Chronology

The Council of Defense extends into township community councils

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

People: J. Cheshire Webb · Eugene Cunningham Branson

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Orange County pledges three-quarters of its War Savings quota in a June drive

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

People: Shepperd Strudwick (1868-1961)

Eight Orange County women enroll in the U.S. Student Nurse Reserve

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

Orange County's new Board of Health orders churches, schools and theatres closed and forbids all meetings

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

Orange County subscribes $331,700 to the Fourth Liberty Loan despite the influenza ban

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

People: Harriet Morehead Berry

A second influenza wave strikes Cedar Grove, Efland and Hillsborough

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

Alexander H. Graham becomes chair of the Orange County Democratic Party

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

Korean lespedeza is introduced on Orange County farms

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

Orange County Training School enrolls 215 students

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

Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

The county war record lists 23 Orange County servicemen who died in the war

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

The county board decides to turn every one-teacher school into a two-teacher school

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

The Woman's Committee of the Council of Defense is discharged

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

People: Thomas W. Bickett

Orange County raises $2,075.84 for Armenian relief

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

People: J. Cheshire Webb · Eugene Cunningham Branson

The county board sets out to close small weak schools and merge them with nearby ones

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

Edgar Wallace Knight becomes assistant superintendent of Orange County schools

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

Orange County raises $800 for the Salvation Army

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

People: W. S. Roberson

Orange County subscribes $137,050 to the Victory Liberty Loan

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

People: Harriet Morehead Berry · W. S. Roberson

Orange County towns and townships win honor flags in the Victory Loan

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

People: W. S. Roberson

School superintendent R. H. Claytor becomes the county's first welfare superintendent

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

Carr School gets its second classroom

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

Ida Lloyd becomes the first office assistant in the county superintendent's office

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

Log tobacco barns are built on the Tapp Farm in far northern Orange

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

Louis Graves reports that Orange County has the state's biggest illicit distilling

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

The boll weevil pushes southern Orange farmers from cotton to dairying

The boll weevil hit Orange County hard in the 1920s, and with cotton prices falling from over thirty cents a pound in the 1910s to ten cents by 1932, farmers in the southern part of the county turned to dairying. Silos, milking barns and gambrel-roofed barns followed in the southwest.

Louis Round Wilson's survey finds thin library collections in Orange County's white schools

A questionnaire of Orange County's 48 white schools for 1921–22, including the Chapel Hill and Hillsboro graded schools, found seven with no library and 3,692 volumes for 1,586 pupils, slightly more than two books per pupil. Ten of the 25 teachers who answered said the books were used "not very much"; Wilson published the results in January 1923.

People: Louis Round Wilson

The county board agrees to build a new school at Cedar Grove

On August 11, 1922, under superintendent Claytor, the county board agreed to build a modern school at Cedar Grove once state building-fund money came. The building was accepted in January 1924 and named Aycock School. Carrboro's new school, planned under the same program, was already going up in 1921.

Subject: Aycock School

Orange County begins merging its one- and two-teacher schools into larger ones

Claytor started the county's first round of consolidation in 1923, folding small schools into larger ones and seeking local tax elections, with a budget request of $92,100. Efland, Aycock and Hillsborough were to carry grades one through eleven and the rest grades one through seven.

The commissioners issue $65,000 in bonds to pay off the county's bank loans

Road spending in the early 1920s outran taxes and kept the board borrowing from banks. On August 6, 1923 it voted $65,000 in bonds to clear the existing debt, which the book calls the first time the county funded its deficits.

The county board moves $30,000 in building money to Efland and sets the order of its new schools

The board shifted $15,000 each from the White Cross and Caldwell building funds to Efland, reasoning that Efland had the greater need, a local tax with an eight-month term, and a paved road for school trucks. It then fixed the building order as Efland, White Cross, Orange County Training School, Orange Grove and Caldwell.

Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School · Efland schools

The county board orders its first school buses

The board ordered ten trucks, six GMC, two Reo and two Chevrolet, with bus bodies from the Carolina Body Company of Greensboro, to carry children to the new consolidated schools. At an August hearing in the courthouse some residents urged the commissioners not to sign the notes for the buses, but no action was taken against them.

The county board sells four rural schools closed by consolidation

Consolidation had emptied the Fairfield, Fairview, South View and Sunnyside schoolhouses, and the superintendent was ordered to sell them. Fairfield went to the trustees of Fairfield Presbyterian Church for $200 and Sunnyside to Ivan Lloyd for $115.

Subject: Fairfield Presbyterian Church

A UNC study counts forty-seven rural schools and ninety teachers in Orange County

Nita Andrews's 1925 master's study of the county schools found forty-seven rural schools with ninety teachers, about half of them holding only elementary certificates, and five school trucks that cost $1,680.70 a year to run plus $783 for drivers.

Orange County still runs twenty-one one-teacher white schools

Although buses and cars were making consolidation possible, Orange County still had twenty-one one-teacher schools for white children in 1925, and several for Black children.

Orange County joins neighboring counties in summer schools for its Black and white teachers

The board agreed to pay a share of a summer session for Black teachers held jointly with Durham and Person counties, and to send its white teachers to a session shared with Person. Pender, then a young teacher, attended the white teachers' session.

Mary Hyman becomes supervisor of the Orange County schools and brings in standardized testing

Mary Hyman of New Bern came to Orange County in 1926 as school supervisor. She pushed teaching by projects and units and was the first to give standardized I.Q. and achievement tests in the county schools, using the scores in promotion; after parent complaints she was not reelected when her five-year term ended in 1931.

The county board auctions seven more schoolhouses closed by consolidation

Early in 1927 the board sold the Pleasant Green, Orange Chapel, Oaks, Union Grove and Meredith schools, most for between $60 and $150, and turned down the bids for New Bethel and Poplar Grove.

