject: Cat’s Cradle

The state places rural Orange County houses, churches, schools and districts on the Study List

On July 8, 1993, after the survey of the rural county, the National Register Advisory Committee placed 23 rural Orange County properties on the state Study List: eighteen farmhouses and log houses, the Carr Methodist and Harmony churches, White Cross School, and the Cedar Grove and Oaks Rural historic districts.

The Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District is listed in the National Register

On August 5, 1993 the National Park Service listed the Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood

Archers of Loaf release their debut album Icky Mettle

The Chapel Hill band's first album came out on Alias Records; Merge later reissued it with bonus material.

UNC and Chapel Hill celebrate their bicentennial

UNC marked 200 years since the laying of Old East's cornerstone with a Bicentennial Convocation in Kenan Stadium, where President Bill Clinton spoke to about 45,000 people. The town dedicated Michael Brown's mural of the October 12, 1793, lot auction at the Franklin Street post office.

Part of The founding of the University and Chapel Hill, 1789–1795 · 37 events

Subject: Old East · Kenan Stadium

Sunnyside, the John Berry farm, joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed Sunnyside, the farm of the builder John Berry east of Hillsborough (later the Baldwin farm), on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. It came to the committee as a public request.

Subject: Sunnyside (John Berry farm)

Joe and Lucy Straley receive the first Charles M. Jones award of the local ACLU

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union gave Joe and Lucy Straley, both 79, its Charles M. Jones award for their work for peace, social justice and racial integration. The award, begun that year, recognizes contributions to civil liberties and civil rights in Orange and Chatham counties.

People: Joe Straley · Charles M. Jones

A new building fills the long-vacant corner of East Franklin and Columbia streets

The southeast corner, empty since its Texaco station was razed, gained a large building with Top of the Hill restaurant and a new Carolina Theatre among its tenants. Bryant says soil contamination had apparently kept the lot vacant.

C. D. Spangler Jr. buys the old Green-Phillips house at 513 East Franklin

After stepping down as president of the University, Spangler bought the house Walter and Anne Dellinger had owned since before 1973 and began restoring it. The house, built for William Mercer Green in the 1840s, later belonged to Charles Phillips and then served the Presbyterians as their manse.

The Hughes Academy schoolhouse is moved from near Lake Orange to Hillsborough

The small two-room frame schoolhouse of the Hughes Academy, built around 1862 near Lake Orange in northern Orange County, was moved in 1994 to the grounds at 200 East King Street in Hillsborough and restored.

Subject: Hughes Academy (Cedar Grove Academy)

UNC renovates the Naval Armory to house all three ROTC branches

After a 1993 push from the Army and Air Force units, the university chose to keep the aging armory and spent more than $400,000 refitting it for Navy, Army and Air Force ROTC, closing the rifle range, cleaning up lead found there, and enclosing much of the drill deck for offices.

UNC wins the Sears Directors' Cup

Carolina won the Sears Directors' Cup for its all-sports record under athletics director John Swofford, the only ACC program to win the award.

Perry Deane Young speaks at Chapel Hill High School after gay-authored books are pulled from a reading list

After four gay- and lesbian-authored books were pulled from an English teacher’s multicultural reading list at Chapel Hill High School, Young and author Susan Johnson spoke at an evening program there and joined a panel. The Orange Lesbian and Gay Association and Many Voices, One Community sponsored it.

People: Mike Nelson

Subject: Chapel Hill High School

John Dee Holeman and Joe and Odell Thompson open UNC's bicentennial folk heritage series

Bluesman and buckdancer John Dee Holeman and the Mebane string band duo Joe and Odell Thompson opened From the Outer Banks to the Blue Ridge: A Celebration of North Carolina's Folk Heritage at 2 p.m. on March 23, 1994, in Person Hall. The free series was part of UNC's Bicentennial Observance.

People: Joe Thompson

Subject: Person Hall

Carrboro Board of Aldermen votes to help fund a branch library at McDougle

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to fund a Carrboro branch of the Orange County library that would share space and resources with the McDougle Middle School media center. Carrboro and Orange County both provided funding for the library that year.

