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Civil rights era · 1945–1975
- 1960s
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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.
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Stonemason John Wesley Campbell, builder of Northside stone houses, dies
John Wesley Campbell, born about 1888 to a white father and a Black mother and trained in masonry from age seven, died in 1968. He worked on UNC buildings, Memorial Hospital and Franklin Street stores, built stone houses and the Hargraves Center in Northside, and taught the trade to his five sons and other Black masons.
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Braxton Foushee becomes Carrboro’s first Black alderman
Braxton Foushee was elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen in 1969, the first Black member of the town's governing board, and served until 1981. He pressed for paved roads and sidewalks in Black neighborhoods and counted bringing bus service to Carrboro as his proudest achievement.
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Carrboro’s Black political firsts
Braxton Foushee became Carrboro’s first Black alderman in 1969 and Robert Drakeford its first Black mayor in 1977, followed by Richard Knight Jr. as town manager, Hilliard Caldwell and Joal Hall Broun on the board, and Walter Horton as police chief in 2013. Barbara Foushee was sworn in as the first Black woman mayor in 2023, and the town named the Drakeford Library Complex in 2024.
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Chapel Hill and Carrboro music scene
Cat's Cradle opened in a small basement club near the UNC campus in 1969 and, after several moves, settled in Carrboro in 1993. With Merge Records, founded in Chapel Hill in 1989, and bands such as Superchunk and Polvo, the local scene drew national press in the early 1990s as a possible "next Seattle."
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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.
- 1970s
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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.
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Fitch Lumber razes its early buildings and opens a self-service hardware store
All the first frame buildings on North Greensboro Street came down for new shops and sheds, and a large one-story hardware store was built south of the rail spur on ground once lined with mill houses.
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Daphne Athas publishes Entering Ephesus, a novel set in Carrboro and Chapel Hill
Her coming-of-age novel, set in Carrboro and Chapel Hill during World War II among intellectuals, poor southerners and Greek immigrants, was named one of the ten best novels of the year by Time magazine.
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The James Tilley farmhouse is moved farther back from NC 54
In 1972 the Tilley I-house was shifted to a spot farther from NC 54, a move the report says damaged its historic character.
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Residents campaign to save Carrboro's former textile mill from demolition
In 1974 the Carrboro Board of Aldermen decided the vacant former Alberta mill should be demolished to make way for a modern shopping center. Residents led by Frances Shetley petitioned against it, the owner agreed not to tear it down, and the complex was nominated for the National Register in June 1975.
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The ArtSchool is founded
Jacques Menache, who had earned an MFA at UNC the year before, opened the ArtSchool in Carrboro in August 1974 to offer art classes. By 1978 the Carrboro ArtSchool also ran a gallery theatre, and the organization later became The ArtsCenter, which moved to Roberson Street in 2023.
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Orange County and the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro create the Orange Water and Sewer Authority
The Orange County Board of Commissioners and the governing boards of Chapel Hill and Carrboro incorporated OWASA under Chapter 162A of the North Carolina General Statutes. It was created as a public body to acquire, consolidate and operate the three existing water and sewer systems serving the area.
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Chapel Hill churches and residents sponsor Vietnamese refugee families
By July 1975 Chapel Hill residents had sponsored two Vietnamese refugee families and expected more. Four churches pledged about $1,500 for a family sponsored by UNC historian Thomas Reefe, and volunteers were directed to INFO, a referral service in the Inter-Church Council building.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
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Cane Creek is chosen as the site of a new reservoir and area landowners organize against it
A consultant's feasibility study concluded that Cane Creek, west of Carrboro, was the best site for a reservoir to supplement University Lake, and OWASA began assembling land there. Cane Creek residents and farmers formed a conservation group and fought the project in court for years, arguing that it would destroy farms and hasten the decline of agriculture and that expanding University Lake had not been properly considered.
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Richard Knight Jr. becomes Carrboro's first Black town manager
Carrboro hired Richard Knight Jr. as its first Black town manager, and he served from 1976 to 1980. He left to become deputy city manager of Gainesville, Florida, and later became the first Black city manager of Dallas.
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The Carrboro Bicentennial Commission publishes Mack Watts's Carrboro Yesterday and Today
For the 1976 Bicentennial the town's commission issued Mack Watts's local history, Carrboro Yesterday and Today. The 1983 inventory drew on it for the Weaver House and other early sites and names Watts among the memoir writers who sharpened local interest in the town's past.
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The idle Carrboro depot is converted into The Station
Lee Epting and Mike Macomson finished renovating the disused depot in 1976 after two years of negotiations, reopening it as The Station restaurant, later a music venue.
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The Alberta Mill complex is listed on the National Register
The mill, the railroad depot and the brick grist mill were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places, a year after the 1975 nomination made during the fight over demolishing the mill.
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Carrboro Civic Club's public library closes
The Carrboro Civic Club, which had run a volunteer public library since 1950 with some help from the town and Hyconeechee Regional Library, told the town in 1976 that it could no longer administer it, and the library had closed by 1977. An attempt in 1974 to turn the library over to town government had failed, and Hyconeechee's bookmobile served Carrboro until 1995.
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Martini's, a Northern Italian restaurant, opens at 206 West Main Street in Carrboro
Martini's served Northern Italian food, with a bar and an outdoor patio, in the West Main Street building that had housed La Pizza. In 1989 it said it had been serving Chapel Hill and Carrboro for 12 years.
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Planning begins for Carrboro’s farmers’ market
UNC organizing and town funding efforts supported a formal market.
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St. Joseph CME sold Henry W. Baldwin's Broad Street land to Carrboro for a park
Henry W. Baldwin, a Black landowner in the Lloyd/Broad neighborhood, left his estate to St. Joseph CME Church. During the pastorate of Dr. L. Kenneth Bennett the church sold a tract on Broad Street to the Town of Carrboro for a park, which was named Baldwin Park in his honor.
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OWASA commenced operations, taking over the water and sewer systems of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and the university
The three separately owned systems serving the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Carrboro were transferred to the Orange Water and Sewer Authority, which began serving the whole Carrboro and Chapel Hill community as a single public utility that day.