The county board hires a rural school supervisor at the urging of Edgar W. Knight

After Edgar W. Knight explained the value of a rural supervisor, the board authorized one at $2,400 a year plus $600 for travel, provided the state paid half. Mary Hyman held the post by 1929 and was kept on in 1931 over some local opposition, but the board did not rehire her after her 1932 report.

People: Edgar Wallace Knight

Orange County operates under a budget for the first time

After 175 years without a budget or central accounts, the county adopted its first budget for fiscal 1927-1928 under the new County Fiscal Control Act. That year it spent $3,363.21 on the county home and farm and $730.50 on outside poor relief.

Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

Don S. Matheson becomes Orange County's full-time farm agent

After years of on-and-off support for extension work, the county hired Matheson full time. Over the next quarter century he moved farmers from soil-depleting row crops toward grass and livestock.

George Lawrence describes the county home near Efland in the Chapel Hill Weekly

George Lawrence described the county home two and a half miles north of Efland: two narrow brick buildings, probably of 1824, heated by fireplaces and lit by kerosene, with no plumbing. It held 19 residents and two prisoners, and white and Black residents ate in separate rooms.

Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

County welfare superintendent notes Orange has no health officer or public health nurse

In a letter to the Chapel Hill Weekly, county welfare superintendent George H. Lawrence wrote that Orange County had no county health officer, no county health department and no public health nurse, and that little preventive health work was being done. He contrasted Orange with Vance County, which had a health officer, a hospital and a tuberculosis sanatorium.

Orange County consolidates most of its small white schools

After a county survey by the Board of Education and Superintendent Claytor, most small white schools were merged by 1930, with buses provided. As late as 1925 the county still had 21 one-teacher white schools and several one-teacher Black schools.

Farmers of Durham and nearby counties organize the Farmers Exchange cooperative

About 400 farmers and farm leaders formed the Farmers Exchange in March 1930 to market farm products and buy supplies at cost. John Sprunt Hill of Durham backed it, and by 1952 it served about 4,100 members in five counties including Orange.

People: John Sprunt Hill

Subject: Farmers Mutual Exchange

The county board merges Chestnut Ridge, Jordan's Grove, Smith Level and Grover into larger schools

Over objections from families who wanted to keep neighborhood schools, the board sent the pupils of Chestnut Ridge to Gravelly Hill, those of Grover and Jordan's Grove to Aycock, and those of Smith Level to Carrboro. It then adopted a school budget of $180,849.25 for 1930-31.

Subject: Jordan’s Grove School · Aycock School

The state takes over Orange County's roads and most of its prisoners

The 1931 act moved every public road outside town streets to state upkeep and made the state responsible for longer-term prisoners, ending one of the county's oldest duties. The Gardner survey had found Orange spent $48,076 on its 412 miles of roads in 1929.

People: O. Max Gardner

The county board merges nine more rural schools into larger ones

At a special meeting on reorganizing the schools, the board sent Merritts to Chapel Hill, Damascus to Carrboro, Tom's Creek and Rock Hill to Orange Grove, Union and Rehobeth to Efland, and Harmony with others to Aycock, leaving few one-teacher schools for white children.

Subject: Aycock School

The county board sets bus driver pay and a one-mile limit on walks to the bus

The board paid student drivers $10 a month and adult drivers $20, and told the superintendent to lay out truck routes so that no child walked more than a mile to a bus. A few weeks later the state told the superintendent that $15 a month was the most a driver could be paid.

Carl Durham serves on the Orange County Board of Commissioners

Durham was an Orange County commissioner from 1932 to 1938 and in 1935 helped secure $22,000 in federal aid for rural electrification in the county. He was elected a UNC trustee in 1937.

The state builds a prison camp for road crews near Hillsborough

The state prison camp near Hillsborough, whose inmates worked on road crews, was built in 1932. By 1960 it held about ninety felons and kept a vegetable farm behind its fence.

The county board bars hiring teachers related to a school's committeemen

The board ruled that every elementary teacher must hold at least a Primary C or Grammar Grade C certificate when elected, and that no one could teach in the county if a wife, child, brother or sister sat on the school committee.

The county board agrees to pay for five new or enlarged schools for Black children

Despite the Depression, the Orange County board agreed to fund buildings or additions at Merritts, Ridge Road, Sunnyside, White Oak Grove and Sartin, schools of one to three rooms for Black children. Each community had to supply its own lumber; Ridge Road was first allotted $500.

Subject: Ridge Road School · White Oak Grove School

Black children attend 27 schools while white children are gathered into 12

By 1933 consolidation had brought Orange County's white children into twelve schools, while Black children still attended twenty-seven, most of them one- and two-room buildings.

Architect H. D. Carter becomes supervisor of Orange County relief projects

Chapel Hill architect H. D. Carter replaced J. A. Page as supervisor of Orange County's Federal Emergency Relief Administration projects, which included painting and repairing schools. The next year he designed Public Works Administration buildings and additions for nine county schools.

M. C. Burt begins work as the county's agent for Black farmers

From 1935 Burt served Orange County's Black farmers as extension agent, for a time shared with Chatham County. Edwin P. Barnes became assistant county agent the same year.

The commissioners turn relief money over to welfare officer George Lawrence

As Depression requests multiplied, the board stopped voting on each small grant and paid Lawrence $150 a month for January and February 1935 to put into the ERA fund for totally disabled people on the relief list. In March it gave him charge of all relief for March and April.

Parents turn back a plan to merge the Aycock, Efland and Hillsboro schools

A large crowd of parents appeared before the board to fight a plan that would have folded the Aycock, Efland and Hillsboro schools into one. The opposition was strong enough that the board dropped the plan, which returned in 1963 as Orange High School.

Subject: Orange High School · Aycock School · Efland schools · Hillsborough High School

Dr. Charles Mangum outlines a proposed federally aided health district tied to UNC training

Dr. Charles S. Mangum described a proposed public health district of Orange, Person and Caswell counties, largely paid for by the U.S. Public Health Service. It would also train health officers, sanitary inspectors, public health nurses and secretaries, building on UNC's 1934 to 1935 public health administration courses.