Subject: McDougle School · Orange County Public Library

The Few's Ford site near Hillsborough joins the Study List

The state archaeology branch presented Few's Ford, outside Hillsborough, with two sites in Cabarrus and Davidson counties, and on April 14, 1994 the committee approved all three for the Study List. The minutes record no discussion of Few's Ford itself.

The Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is listed in the National Register

On June 3, 1994 the National Park Service listed the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Carrboro Board of Aldermen adopts a domestic partnership registry

The Board voted unanimously to amend the Town Code so that statements of domestic partnership could be filed with the Town Clerk, set the effective date at October 11, 1994, added a $40 registration fee, and extended the financial disclosure required of elected officials to cover their domestic partners. The Board took no action on a third proposal to extend health insurance benefits to domestic partners of town employees.

People: Mike Nelson · Jacquelyn Gist · Ellie Kinnaird

Owens 501 Diner is honored for turning a former gas station into a diner

The Chapel Hill Appearance Commission recognized Owens 501 Diner at a Town Council meeting for the creative reuse of a commercial building, a rehabilitated gas station made into a diner. The diner was advertising for staff in all positions in November 1992.

UNC hires Jenny Levy to start its women's lacrosse program

Carolina added women's lacrosse as a varsity sport and in October 1994 named Levy, then an assistant coach at Georgetown, its first head coach. She is still the only head coach the program has had.

People: John Swofford

Charles and Lucile McDougle Middle School is dedicated

The middle school that opened in the fall of 1994 was officially named the Charles and Lucile McDougle Middle School and dedicated on November 6, 1994. The school's history says McDougle was a teacher, principal and central office administrator in a career of more than forty years, and that Lucile McDougle taught for more than forty years.

Subject: McDougle School

A new A. L. Stanback Middle School opens south of Hillsborough

Orange County opened a new A. L. Stanback Middle School just south of town, carrying the name of the old Central High principal to a new building.

An old frame store on South Hillsborough Avenue is torn down

An earlier frame store building at 219 South Hillsborough Avenue was demolished in 1995, and a one-and-a-half-story house was built on the site the next year.

Ben Folds Five release their debut album

The piano trio, formed in Chapel Hill around 1993, issued its self-titled first album on the independent Caroline label, then signed with Sony's 550 Music, which released Whatever and Ever Amen in 1997.

People: Ben Folds

Chapel Hill creates a domestic partner registry

The Town of Chapel Hill established a domestic partner registry in 1995, the year after Carrboro adopted its own. The Town added sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression to its employment protections in 2004.

Charles Kuralt receives the Charles Frankel Prize

The National Endowment for the Humanities gave Charles Kuralt the Charles Frankel Prize, the award now called the National Humanities Medal, for chronicling American life for CBS News, above all in his On the Road reports.

Elson Floyd serves as UNC's first executive vice chancellor

Chancellor Michael Hooker hired Floyd in 1995 for the newly created post of executive vice chancellor, overseeing auxiliary services, facilities, business and finance, human resources, information technology, student affairs and university advancement. He left in 1998 to become president of Western Michigan University.

People: Michael Hooker

First annual Occaneechi powwow on the Eno planned for downtown Hillsborough

John Jeffries planned the first annual powwow on the Eno River in downtown Hillsborough. The band now holds its annual powwow and fall festival on its tribal land in Alamance County.

People: John Blackfeather Jeffries

Friends run a community art gallery in the Carrboro Branch Library

Soon after the Carrboro Branch Library opened in 1995 in the shared McDougle schools media center, the Friends of the Carrboro Branch Library set up a gallery for two-dimensional art, run by a volunteer art committee, with shows running by about 1997. By 2015 it had shown more than 1,750 local artists in more than 60 exhibitions, and by the time the branch closed in 2022 it had shown more than 2,000.

Subject: Orange County Public Library · McDougle School

Gold family donates future park land

The donation supplied land later developed as Gold Park.

Hillsborough builds a new police station on North Churton Street

The Hillsborough Police Department moves into a new two-story brick building at 127 North Churton Street in 1995; it was going up during the 1994 survey.

John Blackfeather Jeffries serves as chairman of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation

Jeffries chaired the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation from 1995 to 2000 and remained on its tribal council through 2020.