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Carr Mill Shopping Village opens in Carrboro's renovated mill
Carr Mill Shopping Village, a shopping center built inside Carrboro's renovated former textile mill, was scheduled to open on May 1, 1977, with ten retail stores, a Harris Teeter supermarket and a Revco drug store. By that September it advertised about 25 businesses; the complex is now known as Carr Mill Mall.
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Bob Drakeford is elected mayor of Carrboro
Robert "Bob" Drakeford, a Carrboro alderman since 1975 and a Carrboro Community Coalition candidate, won the mayor's race on November 8, 1977, with 57 percent of the vote over John Boone. He was the town's first Black mayor and served until 1983.
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Chief District Judge Peele halts Carrboro fire-lane towing
In a class-action suit by four Carrboro residents, three of them UNC students, Chief District Court Judge Stanley Peele issued a temporary restraining order barring the town from enforcing its ordinance allowing cars to be towed from marked fire lanes on private property.
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Bill Dow and Laura Heise found the North Carolina Agricultural Marketing Project
Physician and farmer Bill Dow and Laura Heise founded the North Carolina Agricultural Marketing Project, modelled on the farmers' markets Dow had helped start in Tennessee. The project led directly to the Carrboro Farmers' Market.
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Carrboro Farmers’ Market is established
The market dates its founding to 1979, following organizing and planning in 1977.
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Steven Fisher and Marcia Hawk move a threatened mill house to their Maple Avenue lot
The one-story house was to be torn down for an Andrews-Riggsbee Hardware expansion. The couple set it behind their own mill house at 202-A Maple Avenue and joined the two with a small room so they qualified as condominiums.
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The Town of Carrboro pledges $2,500 for an architectural and historic inventory
In 1979, at the Appearance Commission's request, the town committed $2,500 for a survey of Carrboro's historic buildings, seeing such a record as a basis for planning decisions. The commission hired UNC geographer John Florin to lead the work.
- 1980s
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Carrboro is named a Governor's Community of Excellence
The state named Carrboro a Governor's Community of Excellence in 1980, partly for the quality of life its historic neighborhoods gave the town.
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Carrboro's historic buildings are surveyed
The town of Carrboro had its architectural survey in 1980, more than a decade before the rural townships around it were recorded; the report mentions it as groundwork for the county survey.
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Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in
The 1980 census counted 77,055 people in Orange County, 32,421 in Chapel Hill (32,038 in the Orange County part) and 7,336 in Carrboro.
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A former mill house at 203 Weaver Street is renovated as offices
In 1981 the old mill house at 203 Weaver Street was rehabilitated for office use, one of the early private preservation projects in central Carrboro.
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Anna and Larry Hayes restore the old Lloyd grist mill as the Broad Street shop
The Hayeses bought the brick mill, long a Johnson-Strowd Furniture warehouse, and restored it to federal preservation guidelines as a wine and cheese shop named for the street that once ran in front. They rebuilt the lost loading dock and set stained glass in the arched openings.
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Hilliard Caldwell is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen
Hilliard Caldwell, who had advised the students of the 1960 Colonial Drug sit-in in Chapel Hill, was first elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen in 1981. He served four terms, through 1997.
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Neighbors form Friends of Old Carrboro to press for traffic controls
In 1981 a small group of residents banded together to seek traffic regulation in one of Carrboro's early mill neighborhoods. By 1983 Friends of Old Carrboro, Inc., had become a tax-exempt nonprofit of about 80 members working to preserve central Carrboro, and it had helped research the inventory.
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Reviewers hold back Carrboro's Oak Avenue and Maple Avenue districts from the Study List
Four Carrboro requests from owners or interested parties came before the State Professional Review Committee on April 9, 1981. Staff asked that the proposed Oak Avenue and Maple Avenue historic districts be deferred, and the committee approved the rest of the day's Study List without them, including the Weaver House and the Old Carrboro Business District.
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State reviewers put several Carrboro buildings on the National Register Study List
On April 9, 1981, as the inventory was being finished, the State Professional Review Committee of the Department of Cultural Resources judged several Carrboro buildings eligible for the National Register and added them to the state Study List.
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The Hill House is moved to Oak Avenue and joined to the Half House
Velma Hill sold her Weaver Street corner in 1981 to Orange Savings and Loan for a branch office. A contractor split her mill house, built by Brodie Lloyd early in the century for Alberta workers, moved it to 209-A Oak Avenue, rejoined it and attached it to the Half House to meet a one-house-per-lot zoning rule.
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Friends of Old Carrboro holds its first annual house tour
In October 1982 Friends of Old Carrboro held its first yearly tour of the town's old houses, collecting oral history about their builders and owners that the 1983 inventory later used.
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Francis Chan opens the Jade Palace Chinese and Seafood Restaurant on East Main Street in Carrboro
Francis Chan, a biomedical engineer who ran the restaurant on the side, opened Jade Palace at 103 East Main Street in November 1982; he and his wife Jenny marked its 25th year in 2007. In 1985 it was the only Chinese restaurant in the area that delivered.
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Carrboro aldermen appoint a subcommittee to study historic district zoning
In 1983 the Board of Aldermen named a Subcommittee on Historic Districts, under its Blue Ribbon Downtown Revitalization Task Force, to look into local historic district zoning.
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Chapel Hill-Carrboro coalition organizes for the 20th anniversary March on Washington
Fred Battle chaired the Chapel Hill-Carrboro 20th Anniversary Coalition, which first met on May 29, 1983, and raised money to send buses from Chapel Hill to the August 27 march for jobs, peace and freedom in Washington. A UNC campus group worked as part of the local coalition.
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The Carrboro Appearance Commission publishes the town's architectural and historical inventory
Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory, by Claudia Roberts Brown, Burgess McSwain and John Florin with photographs by Jane Hamborsky, came out in 1983. It grew from the 1980 survey of more than 150 pre-1930 buildings and covers 75 of them; the aldermen funded printing in 1981 and local businesses covered rising costs.