People: Charles S. (Charles Staples) Mangum

Temporary county health unit starts work in Orange during a typhoid outbreak

Because typhoid fever had appeared in the county, a temporary health organization, set up as part of the planned district unit, began operating in Orange County on July 1, 1935. Its staff were acting health officer Dr. G. A. Sumner (lent by the State Board of Health), acting health nurse Marie Strickland, secretary Ida Lloyd and sanitary inspector E. B. Caruthers.

Orange-Person District Health Department organized with Dr. Malcolm Rourk as health officer

Full-time public health service began in Orange County on July 1, 1935, when a temporary unit under Dr. G. H. Sumner of the State Board of Health answered a typhoid outbreak. By August the district health department for Orange and Person counties was organized as a model unit linked to UNC's public health teaching, with Dr. Malcolm Henderson Rourk as district health officer, sanitary inspector E. B. Caruthers, and a public health nurse and clerk in each county. The district officer also took over Chapel Hill's municipal health authority.

The county board hires builders for White Oak Grove, Sartin, Piney Mountain and New Branch schools

After architect H. D. Carter ran the bidding, the board chose the contractors Forrest and Roberts to build a two-room White Oak Grove School and add second rooms to Sartin and Piney Mountain schools, all for Black children, and W. H. Woods to build a one-room New Branch School.

Subject: Piney Mountain School · White Oak Grove School

Grace E. Holcombe revives home demonstration work in Orange County

Hired jointly by Orange and Chatham counties, Holcombe organized four home demonstration clubs and nine 4-H clubs within a year. By 1941, under her successor Woodward Byars, the county had 17 home demonstration clubs.

Subject: Home demonstration clubs

A federal WPA grant pays for ten Orange County school building projects

A federal grant of $155,454 to the county school board in 1936 paid for new buildings at West Hillsboro School, Hillsboro Negro School and Chapel Hill High School, and for additions and updated equipment at Murphey, Carrboro, Aycock, St. Mary's, Orange Grove, Chapel Hill Negro School and Hillsboro schools.

Subject: West End Graded School (West Hillsborough School)

A state survey finds only one brick building among Orange County's 28 schools for Black children

The state's administrative survey of Orange County school units, compiled from 1934-35 figures, counted 28 schools for Black pupils, all but one of them frame, and rated 19 in bad condition. White pupils by then attended ten consolidated schools, and all but one of their twelve buildings were brick.

Lebanon Methodist Church loses its old building

The old church of the Lebanon congregation, one of the rural churches tied to the Hillsborough charge, was destroyed in 1936.

S. H. Hobbs Jr. buys an Orange County farm for agricultural experiments

The rural sociologist acquired a farm in Orange County in 1936 to use for agricultural experimentation.

St. Mary's School gets a WPA brick auditorium

St. Mary's School, a Colonial Revival brick school built in 1931 near Murphey School to replace a log schoolhouse, received a Neoclassical brick auditorium in 1936 through the same WPA program, plainer than the one at Murphey.

Subject: St. Mary's School

The sheriff stops serving as the county's tax collector

The sheriff had collected Orange County's taxes since colonial days, and that ended in 1936, with collection moving to the county accountant's office. Carl C. Davis became tax collector in 1938.

Dr. W. P. Richardson becomes health officer of the district serving Orange

Richardson followed Dr. M. H. Rourk, who left in February 1936, and served until Dr. O. D. Garvin replaced him in 1944.

People: William P. Richardson

Dudley D. Carroll chairs the Orange County Building and Loan Association

Carroll was a director of the Orange County Building and Loan Association from 1920 to 1950 and chaired its board from 1937. He also chaired the county draft board and the county ABC board.

Lebanon Methodist Church puts up a new building

A year after its old church was destroyed, the Lebanon congregation built a new one, seating 250.

Walnut Grove Methodist Church replaces its wooden church with a stone one

On May 4, 1937 the Walnut Grove congregation in northern Orange began building a rubble-stone Gothic Revival church, with buttresses and stained glass, from fieldstone that local farmers gathered, to replace its frame church of the early 1890s. The church was dedicated on April 14, 1942.

Subject: Walnut Grove Methodist Church

Ben Johnson, born enslaved near Hillsborough, recalls the Klan lynching of Cyrus Guy for a WPA interviewer

Interviewed at 85 in Hecktown, Durham, by Federal Writers' Project worker Mary A. Hicks, Johnson said the Ku Klux came for Cy Guy a hundred strong, tried him in the woods and hanged him over the road. He said nobody would touch the body for four days, until the sheriff took it down.

Chatham County joins the Orange-Person Health District

District health officer Dr. William P. Richardson announced that Chatham County had joined the Orange-Person Health District, which would provide a physician, a nurse and a sanitary officer for the new county. The State Board of Health had kept a nurse in Chatham for the past year with U.S. Children's Bureau funds.

People: William P. Richardson

The Neuse River Soil Conservation District is formed with Orange County in it

Created in 1938 under state enabling law, the district covered Durham, Johnston, Orange, Wake and Wilson counties. Orange later had three men on its board.

John Parker becomes the first Black Orange County farmer to get a Farm Security Administration purchase loan

Under the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act, John Parker borrowed $3,915 through the Farm Security Administration to buy a 145-acre farm, the first such loan to a Black farmer in Orange County. He paid it off in about six years on a 40-year note.

Granville wilt first appears in Orange County tobacco

The bacterial disease known as Granville wilt showed up in the county's tobacco crop for the first time in 1939. Growers later turned to wilt-resistant varieties.

Soil Conservation Service work begins in Orange County

Federal soil conservationists started farm planning in the county in 1939, with R. L. Mohler as work unit conservationist. By June 1953 plans covered 1,265 farms and about 142,000 acres.