N.C. Neurosciences Hospital opens at UNC Hospitals

The N.C. Neurosciences Hospital opened in 1995 as a specialized hospital within the UNC Hospitals complex in Chapel Hill.

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

Orange County ends bookmobile service to fund the Carrboro branch

When the Carrboro branch opened at McDougle in 1995, Orange County moved money to it by cutting the library's bookmobile service to the whole county. The bookmobile had been Carrboro's main public library service since the Civic Club library closed in 1977.

Subject: McDougle School · Orange County Public Library

Randall Kenan returns to UNC as a visiting professor

Kenan, who decided on a writing career in UNC English classes, came back to Chapel Hill in 1995 as a visiting professor, and read that February in the Second Sunday series at Wilson Library.

Subject: UNC Libraries

William Ferris receives the Charles Frankel Prize

The National Endowment for the Humanities gave William R. Ferris the Charles Frankel Prize, the award now called the National Humanities Medal, as director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and a scholar of the American South.

Yonni Chapman founds the Freedom Legacy Project at UNC

While a UNC history graduate student, Chapman founded and directed the Freedom Legacy Project, a student group that documented the history of racial justice struggles at the university and publicly questioned the Silent Sam statue and the naming of Saunders Hall.

Part of Silent Sam · 15 events

Annie Dillard is UNC's Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence

Dillard spent a week at UNC in the English department's Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence program, meeting creative writing students and giving a free public reading in Memorial Hall on February 1. The Daily Tar Heel reported a full house.

Subject: Memorial Hall

The Alexander Hogan Plantation site in Duke Forest joins the Study List

The state archaeology branch presented the plantation site in Duke Forest on April 13, 1995. Members observed that such sites were not unique but were becoming rare, and that Duke's long ownership had kept this one undisturbed; the committee approved it unanimously.

Subject: Duke land purchases in Orange County

A Lustron house on Stephens Street joins the Study List

On July 13, 1995 the committee placed the Lustron house at 109 Stephens Street in Chapel Hill on the Study List. Discussion turned to how many intact Lustron houses survived in North Carolina and whether a statewide count was needed; staff noted that intact examples in other states had been nominated under the exception for buildings less than fifty years old.

Subject: Williams Lustron House (109 Stephens Street)

Commission of Indian Affairs recognition committee votes to deny the Occaneechi petition

The Recognition Committee of the NC Commission of Indian Affairs voted to deny state recognition, finding the petitioners had not met five of the eight required criteria. The band then sought a contested case hearing, filed January 3, 1996.

Michael Hooker is inaugurated as chancellor at Chapel Hill

Hooker, who took office on July 1, 1995, was inaugurated on University Day. A Hugh Morton photograph records university president C. D. Spangler at the ceremony in Chapel Hill.

People: C. D. Spangler Jr.

UNC razes the Michie House, the last private home on campus, for parking

Demolition crews took down Sallie Markham Michie's house at South Columbia Street and Cameron Avenue three weeks after a judge ordered it sold to UNC by eminent domain. Michie had willed it to the DAR and the Magna Carta Dames on condition it never go to the University; the state paid the two groups $550,000.

Mike Nelson is sworn in as mayor of Carrboro

At the Board of Aldermen meeting of December 5, 1995, outgoing mayor Eleanor Kinnaird gave closing remarks and Mayor-elect Michael R. Nelson took the oath of office, along with aldermen-elect Jay Bryan, Hilliard Caldwell and Alex Zaffron. The Board then appointed Diana McDuffee to the alderman seat Nelson vacated.

People: Mike Nelson · Ellie Kinnaird · Hilliard Caldwell

A chancellor's task force recommends sprinklers and alarms in every fraternity and sorority house

After the Phi Gamma Delta fire, the Chancellor's Committee on Greek Affairs Fire Safety Task Force reported that all Greek houses should have sprinkler systems and alarms.

A hurricane destroys the old Thomas Cox Ellis wing of the Dr. C. M. Hughes House

The mid-1800s frame house of Thomas Cox Ellis, kept as the kitchen ell when his son-in-law Dr. Claude M. Hughes built his larger house beside it in 1912, was destroyed by a hurricane in 1996.