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Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County bought the Greene Tract as a possible landfill site
The three governments purchased the roughly 164-acre Greene Tract, just north of Rogers Road inside Chapel Hill's extraterritorial jurisdiction, for a future landfill. The county's landfill site search committee did not choose it, and its future use was argued over through the 1990s.
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Dexter Romweber of the Flat Duo Jets lives in the backyard shack he calls the Mausoleum
At 19, the Flat Duo Jets singer and guitarist was living in a shack he had fitted out behind the Romweber family house in Carrboro, sleeping beside a coffin. The house itself, where his siblings Sara and Joe also played in bands, was known for practices and police noise complaints.
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Fred Battle serves on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board
Fred Battle served on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board of education from 1985 to 1989.
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The Carrboro Commercial Historic District is listed in the National Register
On June 20, 1985 the National Park Service listed the Carrboro Commercial Historic District in Carrboro in the National Register of Historic Places.
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The state holds the Weaver House nomination until Orange County is surveyed
Staff doubted the integrity of the Carrboro log house, which had been covered in weatherboards and remodeled several times, and noted that Orange County had no architectural survey against which to judge its log buildings. On July 10, 1986 the committee postponed the nomination until such a survey was done and asked staff to suggest that the owners urge their legislators to pay for one. In January it had already withheld approval pending a staff visit.
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The Thomas F. Lloyd Historic District is listed in the National Register
On August 14, 1986 the National Park Service listed the Thomas F. Lloyd Historic District in Carrboro in the National Register of Historic Places.
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Orange County Rural Buffer is established
Orange County adopted the Orange County-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Joint Planning Area Land Use Plan and map on August 19, 1986, designating a low-density Rural Buffer. The three governments signed the Joint Planning Agreement on November 2, 1987, and the county dates the buffer to 1988.
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LGBTQ political firsts in Chapel Hill and Carrboro
Joe Herzenberg's election to the Chapel Hill Town Council in November 1987 made him North Carolina's first openly gay elected official. Carrboro created a domestic partnership registry in September 1994 and Chapel Hill followed in 1995, and in November 1995 Carrboro elected Mike Nelson, the state's first openly gay mayor.
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Eleanor Kinnaird is sworn in as mayor of Carrboro
Elizabeth R. Holland administered the oath of office to Mayor-elect Eleanor Kinnaird at the Board of Aldermen meeting of December 1, 1987. The board had approved the abstract of votes cast at the November 3, 1987 election earlier in the meeting, and outgoing mayor James V. Porto Jr. and departing aldermen Zona Norwood and John Boone made their parting remarks.
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Barry Keith opens Surplus Sids on Main Street in Carrboro
Barry Keith, known as Sid, had worked for a surplus dealer called Poor Richard. When Richard retired, Keith bought his warehouse, kept the best stock and started his own military surplus store in 1988.
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Carrboro residents begin campaigning for a public library
Plans for a Carrboro library were first proposed in 1988, and residents formed a Friends group that raised money, lobbied town and county governments and worked on site selection. Their campaign led to the Carrboro library that opened in the McDougle schools in May 1995.
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Weaver Street Market opens
Weaver Street Market, a cooperative grocery owned by both its customers and its workers, opened in Carrboro in June 1988. Start-up money came from a Center for Community Self-Help loan, a $200,000 Community Development Block Grant from the Town of Carrboro, and shares and loans from local supporters.
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Cane Creek Reservoir is filled
OWASA completed and filled the reservoir on Cane Creek west of Carrboro, adding roughly three billion gallons of storage drawn from a 32 square mile drainage area. Before it came online OWASA's estimated dependable yield was about two million gallons a day, and the 1980s had brought repeated mandatory restrictions and purchases of water from neighboring utilities.
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Mike Nelson loses his first race for the Carrboro Board of Aldermen by 32 votes
Nelson first ran for elected office in 1989 and lost his bid for a seat on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen by 32 votes.
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Downtown Commission asks for a special tax district for downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro
Downtown Commission president Joe Hakan asked the Chapel Hill Town Council for a special service district taxing downtown property 7 cents per $100 to help fund the commission and a free downtown trolley. The council later voted the district down.
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Reviewers keep St. Paul's A.M.E. Church off the Study List over its brick veneer
Staff told the State Professional Review Committee that St. Paul's was an important institution with long ties to its community, but that major alterations, among them a brick veneer, had cost it integrity. On July 13, 1989 the committee approved the day's other public requests and left the church off, and Robert Stipe asked staff to present standards for judging setting and integrity at the next meeting.
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Eleanor Kinnaird is sworn in for a second term as mayor of Carrboro
Town clerk Sarah C. Williamson administered the oath to Mayor-elect Kinnaird and to aldermen-elect Hilliard Caldwell and Tom Gurganus after the board approved the abstract of votes from the November 7, 1989 election. Jacquelyn Gist was sworn in as an alderman at the same meeting.
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Jacquelyn Gist is sworn in as a Carrboro alderman
Robin Lackey administered the oath of office to alderman-elect Jacquelyn Gist at the Board of Aldermen meeting of December 5, 1989. The board had approved the abstract of votes cast at the November 7, 1989 election earlier in the same meeting, at which Eleanor Kinnaird was also sworn in as mayor.
- 1990s
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1990 census counts the Hispanic-origin population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill
The 1990 census counted 1,279 persons of Hispanic origin in Orange County (1.4% of 93,851), 199 in Carrboro (1.7% of 11,553) and 607 in Chapel Hill (1.6% of 38,719). Census Bureau report 1990 CP-1-35, Table 5 (counties) and Table 6 (places).
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Carrboro's LGBTQ municipal firsts
From the 1990 equal employment policy and the 1994 domestic partnership ordinance, through Mike Nelson's mayoralty and Lydia Lavelle's, to the 2021 nondiscrimination ordinance: the town acts that made Carrboro a series of firsts.
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Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Orange County begin a countywide search for a new landfill site
The three governing boards started a countywide search for the next sanitary landfill, carried out with a citizens' Landfill Search Committee and an engineering consultant. The Greene Tract, bought in 1984 for landfill use, was screened but not made a finalist.