A lent library truck carries books to schools and crossroads stores across Orange County

For May, June and July 1939 a bookmobile with a revolving shelved turret was lent to the county, run by Lucile McDade and her assistant Louise Carroll, who stopped at schools and crossroads stores. The county board of education and the Confederate Memorial Library in Hillsboro paid its operating costs, and the WPA and the Hillsboro library lent the books.

Subject: Orange County Public Library

Orange County tobacco growers begin farming under acreage allotments

From 1940 each grower's tobacco acreage was allotted and enforced after a referendum on compulsory control that more than 90 percent of growers backed. The book credits the controls with better quality and yields.

The Farmers Mutual Exchange installs a 30,000-egg electric incubator

About 1940 the Exchange put in an all-electric incubator holding 30,000 eggs, supplied by blood-tested county flocks. It sold baby chicks and gave farmers a steady market for eggs and broilers.

Subject: Farmers Mutual Exchange

UNC School of Public Health runs a Rockefeller-funded syphilis study in Orange and neighboring counties

The School of Public Health's first research project, a field epidemiological study of syphilis funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, ran from 1940 to 1950 with the state venereal disease control program in Orange, Chatham, Person and Durham counties. Project staff held clinics, lectured and traced contacts in the health departments.

Subject: UNC School of Public Health

District health officer reports one of the district's best years for diphtheria

Although diphtheria was widespread in North Carolina in 1939, the Orange-Person-Chatham district recorded only 18 cases. Health officer W. P. Richardson credited immunization of children under six, warned that immunizations had fallen off over the past twelve months, and urged parents to have young children immunized.

Ruby Crews becomes the county's first home demonstration agent for Black women

An assistant agent was added in 1941 to work only with Black farm women, and Crews, later Mrs. Ruby Carraway, was the first to hold the job.

Subject: Home demonstration clubs

The county home closes

The poorhouse on the land bought in 1823 closed in 1941, since most of its residents now qualified for old age assistance and could live in boarding homes.

Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

Orange County sells the county home and its farm at auction

The county auctioned the old county home, its 241-acre farm, buildings, stock and tools, and a Forrest was the high bidder. Its last residents had been boarded with relatives and friends at county expense, which the welfare superintendent said cost less than half as much.

Subject: Orange County poorhouse (County Home)

A state farm forester begins part-time work in Orange County

From 1942 Orange County farmers could call on a state forester part time for help with woodland management and timber sales. The 1947 forester, V. G. Watkins, reported on thinning demonstrations.

Orange County farmers bring in more than a hundred beef cattle

Over a hundred beef cows and heifers arrived in the county in 1942, and purebred bulls were placed as well. Fourteen 4-H boys bought Hereford heifers, and the Farmers Exchange Market bought the State Fair's first-place Hereford bull.

Black shank disease first strikes tobacco in Orange County

A new tobacco disease, black shank, appeared first in 1943 and spread quickly through the tobacco belt. The book ranks it with wilt for damage and notes a partly resistant seed.

St. Mary's School closes as its pupils are merged into the Hillsborough schools

Consolidation with the Hillsborough schools closed St. Mary's School in 1943.

Subject: St. Mary's School

The 1844 Orange County Courthouse is rehabilitated

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

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

W. B. Thompson sells the Chapel Hill News, which becomes the News of Orange County

W. B. Thompson, who had published the Chapel Hill News since its start, sold it in 1944 to J. Roy Parker. The paper was renamed the News of Orange County.

Subject: The News of Orange County

District health officer reports the season's typhoid cases

Dr. William P. Richardson, district health officer, reported two confirmed cases of typhoid fever in the district in the past two months, one in Chatham County and one in Person County, with a suspected case in Person County and indirect reports of two cases in Orange County that health officials had not been able to confirm.

Orange County schools stay closed until after September 18 during the polio epidemic

On the recommendation of the State Health Officer and Governor Broughton, the State Board of Education kept all North Carolina public schools closed until after September 18 because of the infantile paralysis epidemic. Orange County schools, which Superintendent R. H. Claytor had planned to open September 14, were held back with the rest, though teachers still reported on September 14.

O. David Garvin becomes health officer of the district covering Orange County

Garvin came to the district in 1944 on assignment from the North Carolina State Board of Health and the Public Health Service during the war emergency, after a year and a half in Scotland and Richmond counties. A later account of his resignation gave his starting date as September 4, 1944.

A Negro library committee was already running library service for Black readers in Orange County

The committee met in September 1945 under chairman Mrs. M. D. McPherson, reported over a hundred new books received and 800 books circulated during the summer, and was assembling book kits for rural areas. Miss Annie Cameron was named as one of the people who started the library for Black residents of the county.

People: Marinda D. McPherson

Subject: Orange County Public Library

Four Orange County farmers run hybrid corn demonstrations

Four farmers ran corn demonstrations in 1945 on Experiment Station lines, using hybrid seed, shallow cultivation, close spacing and heavy nitrogen. The results showed yields could be more than doubled.

Only 950 Orange County farmers have electricity

A dozen years after the county's pioneering rural power line, only 950 Orange County farmers had electric service in 1945.

Newspaper describes the work of Orange County's public health nurses

A News of Orange County piece described the county public health nurses' duties: school inspections, immunization against diphtheria and smallpox, well-baby clinics twice a month, a monthly maternity clinic, tuberculosis and venereal disease clinics, orthopedic referrals, and the wartime maternity and infant care program for servicemen's wives.

Lee County joins the health district serving Orange

The district health department, begun with Person County in 1935 and joined by Chatham in 1937, added Lee County in 1946.

Orange County farmers seed the first ladino clover plots

There was no ladino clover in the county in 1945. Half a dozen farmers planted trial plots in 1946, and the next year about 200 farmers sowed more than 1,000 acres.

Clyde Roberts wins the Bank of Chapel Hill corn growing contest

The Bank of Chapel Hill sponsored a yearly corn contest with at least 50 entrants. In 1947 Clyde Roberts won with 93.3 bushels of N. C. Hybrid 26 on one acre, against a contest average of 61.9.