Allan Gurganus is a visiting scholar at UNC's Institute for the Arts and Humanities

Gurganus spent 1996 as a visiting fellow of UNC's Institute for the Arts and Humanities and presented at the institute's symposium Echoes of Home, Imitations of Return in Hill Hall that October.

People: Alan Shapiro

Subject: Hill Hall

Black public works employees bring a discrimination charge against the Town of Chapel Hill

The Black Public Works Association, with the NAACP's help, filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging racial discrimination in promotions, pay and training in Chapel Hill's Public Works Department, where about 75 of some 110 employees were Black and none were managers. The EEOC assigned an investigator in the summer of 1996.

Ellie Kinnaird is elected to the North Carolina Senate

Kinnaird left the Carrboro mayor's office for the state Senate, where she sat from 1997 until 2013 representing a district that included Orange County. She had earned a law degree from North Carolina Central University while serving as mayor.

Farmers’ Market moves to Town Commons

The market opened at its new town-center site.

Subject: Carrboro Farmers’ Market

Hillsborough Elementary School opens in the old Central High buildings as the county's first year-round school

After standing closed for several years, the former Central High campus on North Nash Street reopened in 1996 as Hillsborough Elementary School, the first year-round school in Orange County.

Subject: Central High and Central Elementary, Hillsborough

Maple View Farm builds a creamery and begins bottling its own milk

Maple View Farm, which had begun dairying near Hillsborough in 1963 when Orange County had about 100 dairy farms, built a creamery in 1996 and began bottling milk on the farm in glass bottles in place of selling to a co-op. It opened an ice cream shop in 2000; by 2019 only two dairy farms remained in the county.

Perry Deane Young writes a column for the Chapel Hill Herald

Young, a Vietnam War correspondent and author, wrote a column for the Chapel Hill Herald from 1996 to 2003.

RTPnet puts a public Internet computer in the Orange County Public Library

The community network RTPnet bought a Pentium PC for $1,746.88 in May 1996 as a public access terminal for the Orange County Public Library in Hillsborough, and by July it was installed running Windows 95 in kiosk mode. In October RTPnet reported the library computer on the Internet through a local provider, with classes being taught.

Subject: Orange County Public Library

Squirrel Nut Zippers release Hot on Mammoth Records

The band's second album and its single "Hell" reached the national charts during the swing revival, and Hot went platinum.

The 1920s Orange County Jail on Court Street is greatly enlarged

The Neoclassical Orange County Jail at 125-131 Court Street, built in 1926 facing the courthouse with the deputy's apartment upstairs, is enlarged in 1996 with a series of flat-roofed wings reaching back to East Margaret Lane.

Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough

The Hub closes after 37 years on East Franklin Street

Robert Rosenbacher's men's clothing store, open since 1959, shut in 1996 and a Starbucks coffee shop moved into its space.

The Village Companies sells WCHL to Curtis Media Group

The Village Companies sold WCHL, then the smallest of its dozen or so media outlets, to Curtis Media Group, which paired it with Durham's WDNC and moved it out of Chapel Hill.

Subject: WCHL radio

State reviewers back the Hogan Plantation site nomination over Orange County's objection

After a September 12, 1995 hearing, the Orange County Historic Preservation Commission found the Duke Forest site ineligible, and the county commissioners agreed, while the tract was under study for a new county landfill. That kept the nomination from the committee in October 1995 until Duke Forest appealed. On January 10, 1996 the committee heard the case, one member questioned whether landfill politics had shaped the county's finding, and it approved the nomination unanimously for the Keeper to decide.

Subject: Duke land purchases in Orange County

The News and Observer runs a series on the end of the Hogan family dairy near Carrboro

Sally Hicks's four-part series followed the Hogan family as they gave up their 450-acre dairy near Carrboro, long in the family, and turned it into a housing subdivision.

Chapel Hill Town Council recommends site OC-17 beside the Eubanks Road landfill for the next county landfill

After the search narrowed to four sites judged permittable, the council voted 7 to 2 to recommend a reduced site OC-17, adjacent to the existing landfill, as the county's next sanitary landfill. INDY Week reports that the county commissioners and the Hillsborough board also voted for it that month, with Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson opposed.