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Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in
The 1990 census counted 93,851 people in Orange County, 38,719 in Chapel Hill (37,604 in Orange County and 1,115 in Durham County) and 11,553 in Carrboro.
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Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools form a Blue Ribbon Task Force after Black parents press on the achievement gap
Black parents demanded more resources for disadvantaged students, and the district responded with a Blue Ribbon Task Force. The article judges that it changed little: the gap between Black and White test scores, tracked since the 1980s, narrowed only slightly.
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Latino migration to Carrboro and Chapel Hill
Latin American families began arriving in Carrboro and Chapel Hill in the 1990s: the neighborhoods and workplaces that received them, and the institutions they built.
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Carrboro adds sexual orientation to its equal employment opportunity policy
The Board of Aldermen unanimously amended the town's personnel ordinance to add sexual orientation to the characteristics protected in its merit principle and equal employment opportunity policy. On November 13, 1990 the Board had written a sexual orientation nondiscrimination clause into a planning grant agreement with the City of Durham and asked for the code amendment to be scheduled.
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James Brittian leads the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP
Brittian was president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP from December 1990 until his death at his Carrboro home in November 1993. Fred Battle served as interim president until Gene Hatley took over in February 1994.
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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.
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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.
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The Chapel Hill sound gains national attention
Spin's December 1992 feature "Robbing the Cradle," its title a play on the Cat's Cradle, looked at Polvo and other local bands as record scouts hunted for the next big thing after Seattle. By January 1993 the Daily Tar Heel counted about six publications calling Chapel Hill the next Seattle, and Details and Time followed that year.
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Grant supports new farmers’ market shelters
Funding enabled preparation of the Town Commons location.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The Cat's Cradle moves to Carrboro
After about six months dark, the club reopened in the former Nice Price Books space at 300 East Main Street, a standing-room hall holding about 750.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Carrboro Branch Library opens at McDougle School
The Carrboro Branch of the Orange County Public Library opened in McDougle Middle School in May 1995, sharing space with the school library and open after school hours and on Sundays. Books circulated from May 1 and the ribbon was cut on May 21, with the Friends of the Carrboro Library having raised $2,000 toward its $46,000 budget.
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Carrboro votes to pay for domestic partner coverage in its employee health plan
Setting town employee health insurance for fiscal 1995-96, the Board of Aldermen voted that the town would bear any expense of adding coverage for domestic partners to its Kaiser plan, after asking staff on May 23 to find out why the insurer Healthsource did not offer such coverage. The vote was six to one, with Michael Nelson opposed.
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Mike Nelson is elected mayor of Carrboro
Michael R. Nelson, then a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen, won the mayor's race at the municipal election held on November 7, 1995, becoming the first openly gay mayor elected in North Carolina. The Board approved the Orange County abstract of votes from that election at its meeting of December 5, 1995.
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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.
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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.
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Farmers’ Market moves to Town Commons
The market opened at its new town-center site.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Carrboro renames its community park for Hank Anderson
The Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to rename Carrboro Community Park on N.C. 54 for Alderman Henry "Hank" Anderson III, on a motion by Alderman Jacquelyn Gist. The 55-acre park is one of the town's largest.
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The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board adopts its school assignment and reassignment policy
Policy 4150 set the rules the district followed when it redrew attendance lines. As revised on April 2, 2009, its priorities for reassignment were walk zones, full use of buildings and equity, meaning balanced family income and achievement among schools and short travel times.
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El Centro Latino serves Latino residents from Carrboro
El Centro Latino, incorporated in 1999, provided educational and social services, advocacy and cultural activities for Latinos in and around Orange County from Carrboro. It closed the day before Thanksgiving 2009 after funding losses and eight executive directors in ten years.
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Joal Hall Broun joins the Carrboro Board of Aldermen
In early 1999 Joal Hall Broun, an assistant public defender, was appointed to fill out the term of the late Alderman Hank Anderson, and she won election to the board that fall. She served on the board until 2011.
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Hickory Grove School near Carrboro joins the Study List
On April 8, 1999 the committee approved Hickory Grove School, listed on the agenda under Carrboro, with the day's other central and southeastern public requests. Staff had recommended all of them except a Chatham County house.
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Hilliard Caldwell announces he will not seek another term as a Carrboro alderman
Caldwell said he would not run again and named controlled growth as the board's major achievement. The Daily Tar Heel counted 16 years of service under four Carrboro mayors.
- 2000s
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2000 census counts the Hispanic or Latino population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill
The 2000 census counted 5,273 Hispanic or Latino residents in Orange County (4.5% of 118,227), 2,062 in Carrboro (12.3% of 16,782) and 1,506 in the Orange County part of Chapel Hill (3.2% of 46,798). Census Bureau report PHC-1-35, Table 3.
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Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in
Census 2000 counted 118,227 people in Orange County, 46,798 in the Orange County part of Chapel Hill and 16,782 in Carrboro, according to the county's published table.
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Fire guts the Jade Palace restaurant on East Main Street in Carrboro
A midday fire ripped through the building at 103 East Main Street that housed Jenny and Francis Chan's Jade Palace, leaving the restaurant's future in doubt. The Chans reopened, and the restaurant was still at that address in 2007.
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County Library Services Task Force recommends expanding library service across Orange County
In June 2000 the Board of Commissioners created a 14-member Library Services Task Force to study county library service. Its 2001 report recommended raising library funding to the state per-capita average, starting library projects in the northern and southern parts of the county together, building an Orange County heritage center, and offering Internet-based library service in the Carrboro Century Center.
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The land trust sells its first home, in Carrboro
The first land trust home was sold in June 2000 in Carrboro. By then the organization had helped create nearly 100 affordable housing opportunities in Chapel Hill.
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Orange County and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools put the McDougle branch library under contract
A contract between Orange County and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Board of Education made the public library in the McDougle schools a branch of the Orange County Public Library, with a county-employed branch librarian. The schools provided space and utilities, the county paid for furnishings, insurance, janitorial service and staff stipends, and branch hours were not to overlap school hours.