Subject: Bank of Chapel Hill

Dickerson Chapel's old courthouse frame is encased in brick

In 1947 the frame building that began as the third Orange County courthouse was covered in brick, giving Dickerson Chapel A.M.E. Church its present look with pointed-arch stained-glass windows and an entrance tower and steeple.

Subject: Dickerson Chapel AME Church

Orange County breeders organize the Spotted Poland China Breeders Association

Hog breeders formed a county Spotted Poland China association in 1947, building on 4-H pig chains started by the Chapel Hill Rotary Club and the Sears-Roebuck Foundation. It had 65 members four years later.

Orange County polio chapter reports buying an infant-size iron lung

In its annual report, the Orange County chapter of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis said it had spent $500 in direct aid to polio patients and bought a $550 infant-size iron lung, kept for the time being at Watts Hospital.

Glenn T. Proffit succeeds R. H. Claytor as Orange County school superintendent

Glenn Theodor Proffit, a Wilkes County native who had led high schools in Clinton, Harnett County and Dunn, took over the county schools in July 1947 and served until 1951.

Archie Royal Davis becomes architect for the Orange County schools

In 1948 the Durham architect Archie Royal Davis became architect for the Orange County school system. His work for the county included Cedar Grove and Efland-Cheeks schools for Black children, the first Cameron Park School building, Central High's 1959-60 main building and Central Elementary.

People: Archie Royal Davis

J. L. Phelps wins the county corn contest with 136.4 bushels an acre

In the 1948 Bank of Chapel Hill contest eleven growers topped 100 bushels an acre. The winner, with 136.4 bushels, was J. L. Phelps, from the county's sandy tobacco section.

Subject: Bank of Chapel Hill

Orange County abolishes the office of treasurer

The treasurer, first called trustee, had held county money since 1778 without any power over spending. The office ended in 1948.

The News of Orange County is sold to E. J. Hamlin

In 1948 the News of Orange County changed hands again, passing to E. J. Hamlin.

Subject: The News of Orange County

The county board hires supervisors of instruction for its Black and white schools

The board decided to hire supervisors of instruction and chose Norma Snipes for the Black schools and later Cora Paul Bomar for the white schools. In 1955 the state ended Snipes's position under a rule of one supervisor per hundred teachers, and she went to teach at Efland-Cheeks.

The county board approves electric wiring for five rural schools for Black children

The Orange County board voted to electrify five rural schools for Black children, asking each community to pay half the cost. Ridge Road School had two electric lights in each room by the late 1940s, but when it was wired is not known.

Subject: Ridge Road School

The county board sells the former Wardsville and Cool Spring school sites

On January 5, 1948 the county board confirmed the sale of the Wardsville school site to D. D. Jones of Durham for $100, and on March 1 it confirmed the sale of the unused two-room Cool Springs school to C. C. McClees of Durham for $400. Both had been schools for Black children in the Murphy district.

Health officer urges typhoid shots after a case in Hillsboro

District Health Officer O. David Garvin urged Orange County residents to take the health department's typhoid vaccinations after a case of typhoid fever occurred in Hillsboro. Clinics were held at the Chapel Hill and Hillsboro health departments on Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings, and he advised sound privies and tested water.

Part of Public health in rural Orange County · 26 events

Polio postpones the opening of Orange County schools twice

With 12 polio cases counted in the county by early August, Superintendent Glenn T. Proffitt, on the advice of health director O. David Garvin, moved the school opening from September 1 to September 7. After a second postponement the county schools opened on Monday, September 13, 1948, for about 4,000 pupils.

People: O. David Garvin

Cora Paul Bomar serves as instructional supervisor of the Orange County schools

Librarian and teacher Cora Paul Bomar was the county schools' instructional supervisor from 1949 to 1951, with building school libraries as her main charge. She left in 1951 to become school library consultant for the State Department of Public Instruction.

Superintendent Proffit's $1 million school bond pays for a new Efland school for Black children and county lunchrooms

The $1,000,000 school bond passed under Superintendent Glenn T. Proffit paid for grounds and a building for the Efland school for Black children, an addition to Hillsboro High School, and lunchrooms at Aycock, Efland, West Hillsborough and White Cross. It also bought a cannery and gymnasium at Aycock and a remodeling and auditorium at Caldwell.

Subject: Efland schools · Aycock School · Hillsborough High School

District health department takes UNC public health students for field training

Health officer Dr. O. David Garvin announced that the district health department would serve as a field training center for eight UNC public health students, four in health education and four in public health nursing, working for ten weeks across Orange, Person, Chatham and Lee counties.

People: O. David Garvin

Subject: UNC School of Public Health

Norma Snipes is appointed supervisor of the county schools for Black children

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

The state's new school building fund allots Orange County's rural schools $292,618

From the 1949 State School Plant Construction, Improvement, and Repair Fund, built from a voter-approved state bond issue and a matching legislative appropriation, the State Board of Education allotted $292,618.06 to Orange County's rural schools. The money let the county begin replacing small one- and two-teacher schools for Black children with central consolidated buildings.

Orange County voters approve $1.25 million in bonds for schools and a courthouse

Following a county-wide school study begun in October 1948, voters approved bonds of up to $1,250,000 for new and enlarged schools and a new courthouse. Voters had turned down similar bonds in 1947.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

An office building for the Orange County Sheriff's Department goes up on East Margaret Lane

A one-story Flemish-bond brick Colonial Revival office building, built to look like a house with a pedimented Corinthian portico, went up at 144 East Margaret Lane in the 1950s for the Orange County Sheriff's Department. It now holds the Orange County District Attorney's offices.

Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in

The 1950 census counted 34,435 people in Orange County, 9,177 in the town of Chapel Hill and 1,795 in Carrboro. Chapel Hill township as a whole had 18,222.

Orange County completes consolidation of its white schools

After a countywide program of new public buildings, the shift from small neighborhood schools to larger consolidated schools for white children was finished by the early 1950s. Schools for Black children lagged under Jim Crow funding.