People: Mike Nelson

Chapel Hill authorizes buying land beside the landfill to widen its buffer

The council unanimously authorized the town manager to buy the 4.05-acre Wilson property adjoining the Eubanks Road landfill at $6,000 an acre to expand a minimal buffer, subject to approval by Carrboro and Orange County.

Fire at the Phi Gamma Delta house kills several students

Early on the morning of May 12, 1996, commencement day, fire swept the Phi Gamma Delta house on West Cameron Avenue, across from the Carolina Inn, and killed five students; three more were hurt. The house had no sprinklers, and the deaths pushed the university and the Greek houses to take fire safety seriously.

Four governing boards hold a unified public hearing on a new landfill next to the Eubanks Road site

The Orange County commissioners, Chapel Hill council, Carrboro aldermen and Hillsborough commissioners took comment on site 17 and three alternatives. Neighbours including David Caldwell, Kathy Schinley and Cornelius Kirschner spoke against it, B.B. Olive presented a 39-signature petition, and Frank Emory, representing Duke University, said the poorest residents lived nearest site 17.

People: David Caldwell Jr.

Frances Hargraves carries the Olympic torch down Franklin Street

The 1996 Olympic torch relay passed through Chapel Hill and Carrboro on its way to Atlanta. Frances Hargraves, 82, a retired special education teacher chosen as one of five Chapel Hill Community Heroes, took the flame from Chuck Stone at Columbia Street and carried it down Franklin Street.

People: Chuck Stone

The Historic District Commission approves tearing down the McDade House after a one-year delay

Chapel Hill's Historic District Commission granted University Baptist Church a certificate of appropriateness to demolish the brick McDade House, the last house still standing on that end of Franklin Street, but held off demolition for a year so preservationists could try to save it.

Subject: University Baptist Church

McDougle Elementary School opens on the shared McDougle campus

McDougle Elementary School, named like the middle school for Charles and Lucille McDougle, opened on August 20, 1996 and shares its campus with McDougle Middle School.

Subject: McDougle School

Hurricane Fran causes about 29,000 power outages in Chapel Hill

Trees on power lines caused about 29,000 outages in Chapel Hill; more than 12,000 residents were still without electricity on Sunday evening, September 8, and about 10,000 on Monday afternoon. Duke Power had 1,800 workers plus 1,000 on loan from other utilities in the area and expected to restore Chapel Hill by the middle or end of that week.

Hurricane Fran fells old trees on UNC's north campus

Fran brought down several roughly 200-year-old trees around New West Hall and left North Campus and Cameron Avenue covered in fallen trees, while the Davie Poplar survived. University power came back within hours, and Sitterson Hall opened as a place for people to recharge batteries, get ice and water and shower.

Subject: McCorkle Place (with the Davie Poplar)

Mayor Rosemary Waldorf declares a state of emergency in Chapel Hill after Hurricane Fran

Waldorf declared a town state of emergency on Friday, September 6, because of storm damage and power outages, and residents were urged to stay home; UNC cancelled Friday classes at 3 a.m. She partially lifted the emergency at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, September 10, keeping it in force where utility crews were still working.

OWASA issues a boil-water advisory after Hurricane Fran knocks out its pumping

The Orange Water and Sewer Authority told Chapel Hill and Carrboro customers to boil water from Friday evening, September 6, after its University Lake pump station lost power and the system lost pressure, and the wastewater plant flooded. The advisory was lifted at 1:50 p.m. Monday, September 9, after lab tests found no contamination; the area drew emergency water from Durham, and a conservation order was lifted soon after.

The Eno River at Hillsborough reaches its highest recorded flow during Hurricane Fran

The USGS gauge on the Eno River at Hillsborough recorded a peak of 10,800 cubic feet per second at a gauge height of 21.13 feet, the largest peak in its record until Tropical Storm Chantal in July 2025.

UNC suspends afternoon classes for a campuswide Hurricane Fran cleanup

Chancellor Michael Hooker suspended classes from noon on Wednesday so students, faculty and staff could clear storm debris. Nearly 1,000 students reported to the Old Well within the first hour, working with University forester Kirk Pelland's crews, and Coker Arboretum staff expected their cleanup to run into the winter.