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The Thomas and Mary Hogan House is listed in the National Register
On January 26, 2001 the National Park Service listed the Thomas and Mary Hogan House near Carrboro in the National Register of Historic Places.
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Chapel Hill Transit becomes fare-free
Chapel Hill Transit stopped charging fares on January 2, 2002, and added 11 buses and new routes. Under the funding agreement, UNC paid about 40 percent of the cost and Chapel Hill and Carrboro split the rest by population.
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Mark Chilton serves on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen
Chilton moved to Carrboro and sat on the Board of Aldermen from 2003 to 2005, the seat from which he ran for mayor. He was working as an attorney and a broker and living in downtown Carrboro.
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The Carrboro Cybrary opens in the Century Center
The Cybrary, a branch of the Orange County Public Library focused on computer and Internet access, opened in Room 5 of the Carrboro Century Center with five computer stations, current books and a paperback exchange. The Town of Carrboro provided the space. It closed on January 31, 2025, when its services moved to the Southern Branch Library.
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WCOM community radio begins broadcasting
WCOM, a 100-watt low-power FM community station run by the nonprofit Public Gallery of Carrboro, first went on the air at 103.5 FM from Carrboro at 11:27 p.m. on September 29, 2004. Its founders included Jacques Menache and Ruffin Slater, and it first broadcast from a building at Weaver and Greensboro streets.
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Burmese and Karen refugee communities
Refugee families from Burma began resettling in Chapel Hill and Carrboro in 2005: the schools, gardens and congregations that grew with them.
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Carrboro formed the New Horizons task force for the Rogers Road area
Carrboro created the New Horizons task force to serve residents of the Rogers Road area it was annexing. The town's Rogers Road sidewalk and bus stop project, begun in 2018, grew out of the task force's work.
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El Futuro runs a bilingual mental health clinic in Carrboro
El Futuro, a Latino mental health nonprofit started by psychiatrist Luke Smith, opened a Carrboro office in 2005, a year after its Siler City clinic. The Carrboro location closed in 2015 for lack of funding.
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Mark Chilton serves four terms as mayor of Carrboro
Chilton was mayor of Carrboro from 2005 to 2013. Supporters held a roast in October 2013 to mark the end of his fourth term and about twenty years in local office.
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Randee Haven-O'Donnell is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen
After serving on the Carrboro Planning Board and other town advisory boards, Haven-O'Donnell won a seat on the Board of Aldermen in 2005, the first of five consecutive terms. She had moved to Carrboro in 1978 and taught in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.
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The Strayhorn house in Carrboro joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Strayhorn house in Carrboro on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. Check whether this is the Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House before linking.
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Mike Nelson presides over his last meeting as mayor of Carrboro
At the December 6, 2005 meeting the Board of Aldermen approved the November 8 election results, in which Mark Chilton defeated Alex Zaffron for mayor, 1,337 to 776, and outgoing Mayor Michael Nelson gave his parting comments.
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Carrboro annexed subdivisions on the west side of Rogers Road
Carrboro annexed six subdivisions north of Homestead Road, including Fox Meadow and Highlands, bringing part of the Rogers Road area inside town limits. In September 2004 the aldermen had voted 6 to 1 to go ahead even though the historic neighborhood had asked the two towns to move their annexation boundary so the community would not be split.
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Joal Hall Broun serves as Carrboro's mayor pro tem
Town budget documents for fiscal years 2006-07 and 2007-08 list Alderman Joal Hall Broun as mayor pro tempore, serving under Mayor Mark Chilton.
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Carrboro aldermen bar police arrests based solely on civil immigration violations
The Carrboro Board of Aldermen unanimously adopted Resolution No. 123/2005-06, making it police policy not to arrest or take into custody anyone solely because they have or may have committed a civil immigration violation. The board had asked the town attorney to research the question on April 18, 2006.
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Carrboro rewrites its density bonus for affordable housing
Section 15-182.4 of Carrboro's Land Use Ordinance sets a goal that at least 15 percent of units in new residential developments be affordable and offers density bonuses or payments in lieu to meet it. The section was rewritten on June 26, 2007.
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Carrboro High School opens
Carrboro High School on Rock Haven Road was dedicated with a ribbon-cutting on August 23, 2007, and began classes on August 27 with more than 600 students under principal Jeff Thomas. The Carrboro Citizen called it the town's first high school.
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Carrboro adopts an anti-lingering ordinance at the Jones Ferry and Davie roads day-labor corner
After neighbors complained about conditions at the corner where day laborers, many of them Latino, waited for contractors, the Board of Aldermen approved an ordinance barring waiting at the intersection of Jones Ferry and Davie roads from 11 a.m. to 5 a.m. In September 2007 the board had also approved an action plan and a motion to create a designated space for day laborers.
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Lydia Lavelle is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen
In her first run for office Lavelle led the field of aldermen candidates with 1,656 votes, about 25 percent, ahead of two-term incumbent Joal Hall Broun and Dan Coleman. She lived in the northern part of town Carrboro had recently annexed, and Mayor Mark Chilton read her first-place finish as a sign that voters were ready to move past the annexation fight.
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Orange County's 2030 Comprehensive Plan places county growth within the Triangle economy
The Land Use Element of Orange County's 2030 Comprehensive Plan says the county, as an integral part of the Triangle, grew nearly 50 percent from 1980 to an estimated 121,991 in 2005, and names the Research Triangle Park as part of its region, calling jobs and economic conditions a frequent catalyst for changes in population and land use. It also records the 1984 Joint Planning Agreement with Chapel Hill, extended to Carrboro in 1987, and the 1986 rural buffer plan.
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Fred Battle steps down as president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP
Fred Battle announced his resignation as president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP after almost fifteen years in the post, during which he helped revive the branch. First vice president Eugene Farrar was to succeed him on June 1.
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Burma Art Therapy Project begins in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools
The Art Therapy Institute began a school-based art therapy program for adolescent refugees from Burma in partnership with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and the refugee community in Orange County. A later UNC evaluation estimated that about 400 Burmese families lived in the county.