The 1950 census counts 2,038 farms in Orange County

The census found 2,038 farms averaging 87.9 acres, with 179,073 acres, about 70 percent of the county, in farms. Eighteen operations of more than 500 acres showed farms beginning to consolidate.

William Picard Jacocks photographs historic houses, including in Orange County

Jacocks photographed historic homes in several North Carolina counties, including Orange, with some of the Orange County images taken on the University of North Carolina campus. The 120 photographs are now at Wilson Library.

Principal E. M. Stanfield reports on the one-room school for Black children at Cedar Grove

In her report for 1949-50, E. M. Stanfield told the state she was the only teacher for 36 pupils in seven grades in a single room with no library, gymnasium, fire protection or indoor toilet. The two-room Carr School nearby, under principal Anne May Morrow, had 73 pupils and lacked a drinking fountain and state health approval.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

Every Orange County high school, white and Black, takes part in a grassland speaking contest

As part of the pasture campaign, each high school in the county entered a grassland oratorical contest in 1951. The Hillsboro branch of the Durham Bank and Trust Company gave $75 in prizes and winners went on to a district contest.

Irene Oliver Pender becomes instructional supervisor of the Orange County schools

After Cora Paul Bomar resigned in 1951, the county chose Aycock School teacher Irene Oliver Pender as supervisor. She led the drive for a centralized library in every elementary school and ran the federal NDEA and ESEA materials programs until she retired in June 1970.

Jordan's Grove School for Black children closes as the Cedar Grove Negro School opens

Jordan's Grove School for Black children closed in the fall of 1951, when it and six other small Black schools were combined in the new Cedar Grove Negro School, accepted by the county board that November. It is the only surviving rural field school building the 1993 survey could tie to African American pupils, abandoned in a farm field when recorded. A separate white Jordan's Grove school had merged into Aycock in 1930.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools · Jordan’s Grove School · Aycock School

Orange County closes thirteen small schools for Black children and consolidates their pupils

At the start of the 1951-52 school year the county shut thirteen one- and two-teacher schools for Black children, put eleven new buses on the roads and consolidated every Black school except three near Efland. New buildings opened that year at the Cedar Grove school.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

The county board elects G. Paul Carr superintendent of the Orange County schools

Gabriel Paul Carr, principal of Angier High School, became the county's tenth school superintendent in 1951, succeeding Glenn T. Proffit, who left for the Harnett County superintendency. Carr served eighteen years, through the consolidation of schools and the desegregation of the system, and resigned effective June 30, 1969.

Orange Fire Protective Association buys Orange County's first rural fire truck

Because Hillsboro's town fire truck was restricted to calls within about a mile and a half of town, rural residents formed the Orange Fire Protective Association and raised money through one-time memberships of $10 for a house and more for farm buildings. By March 15, 1951, 260 members had given $4,500 and a Ford fire truck for the countryside had arrived, crewed by the town's volunteer firemen.

Subject: Rural fire protection

Orange County's seventeen home demonstration clubs count 443 members

During National Home Demonstration Week the county reported 443 women in 17 home demonstration clubs, served by two white agents and one Black agent, with 80 volunteer leaders who had held 62 meetings attended by 1,459 people the year before. Clubs made 38 United Nations flags for schools, churches and Grange halls as part of a citizenship study.

Subject: Home demonstration clubs

The county board sells off its remaining small schoolhouses

In March 1952 the board sold the last small school buildings, among them the Fairfield school for Black children, Sartin, Poplar Grove, Morris Grove and Hickory Grove, for prices from $300 to $2,010. Around the same time Carr School went to Jim Wade for $800.

County welfare spending reaches $190,973 a year

In the year ending June 30, 1952 the welfare department spent $190,973.26, about three-quarters of it state and federal money. Old age assistance for about 290 people and aid to about 125 families with dependent children were the largest items.

Masons lay the cornerstone of the new Orange County courthouse at the county bicentennial

On the opening day of the county's bicentennial week, Grand Master Edwin T. Howard and Eagle Lodge No. 19 laid the cornerstone in the half-finished courthouse. Chief Justice William A. Devin gave the address.

Subject: Eagle Lodge

Tenant farming drops sharply in Orange County

Tenant-operated farms in Orange County fell from 513 of 1,939 farms in 1954 to 295 of 1,405 in 1959, and croppers fell from 261 to 135. In 1959, 500 of the county's farms were classed as tobacco farms.

The county school board decides to carry on as before after the Brown decision

Two days after Brown v. Board of Education, the Orange County Board of Education put on record that since the Court had not said when or how segregation would end, it would go on hiring teachers, preparing the budget and running the schools as in the past. Like other North Carolina boards, it took no step to comply.

Orange County formally opens its new courthouse in Hillsborough

About 500 people came to the opening ceremonies and open house, held on the first day of the first court term in the new building. County offices had finished moving in from the old courthouse the week before.

The county school superintendent's office moves into the old courthouse

Superintendent G. P. Carr and his staff finished moving into the first floor of the 1845 courthouse, which had been renovated after the other county offices left for the new building in October.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

The county board ends the supervisor post for its Black schools under a new state staffing rule

In 1955 the state began allotting a county one supervisor per hundred teachers. The schools Norma Snipes supervised had fewer teachers than that, so the board ended her post and made her a primary teacher at Efland-Cheeks School.

First Salk polio vaccinations given to Orange County first and second graders

Local physicians working under the county health department gave the first round of Salk polio vaccine to more than 1,150 Orange County first and second graders. The work began on Monday, April 18, 1955 with about 500 Chapel Hill area children and finished on April 21 with the Hillsboro, Efland and Aycock schools.

People: O. David Garvin

The county board keeps every pupil in last year's school for 1955-56

The Orange County board ruled that students would attend the same schools in 1955-56 as in 1954-55. Pupils new to the county were to apply to a principal, who would admit them under board policies that kept the races apart.