People: Michael Hooker

Subject: The Old Well

A 70-foot oak weakened by Hurricane Fran falls on Venable Hall

A 70-foot white oak fell against Venable Hall at about 2:10 p.m., damaging handrails on the building's steps; no one was hurt. University forester Kirk Pelland said Fran's winds and Wednesday's heavy rain had left many old campus trees at risk, and Executive Vice Chancellor Elson Floyd asked people to report damaged trees to the Grounds Division.

People: Elson S. Floyd

Subject: Venable Hall

Carrboro aldermen take up a tree-cutter registration plan after Hurricane Fran scams

The Board of Aldermen discussed asking tree removal workers to identify themselves at town hall before starting work, after Mayor Mike Nelson cited a resident who paid $800 in advance to remove Fran-felled trees and the workers did not return. Staff were to bring a formal proposal to the next meeting.

People: Mike Nelson · Hilliard Caldwell

Chapel Hill building inspectors count homes destroyed and damaged by Hurricane Fran

The town's Building Inspection Department reported four homes near Airport Road, Homestead Road and Culbreth Road destroyed, 391 homes with major damage and 222 with minor damage.

Duke Forest closes and salvages timber after Hurricane Fran

Fran brought down more than 1,400 trees across 35 miles of Duke Forest roads, damaged the Bobby Ross Jr. Memorial Picnic Shelter and a research tower in the Blackwood Division, and kept parts of the forest closed for three to six months. A helicopter crew salvaged about 800,000 board feet from 163 acres within two weeks, and salvage through summer 1998 recovered 2 million board feet from 540 acres, worth about $260,000.

Subject: Duke land purchases in Orange County

Orange Regional Landfill takes Hurricane Fran yard waste free as Chapel Hill faces tens of thousands of tons of debris

The Orange Regional Landfill on Eubanks Road accepted yard waste at no charge until further notice. Town Manager Cal Horton estimated Chapel Hill had 25,000 to 40,000 tons of fallen limbs and trees and said the town would eventually remove curbside debris, while urging residents to haul debris to the landfill themselves.

Jones Grove names its fellowship hall for the Brooks family

The congregation named its 1991 fellowship hall in honor of the Brooks family, who had founded, led and given land to the church.

Subject: Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church

The Botanical Garden gives William Lanier Hunt its Flora Caroliniana Award

The North Carolina Botanical Garden presented Hunt with its Flora Caroliniana Award as founder of the Botanical Garden Foundation, land donor and supporter of the garden, the day before he died.

Subject: North Carolina Botanical Garden

Allan Gurganus and Marly Youmans sign books to fund a Habitat for Humanity house

Hillsborough novelist Allan Gurganus and Carrboro author Marly Youmans signed books at the Intimate Bookshop in Eastgate, with 15 percent of the evening's sales going to a new Habitat for Humanity house sponsored by seven fraternities and sororities and four parishes.

Subject: The Intimate Bookshop

UNC tears down the Scuttlebutt, the wartime Navy canteen

The Scuttlebutt snack bar at Cameron Avenue and South Columbia Street, built as a Pre-Flight School canteen, was razed after more than fifty years of feeding students.

Subject: The Scuttlebutt

Assembly of Governments agrees compensation items for neighbors of the landfill

Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro met as an Assembly of Governments in 1997 to take up benefits for people living near the Orange Regional Landfill and agreed a set of compensation items. In 2007 Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton wrote that not all of them had been carried out.

People: Mark Chilton

Beta Theta Pi alumni begin renovating the chapter house

Following an alumni capital campaign, work began in 1997 to bring the 1929 house up to code while keeping its plan and original materials; architect and Beta alumnus Arthur Cogswell Jr. led it, and the Betas were the first fraternity to add a sprinkler system after the 1996 fire.

Subject: Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House

Occaneechi Band members build a replica village on the Eno in Hillsborough

Tribal members led by John "Blackfeather" Jeffries built a replica of the palisaded Occaneechi village beside the Eno River in Hillsborough, modelled on the site excavated by UNC archaeologists. The village fell into disrepair and was dismantled in 2003.