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Cliff's Meat Market is honored for serving Carrboro's Spanish-speaking customers
Cliff's Meat Market in Carrboro received Orange County's Pauli Murray Award in the business category; owner Cliff Collins was nominated for reaching out to the Spanish-speaking community. The butcher shop, open since 1973, had hired Latino staff as Spanish-speaking customers began asking for cuts in Spanish.
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Commissioners reject closing the Carrboro and Cedar Grove branch libraries
Facing recession cuts while opening the new Hillsborough main library, the county manager proposed closing the Carrboro branch at McDougle School and the Cedar Grove branch and moving their staff to the new building. After opposition from Commissioner Mike Nelson, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen and residents, commissioners rejected the closures and used reserve funds to staff the new library in the budget adopted in June 2009.
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Merge Records marks its 20th anniversary with the XX Merge festival
The label held four nights at Cat's Cradle and a finale at UNC's Memorial Hall, with film screenings at the Ackland Art Museum and a free show at the Orange County Social Club in Carrboro.
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Commissioner Mike Nelson announces he will not seek re-election
County Commissioner and former Carrboro mayor Mike Nelson announced that he would not run for re-election to the Orange County board.
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Sammy Slade is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen
Slade, a carpenter with a psychology degree from UNC who was raised in Bogota and Chapel Hill, won a seat on the Board of Aldermen in November 2009 and was reelected in 2013. He went on to serve fourteen years on the town's governing board.
- 2010s
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2010 census counts the Hispanic or Latino population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill
The 2010 census counted 11,017 Hispanic or Latino residents in Orange County, 2,603 in Chapel Hill and 1,921 in Carrboro, as compiled in the NC Office of State Budget and Management's LINC Census Population dataset.
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El Centro Hispano opens a Carrboro office
El Centro Hispano, founded in Durham in 1992, added a Carrboro office in 2010 after El Centro Latino closed. It planned a resources office, legal and tax clinic, tutoring, ESL classes and an HIV prevention program at Carrboro Plaza on N.C. 54, beside a new Latino Community Credit Union branch.
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The 2010 census counts the Asian American population of Carrboro and Chapel Hill
Asian Americans were 8 percent of Carrboro's 19,582 residents and 12 percent of Chapel Hill's 57,233. Chinese residents were the largest Asian group in both towns, while people from Burma made up a fifth of Carrboro's Asian population and 6 percent of Chapel Hill's; 24 percent of Carrboro residents and 16 percent of Chapel Hill's were born abroad.
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First Big Star's Third concert is staged at Cat's Cradle
Stamey served as musical director for a live staging of Big Star's 1975 album Third, which debuted at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro before later shows in London and at South by Southwest in 2012.
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Orange County commissioners raised the landfill tipping fee to pay for Rogers Road remediation
Commissioners raised the tipping fee from $52 to $57 a ton to create a remediation fund of about $50,000 to $60,000 a year for water and sewer connections, cleanup of illegal dumping and a community center in Rogers Road. The county also moved $750,000 out of its solid waste reserve for the same purpose. Chapel Hill and Carrboro objected to the timing of the fee.
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Asian Americans are the largest racial minority in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools and in Chapel Hill
By 2012 Asian Americans outnumbered every other minority group in the school district and in the town of Chapel Hill. In 2012-13 they were 15 percent of district students and 31 percent at Seawell Elementary, where many Chinese immigrant families had settled.
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Asif Khan founds the Refugee Community Partnership
Asif Khan, then a UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduate, founded the Refugee Community Partnership to strengthen support networks among refugee families in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. The organization, now based in Carrboro, runs help lines that include Karen and Burmese.
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The Asian American Parent Advisory Council declines to back the Section 74A parents
The council, a parent group formed to represent Asian American families in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, said in a letter to the Chapel Hill News that it did not see the redistricting as a racial matter and would not join the opposition. Its vice chair said she also hoped to counter a growing belief that Asian American parents were racist.
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The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board decides to build a new Northside Elementary on the old school's site
The board announced a new elementary school on the grounds of the Northside school that had closed in 1966, to carry the Northside name. Black families in the Northside neighborhood, whose children had been bused to other schools for decades, welcomed it as a return of their school.
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Commissioners set the landfill's closing date and created the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood Task Force
On the night the Orange County commissioners voted to close the landfill on June 30, 2013, they also authorized an eight-member task force, with two members each from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, the county and RENA, to recommend how to deliver sewer service and a community center and how to guard against displacement. An interim report was due that August and a final report to the Assembly of Governments on December 6, 2012.
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Carrboro aldermen approve criteria for siting a freestanding library
The Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to approve criteria, recommended to the Orange County commissioners, for siting a freestanding southwest Orange County library in Carrboro, whose county branch was then housed in McDougle School. Aldermen ranked transit, walking and cycling access first, while Nerys Levy of the Friends of the Carrboro Branch Library asked for ample parking for older patrons and stressed access to computers and information.
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School Board converts Frank Porter Graham Elementary into a Spanish dual-language magnet school
After a district report named serving students with limited English and closing the achievement gap as the main purposes of dual language, and after forums that included sessions for Spanish-speaking and Karen and Burmese families, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board approved converting Frank Porter Graham Elementary into a Spanish-English magnet school. It reopened as the district's first dual-language magnet on August 26, 2013, with more than 500 students.
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Refugee Support Center opens in Carrboro
The Refugee Support Center, a volunteer-based nonprofit in Carrboro, was established in July 2012 to serve refugees in Orange County. Its main client groups are from Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Syria, and it offers Karen interpretation.
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The school board votes 5-2 for the attendance plan that fills the new Northside Elementary
After two months of public hearings on four draft plans, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board chose Plan 2.1, which spread at-risk students most evenly among the elementary schools and reassigned about 1,045 children. Most came from the two schools nearest Northside, including crowded Seawell Elementary, and the whole Section 74A area north of town was moved.
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Cat's Cradle opens the Back Room
The club added a second room holding about 200 people beside its main hall at 300 East Main Street.