The county board names a committee to study school segregation after Brown

Answering a letter from the Governor's Advisory Commission on Education, chaired by Thomas Pearsall, the Orange County board appointed a local committee to study the problems the Supreme Court's segregation ruling raised for its schools. Ira Ward and Delmar Brown soon replaced two of the first members, Bonner D. Sawyer and W. T. (Buck) Murray.

People: Ira Ward

Health officer calls tuberculosis Orange County's number one health problem

Asked about tuberculosis, County Health Officer David Garvin said it was the county's number one public health problem. He said drugs, surgery and better treatment had cut the death rate sharply over ten years, but that as many cases were being found as when deaths were four times as great, and that finding unknown cases was the department's biggest problem.

Orange County passes a $2 million school bond issue

A two-million-dollar county bond issue for schools passed in 1956. The next month Cedar Grove's Black parents went to the board to ask for a share of the building money.

Patriots of North Carolina hold a mass meeting in Hillsborough and form an Orange County unit

An overflow crowd of about 300, observers said all white, filled the courtroom in Hillsborough for a Patriots of North Carolina meeting where I. Beverly Lake urged abandoning the public schools for a private system rather than integrate. W. C. George, the Patriots' state president, presided as members named an Orange County executive committee.

Part of School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1959–1967 · 24 events

People: I. Beverly (Isaac Beverly) Lake

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Moses Burt retires after 23 years as Orange County's agent for Black farmers

Moses Cimuel Burt, a World War I veteran trained at NC A&T, Hampton and Cornell, retired as the county's African American extension agent in September 1958. Since 1935 he had backed farm programs in the county's Black schools and helped start 4-H clubs.

O. David Garvin resigns as health director of the five county district

Garvin, health director for Orange, Person, Chatham, Lee and Caswell counties since 1944, resigned effective June 15, 1959 to rejoin the U.S. Public Health Service in its Chronic Disease Branch. The paper described him as a native of Wagner, South Carolina.

Orange County commissioners give a cool reception to a Research Triangle planning request

At a special meeting, Orange County commissioners gave only a lukewarm reception to a request to help fund a land development survey for the Research Triangle area and took no action pending firm figures. The Chapel Hill Weekly reported that the county expected to gain mostly new residents and school costs from the park rather than industry, and commissioners discussed zoning the area northeast of Chapel Hill toward the Durham County line.

Charles E. Maddry writes a history of Mount Moriah Baptist Church

Charles Edward Maddry wrote a history of Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Orange County; it survives in his papers at UNC.

Subject: Mount Moriah Baptist Church

W. C. George and Lucius Cheshire are named Orange County managers of I. Beverly Lake's campaign

I. Beverly Lake named W. C. George of Chapel Hill and Lucius M. Cheshire of Hillsborough, both directors of the pro-segregation North Carolina Defenders of States Rights, co-managers of his campaign for governor in Orange County.

People: I. Beverly (Isaac Beverly) Lake

An Orange County jury convicts four men of arson and conspiracy in the Reverie plant fire

After a three-day trial in Orange County Superior Court, a jury found four men, among them an ILGWU representative from Atlanta, guilty of burning the Reverie Lingerie plant. Judge Raymond Mallard sentenced them the next day to five to twelve years, and all appealed.

Subject: Reverie Lingerie plant

Clara Jones is appointed a supervisor of the Orange County schools

Clara Jones, a Person County principal for twenty-seven years, joined the county staff as supervisor in 1961, assigned to the Cedar Grove, Efland-Cheeks and A. L. Stanback schools for Black children. After integration she ran special education testing and placement, and she retired in 1974.

Chapel Hill church women ask the county for a welfare office in Chapel Hill

A group from the Chapel Hill Council of United Church Women, including Mildred Ringwalt, asked the Orange County commissioners for a branch welfare office in the Chapel Hill area with a caseworker at least two days a week, and offered volunteers. The acting welfare superintendent replied that lay volunteers could not do casework.

Hyconeechee Regional Library director David Flick writes a books column for the News of Orange County

By January 1962 the News of Orange County was running "Between the Covers," a column of news and comment on books in the public library by the director of the Hyconeechee Regional Library. The North Carolina Library Association's 1962 directory lists David Flick as the region's director, at Yanceyville.

Subject: Orange County Public Library · The News of Orange County

Portrait of the late Sheriff Oddie Clayton is hung in the sheriff's office

A portrait of the late Orange County sheriff Oddie Clayton, painted by Hillsborough artist Edmund Strudwick and paid for by public subscription in a drive led by ABC Police Chief Burch Compton, was hung in the county sheriff's office before members of his family.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Carl Smith leads the Democratic primary for Orange County commissioner

Carl Smith of Chapel Hill topped the six-man Democratic primary for three county commissioner seats with 3,783 votes, ahead of Gordon Cleveland and Donald McDade; nomination usually amounted to election in the county.

The General Assembly makes the Orange County Board of Education an elected five-member board

A 1963 local act (H.B. 1329) set the county school board at five members chosen by voters in partisan elections from 1964 on, with six-year staggered terms and no more than two members from any one township.

A bronze plaque honoring builder John Berry is placed on the Old Orange County Courthouse

A bronze plaque naming John Berry a contributor to the tradition of American architecture was fixed to the 1845 courthouse he built in Hillsborough.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Four of Orange County's 2,001 Black pupils attend white schools

The county school system enrolled 2,001 Black students in 1964-65. Four went to formerly white schools; the rest attended Central High, Efland-Cheeks or Cedar Grove.

Sixty-six Black parents petition the county board to stop running schools by race

Led by the retired Cedar Grove teacher Hassie Vanhook Gattis, 66 parents signed a petition asking the Orange County board to stop operating its schools on a racial basis. It charged that the board had kept a dual system since the 1954 Brown ruling in disregard of the law.

A state act limits Orange County school board elections to voters outside the Chapel Hill school unit

A 1965 act (H.S. 695) provided that only county voters living outside the enlarged Chapel Hill school administrative unit could vote in elections for the Orange County Board of Education.