People: John Blackfeather Jeffries

Orange County Public Library offers English as a second language classes

By December 1997 the library held a Saturday English as a second language class in Hillsborough and English conversation and beginning English classes at the Carrboro Branch Library, run by an ESL coordinator. A 1999 statewide article said the library had started ESL tutoring and a conversation group several years before and that demand led the county to fund a full-time coordinator.

Subject: Orange County Public Library

Orange County chooses to keep expanding the Eubanks Road landfill instead of opening a new site

With site OC-17 blocked, the county announced it would expand the existing landfill rather than close it. A new construction and demolition landfill was later built on the north side of Eubanks Road.

Valerie Foushee is elected to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board

Foushee was elected to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro city schools board in 1997 and served until 2004, pressing for equity in the schools. It was the first of the local offices she held over 25 years in local and state government.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

Chapel Hill's Town Council votes to move the McDade House to a town parking lot

After months of debate, the Town Council voted unanimously to move the McDade House off University Baptist Church's land to Parking Lot 5, between Franklin, Church and Rosemary streets, to save it from demolition.

Subject: University Baptist Church

Mary Claire Engstrom dies

Mary Claire Engstrom, born in Kansas City in 1906, died on May 20, 1997. She had lived in Hillsborough and continued her historical research there until her death.

Mayor Mike Nelson proclaims June Lesbian and Gay Pride Month in Carrboro

At the Board of Aldermen meeting of June 3, 1997, Mayor Michael Nelson issued a proclamation naming June Lesbian and Gay Pride Month in the Town of Carrboro.

People: Mike Nelson

Carrboro aldermen vote to buy the Carrboro Baptist Church property

After months of talks, the Board of Aldermen voted 5 to 2 to buy the church at Greensboro and Main streets, with room for the police and recreation departments. The town remade it as the Century Center, with the sanctuary as a hall seating about 250.

Subject: Carrboro Baptist Church (Century Center)

The McDade House is taken apart brick by brick and carted away from West Franklin Street

When it could not be moved whole before the church's deadline, the McDade House was dismantled piece by piece under a plan approved by the Historic District Commission and paid for by real estate appraiser Tom Heffner. The work finished on July 11, 1997, and the parts went into storage in Franklinton to await rebuilding on the town lot.

Chapel Hill approves digging on the Neville Tract to build new landfill cells

The council voted 9 to 0 for a special use permit letting the Orange Regional Landfill take earth from the Neville Tract to build containment cells and for daily cover, with access across landfill property to Eubanks Road. Work was to begin by 1999 and end by 2007.

Reviewers deny the OWASA Jones Ferry Road water plant a place on the Study List

The Orange Water and Sewer Authority's Jones Ferry Road Water Treatment Plant was among five central region requests on July 10, 1997. Staff recommended denial because of modern alterations, and the committee accepted the staff recommendations without separate discussion of the plant.

Charles Kuralt is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Kuralt died on July 4, 1997 and was buried on the UNC campus in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. About 1,600 people attended a memorial service in Memorial Hall, where Hugh Morton and William C. Friday spoke.

People: William C. Friday

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Memorial Hall

Disney buys Carrboro's Mammoth Records

The Walt Disney Company announced its purchase of the Carrboro-based independent label for about $25 million, and founder Jay Faires signed a long-term employment contract.

William C. Friday receives the National Humanities Medal

President Clinton and Hillary Clinton presented Friday with one of the first National Humanities Medals. The NEH cited him as president emeritus of the University of North Carolina, which he led from 1956 to 1986, and executive director of the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trusts.

People: Bill Clinton

The Carr family cabin near Hillsborough joins the Study List

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Carr family cabin near Hillsborough on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

A bronze statue of James K. Polk is dedicated on University Day

A bronze statue by the Marshville sculptor Stephen H. Smith, showing Polk as a young man speaking to a crowd and standing on a carved outline of the United States, was dedicated on University Day 1997.

Duke University easement to NASA stalls landfill candidate site OC-17

Chapel Hill's manager reported that Duke University had filed an easement in favor of NASA on candidate site OC-17, leaving the towns unable to test the land. The council voted 8 to 0 to have the town attorney write to the U.S. Attorney and called an Assembly of Governments for October 22, 1997.

Jenrette's preservation trust buys the Occoneechee Speedway site

Preservation North Carolina, which had bought the old speedway from France Staley, LLC in June 1997, sold it to the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust under protective deed restrictions.

Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway

Former UNC police officer C. E. Swain sues the university

Alan McSurely filed suit for C. E. Swain, a fired UNC police officer, alleging discrimination and violation of his constitutional rights; Swain said he came under pressure after ticketing the daughter of trustee Billy Armfield. The two asked the Black Student Movement for support the next day.

People: Michael Hooker

General Assembly creates the UNC Health Care System

Legislation in 1998 created the UNC Health Care System, bringing UNC Hospitals and the clinical work of the School of Medicine under one entity.

Subject: UNC School of Medicine · UNC Medical Center (N.C. Memorial Hospital)

Hillsborough annexes Daniel Boone Village and Boone Square

About 76 acres of Freeland's South Churton Street complex came into the town limits in 1998, by which time many of its buildings stood empty and the land was seen as ready for redevelopment.

Subject: Daniel Boone Village

Orange County buys 39 acres to expand the park at Cedar Grove

The county bought thirty-nine acres behind the old Cedar Grove School to enlarge its recreation park.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

Project HomeStart opens

Project HomeStart, transitional housing for homeless families on Homestead Road, opened in 1998 as a joint project of the Inter-Faith Council and the Orange County/Durham Coalition for Battered Women. By October it housed five families; it now runs as IFC's HomeStart shelter for women and families.

Subject: Inter-Faith Council for Social Service

Sara Foster opens a Chapel Hill branch of Foster's Market

Sara Foster opened a second Foster's Market at 750 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Chapel Hill as an expansion of her Durham restaurant.

Thomas S. Rankin buys the Ira Ellis House

Thomas S. Rankin bought the Ellis house and its mostly wooded 60-acre tract on the Eno, where he lives with his wife Jill McCorkle. The owners later paid for a history of the house (2012) that the state's 2016 survey drew on.

People: Jill McCorkle

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

Wallace Kuralt closes the Intimate Bookshop's East Franklin Street store

Forced to cut back, Kuralt gave up all but one of his Intimate Bookshops, and the one he kept was not the long-time store at 119 East Franklin. The empty building was to be remodeled for a Sephora cosmetics shop.

Subject: The Intimate Bookshop

West Chapel Hill joins the Study List as a historic district

The National Register Advisory Committee placed the West Chapel Hill neighborhood as a historic district on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. It came to the committee as a public request.

The University Laundry is renamed for housekeeping leaders Kennon Cheek and Rebecca Clark

On January 28, 1998 the trustees voted to rename the 1920s University Laundry for Kennon Cheek and Rebecca Clark, who led campus housekeepers in the 1930s and 1940s. The building was rededicated on September 17, 1998.

People: Rebecca Clark · Kennon Cheek

Kevin Callaghan opens Acme Food and Beverage Company at 110 East Main Street in Carrboro

Acme opened in the old Lloyd-Ray Hardware building about March 1998; that November its owner, Kevin Callaghan, joined the yearly RSVVP restaurant fundraiser for the first time. By 2005 it was known for cooking with local and organic ingredients.

The Earnhardt family gives Triangle Land Conservancy an easement on the Andrews farm

Jean and John Earnhardt, Troy and Robin Andrews's daughter and son-in-law, and their sons' families donated a conservation easement to Triangle Land Conservancy in March 1998, protecting 120 acres of the old Andrews farm around Bolin Creek from development.

Subject: Bolin Brook Farm (Troy and Roberta Andrews House)

Annie Dillard joins the Rubin writers panel at the North Carolina Literary Festival

At the North Carolina Literary Festival at UNC, Dillard sat on a panel of writers who had studied under Louis Rubin, with Lee Smith, Katie Letcher Lyle, Margaret Gibson, Sylvia Wilkinson and Elizabeth Seydel Morgan, in Hamilton Hall.

People: Lee Smith · Louis D. Rubin Jr. · Sylvia Wilkinson

Elizabeth Spencer reads in Memorial Hall at the North Carolina Literary Festival

Spencer gave a program in Memorial Hall on the Saturday of the North Carolina Literary Festival at UNC, sponsored by the Center for the Study of the American South.

Subject: Memorial Hall