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Ethel Fuller Neville dies at 99 in the stone house on Cobb Street
Ethel Fuller Neville, widowed in 1960, lived at 107 Cobb Street until her death in 2013 at 99. Her five children all took part in the local civil rights movement, and son Calvin became a stonemason trained by the Campbells. The house stood mostly empty afterward.
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Walter Horton becomes Carrboro's first African American police chief
Town Manager David Andrews named Captain Walter Horton, a Carrboro native who joined the department in 1993, to succeed retiring Chief Carolyn Hutchison. Horton led the department until he retired in early 2021.
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Lydia Lavelle takes office as Carrboro mayor, the first openly lesbian mayor in North Carolina
Lydia Lavelle, who ran unopposed for mayor in the fall 2013 election, was sworn in on December 3, 2013 as North Carolina's first openly lesbian mayor. Aldermen Randee Haven-O'Donnell, Sammy Slade and Jacquelyn Gist were sworn in for new terms at the same meeting.
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Merge Records holds its 25th anniversary festival in Carrboro
Merge marked 25 years with a festival built around Cat's Cradle, ending with an outdoor show in the club's parking lot that organizers expected to draw about 3,000 people after the indoor nights sold out. Passes were sold through the Cat's Cradle website.
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Same-sex couples begin receiving marriage licenses in Orange County
A federal judge struck down North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage late on Friday, October 10, 2014, by which time the Orange County Register of Deeds office in Hillsborough had closed for the day. The office issued its first licences to same-sex couples when it reopened on Monday, October 13, with Carrboro mayor Lydia Lavelle and Alicia Stemper first in line; the two married at the Carrboro Town Commons on October 25, 2014.
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Carrboro aldermen declare the town a welcoming community for immigrant children
The Board of Aldermen unanimously passed a resolution declaring Carrboro a welcoming community for minors fleeing violence and affirming immigrant children's right to attend public school regardless of immigration status. The Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the ACLU of North Carolina helped develop it.
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Orange County commissioners approve a letter of intent toward a Southern Branch Library in Carrboro
The Board of County Commissioners approved a letter of intent setting the terms for negotiating the development and construction of a Southern Branch Library in downtown Carrboro. The new branch, then hoped for around 2017, was to replace both the Carrboro Branch in McDougle Middle School and the Cybrary in the Century Center.
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Frank Heath tells the Carrboro Board of Aldermen that the Cat's Cradle has outgrown its building
At the second public hearing on a proposed arts and innovation center and hotel at East Main Street, Heath said the Cat's Cradle and the ArtsCenter were both too big for their buildings and that expansion had become urgent. He called it a dilemma for a small town with two successful arts organizations.
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Carrboro's Center for Employment and Leadership for day laborers opens
El Centro Hispano, the Carrboro Day Laborer Task Force, Orange County Justice United and the Town of Carrboro opened a workers' center for day laborers at 201 W. Weaver St., which organizers called the first in North Carolina. The opening began with a march from the Jones Ferry and Davie roads corner and followed about ten years of planning.
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County capital plan budgets a Southern Branch library at 203 South Greensboro Street
Orange County's FY 2016–21 capital plan scheduled $6,375,000 in FY 2017–18 to design and build a Southern Branch library replacing the Cybrary and the Carrboro branch at McDougle School, after commissioners directed staff to work with Carrboro on siting it on the town-owned 203 South Greensboro Street property. The plan projected ten staff positions, two of them moved from existing Carrboro library operations.
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Joal Broun is sworn in to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board
The district said Broun, a former Carrboro alderman then directing the state's lobbying compliance division, was sworn in to fill the seat left by Michelle Brownstein's resignation. She had also served on the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board and the Orange County Dispute Settlement Center.
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Carrboro Board of Aldermen calls for the repeal of House Bill 2 at a Saturday special meeting
Three days after the General Assembly passed and Governor Pat McCrory signed House Bill 2, the Board met in special session and adopted a resolution affirming the dignity of LGBT people, calling for the law's repeal and urging other North Carolina governments to use it as a model, then adopted a second resolution condemning by name the legislators and governor who enacted it. Both passed six to none with Jacquelyn Gist absent, and the Board asked staff to raise the town's rainbow pride flags on March 28.
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Barbara Foushee receives the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP's Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award
The branch gave Foushee its Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Service Award for work promoting diversity and social justice. She was then the branch's secretary.
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Carrboro accepts a community climate action plan
The Board of Aldermen accepted a plan setting out steps residents could take to cut greenhouse gas emissions, extending the Energy and Climate Protection Plan the town had adopted in 2014 for its own operations. The two plans aimed at an 80 percent cut from 2010 emission levels by 2030. Sammy Slade was the board's leading advocate for the town's climate policy.
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Orange County's library branches are merged into one catalog
Preparing for the Southern Branch, the library merged the holdings of the Main Library, the Carrboro branch at McDougle School and the Cybrary into a single catalog during the 2017–18 fiscal year and added the Cedar Grove kiosk's items. Staff reported an immediate rise in circulation at all three branches and in items sent between locations by courier.
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Barbara Foushee is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen
Foushee, who announced her candidacy in March 2017 saying she wanted a seat at the table where changes were made, won a seat in the 2017 municipal election. She served on the town's governing board for six years before being elected mayor.
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Carrboro broke ground on the Rogers Road sidewalk and bus stop project
A $1.37 million project put a five-foot sidewalk from the west side of Rogers Road to Meadow Run Court, together with a new bus pad and shelter. Ground was broken in late June 2018 and construction began that fall. The project traced back to a New Horizons task force created in 2005.
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Carrboro created a zoning overlay district to protect the Lloyd-Broad neighborhood
At residents' request the Board of Aldermen set square-footage and parking limits and a cap of four unrelated occupants per household for the historically African American neighborhood, which had seen more student rentals and larger replacement houses. New building had to comply at once and existing houses were given three years.
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Self-Help buys the Neville House for the Northside land bank
On November 8, 2018, Self-Help Ventures Fund bought the vacant Neville House through the Northside Neighborhood Initiative land bank, which uses a $3 million no-interest UNC loan to keep homes in Northside, Tin Top and Pine Knolls from becoming student rentals.