Only 7 percent of the county's Black pupils attend an integrated school

At the start of the 1965-66 school year, about 7 percent of the Orange County system's Black students were enrolled in an integrated school.

Orange County schools start the federal Title I program

Frank Giles, named first assistant to the superintendent and office manager, took charge of the federal Title I program, whose $166,801.40 budget came on top of the county school budget.

The county board asks the commissioners to back a desegregation plan and Black members on school boards

Facing federal compliance rules, the board met the county commissioners and asked for two Black members on the Board of Education, integration of schools, buses and staff, Black members on district committees and signature of the federal compliance form.

The county board adopts a school desegregation plan

After most of a year spent trying to reach a plan acceptable under federal rules, the Orange County Board of Education adopted a desegregation plan on September 7, 1965.

Orange County voters approve $3 million in school bonds for the county and Chapel Hill units

In 1967 voters approved a $3,000,000 school building bond, with $1,000,000 for the Orange County schools and $2,000,000 for the Chapel Hill schools. It was the third school bond passed during Superintendent Carr's tenure.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

UNC students open SHAC, the nation's first student-run free clinic

The Student Health Action Coalition began in 1967 with a few UNC medical students seeing patients in supporters' homes. It now holds a free Wednesday evening clinic at the Carrboro Community Health Center, with student interpreting teams in Spanish and Mandarin.

The county board presents a plan to end its dual school system to federal civil rights officials

After the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare told Orange County to give up freedom of choice and balance its schools by race, the board met with Walter Warfield of the Office for Civil Rights' education branch to present its plan for ending separate Black and white schools. The plan took effect in 1969-70.

Belton Edwards, a Black member, joins the county Board of Education

When A. B. Coleman resigned from the board in May 1968, Belton Edwards, whom Pender identifies as Black, took his place. The board had asked the county commissioners in 1965 for two Black members.

Engineering study for UNC recommends a reservoir on Cane Creek

After the 1968 drought left University Lake dangerously low, a study sponsored by the University of North Carolina and conducted by the engineering firm Hazen and Sawyer recommended damming Cane Creek. The Haw River, the proposed Jordan reservoir, an enlarged University Lake and the Eno were among the alternatives set aside.

People: Daniel A. Okun

George F. Williams becomes superintendent of the Orange County schools

After G. Paul Carr resigned, the board called George F. Williams, superintendent of the Brunswick County schools, to lead the Orange County system in 1969. He served eight years as the county's eleventh superintendent.

Orange County Schools open kindergarten classes and extend them to every five-year-old

Kindergarten began in the county schools with the 1969-70 reorganization, housed at Central Elementary and Efland-Cheeks. By the end of Superintendent Williams's term in 1977 it had grown from a partial program to one serving all five-year-olds.

Subject: Central High and Central Elementary, Hillsborough · Efland schools

Superintendent Carr's final report recommends studying a merger of the county and Chapel Hill school units

In his closing report to the State Superintendent in 1969, G. Paul Carr asked the board to have outside educators study combining the county and Chapel Hill units. He also urged a supplementary school tax, written board policies, kindergartens for all children, a return to six-grade elementary schools and special education at the high school.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

County planning board recommends rezoning the Blackwood Station tract for Fiber Industries

The Orange County Planning Board unanimously recommended rezoning the 450-acre Blackwood Station tract from residential to industrial for a $100 million Fiber Industries plant promising 1,500 jobs. Board member Mark Burnham pressed for stricter performance standards, and commissioners Carl Smith, Ira Ward and Harvey Bennett had backed the Chamber of Commerce's pro-Fiber campaign.

People: Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner)

Fiber Industries withdraws its New Hope Creek rezoning request; commissioners chairman Carl Smith blames opponents

Fiber Industries withdrew its request to rezone 450 acres near New Hope Creek for a plant after opposition from UNC, Duke and Mayor Howard Lee. County commissioners chairman Carl Smith blamed 'unintelligent intellectuals' and a town political 'machine', and said Lee, the town's Black mayor, was not serving Black residents by opposing the plant.

People: Howard N. Lee

Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in

The 1970 census counted 57,567 people in Orange County, 26,199 in Chapel Hill (26,195 of them in the Orange County part) and 5,058 in Carrboro. Chapel Hill's population had more than doubled since 1960.

Mary Claire Engstrom surveys the family graveyards of Orange County

In the 1970s the Hillsborough historian Mary Claire Engstrom recorded cemeteries across the county, many of them private burial grounds on farms. Her index was kept at the Register of Deeds in Hillsborough.

The old St. Mary's School reopens as a private college preparatory school

The St. Mary's School building, closed since 1943, reopened in 1970 as a private college preparatory school.

Subject: St. Mary's School

Joe Hackney serves as an assistant district attorney in Orange and Chatham counties

After clerking for Justice Frank Huskins of the state Supreme Court, Joe Hackney worked as an assistant district attorney in Orange and Chatham counties from 1971 to 1974.

Orange and Alamance agree on Orange children attending Alamance schools

Worried that growing numbers of western Orange children rode Alamance buses to Mebane schools, the board released to Alamance all children living within a mile of the county line and let those farther out stay if they chose. It also allowed out-of-county attendance if families paid tuition and provided transportation.

The Old Orange County Courthouse is listed in the National Register

On June 24, 1971 the National Park Service listed the Old Orange County Courthouse in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Richard E. Whitted becomes Orange County's first Black county commissioner

Richard E. Whitted, born in Hillsborough, became the first Black member of the Orange County Board of Commissioners in 1972.

Officials signed the landfill agreement that carried promises to the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood

RENA's chronology records that Chapel Hill Mayor Howard Lee, Mayor Robert Wells Jr. and county commission chairman H.D. Bennett signed the full landfill agreement. Residents remember Lee promising that their road would be paved and that the filled site would become a recreation center for them.

People: Howard N. Lee

Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association