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Joal Broun is elected chair of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board
The board elected Broun chair by unanimous vote after chair Margaret Samuels resigned during a recall push over the Glenwood Elementary dual language magnet decision. Mary Ann Wolf took the vice chair seat Broun had held.
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Chapel Hill and Carrboro created Historic Rogers Road zoning districts
The Chapel Hill Town Council closed its public hearing on May 22, 2019 and enacted Land Use Management Ordinance amendments establishing new zoning districts for the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood. Carrboro added Section 15-136.1 to its Land Use Ordinance on June 18, 2019, creating the HR-R and HR-CC districts expressly to carry out the Mapping Our Community's Future plan.
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Merge Records holds its 30th anniversary festival at Cat's Cradle and in Durham
More than 30 acts from the label's roster played MRG30 over four days. The Carrboro nights were at Cat's Cradle, where Superchunk closed the Thursday bill at midnight, and the opening night and after party were in Durham. Fans held a potluck and kickball game at Wilson Park in Carrboro on the Friday.
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Carrboro's Board of Aldermen votes to rename itself the Town Council
After 50 years as the Board of Aldermen, a name the General Assembly approved in 1969, Carrboro's governing board passed a resolution changing its title to Town Council as part of making the town code gender neutral. It had tentatively approved the change after a public hearing on November 12. Randee Haven-O'Donnell said members who had sat on the board had felt the pinch of being called aldermen.
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Cat's Cradle marks 50 years with an anniversary concert series
The "Cat's Cradle Turns 50" series put 50 acts on stage over six nights at the Carrboro club.
- 2020s
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2020 census counts the Hispanic or Latino population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill
The 2020 census counted 15,812 Hispanic or Latino residents in Orange County, 4,734 in Chapel Hill and 2,723 in Carrboro, from the 2020 redistricting data as compiled in the NC Office of State Budget and Management's LINC database.
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Cat's Cradle plays its last shows before the pandemic shutdown
Destroyer played the main room at 300 East Main Street on March 11, 2020, and Songs From the Road Band played the Back Room on March 13, the club's last shows before COVID-19 closed it. Heath said he began rescheduling on the night of March 11, when the NBA suspended its season, and the March 14 shows were cancelled.
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Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro declare a COVID-19 state of emergency
Orange County government and the Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro declared states of emergency to prepare for COVID-19, allowing emergency procedures and funding. The county declaration, extended more than a dozen times, stayed in force until May 1, 2022.
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Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools close under a statewide order
Governor Roy Cooper closed all North Carolina public schools for at least two weeks from Monday, March 16, 2020, shutting both Orange County districts. CHCCS then began online classes for grades 6-12 and sent learning packets home for grades K-5 at the end of March while serving meals to students.
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Orange County and its three towns issue a joint stay-at-home order
Orange County, with Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough, ordered residents to stay home except for essential needs from 6 p.m. on March 27, 2020, three days before the statewide order took effect. Set to run until April 30, it was extended to May 8 to match the state order.
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Mutual Aid Carrboro opens a COVID-19 solidarity fund for workers
Mutual Aid Carrboro partnered with NC Piedmont DSA to raise money for workers sent home without pay, running a solidarity fund for emergencies such as evictions and utility shutoffs. Applications were offered in Spanish, English and Chinese, with interpreter lines for Karen, Burmese and Kinyarwanda speakers.
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Orange County and the towns launch a Housing Helpline for emergency rental aid
Orange County and the Towns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough opened a Housing Helpline in April 2020 to connect residents with emergency rent, utility and deposit assistance. The county's Emergency Housing Assistance program paid out $2.5 million to 1,005 residents in 2020, and an Eviction Diversion Program followed in July 2020.
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North Carolina musicians release Cover Charge to benefit the Cat's Cradle
Twenty-five North Carolina acts, among them Superchunk, the Mountain Goats, Tift Merritt and Iron and Wine, recorded cover songs for an album to raise money for the closed Carrboro club. Musician and UNC professor Florence Dore organized it, and Heath said presales were running better than expected.
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Community Home Trust marks 30 years with 332 permanently affordable homes
At its 30th anniversary the Home Trust held 332 permanently affordable homes in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, up from about 100 in 2005.
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County budget closes the McDougle branch and consolidates Carrboro service at the Cybrary
Orange County's FY 2021–22 budget closed the Carrboro branch library at McDougle School, moved its staff to the Cybrary and lengthened Cybrary hours from 44 to 54 a week to match the Main Library, whose hours were cut from 68 to 54. The two changes together saved $143,083, and the same budget ended support for the Cedar Grove library kiosk.
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Stewart receives the Chapel Hill-Carrboro chamber's citizenship and service award
The Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce gave Stewart its Duke Energy Citizenship and Service Award in 2021, during the county's COVID-19 vaccination campaign. She later received the Ron Levine Public Health Legacy Award in 2022 and a National Association of Counties award in 2025.
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Carrboro Town Council adopts a nondiscrimination ordinance covering sexual orientation and gender identity
Six weeks after the state's moratorium on local employment and public accommodation ordinances expired on December 1, 2020, the Council unanimously adopted Ordinance No. 10/20-21, adding to Chapter 8 of the Town Code a ban on discrimination in employment and places of public accommodation that covers sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. The ordinance took effect on adoption and cited the town's March 26, 2016 pledge to seek such protections.
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IFC Commons opens in Carrboro
The Inter-Faith Council for Social Service opened IFC Commons at 110 West Main Street in Carrboro, a $6 million building that put its community kitchen, food market and other non-shelter programs under one roof. Its virtual grand opening was held January 21, 2021.
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Carrboro proclaims Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett Day
Carrboro Mayor Lydia Lavelle proclaimed January 26, 2021 Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett Day, after Hillsborough and Orange County had honored the Orange High graduate for her COVID-19 vaccine work.
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The three governments adopted an interlocal agreement on the future of the Greene Tract
The agreement required Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro to act jointly in hiring consultants, entering development agreements and taking public input, put the mayors, chair and managers in a working group to negotiate the ultimate uses, and stated an initial intent covering mixed use and affordable housing, a school site with recreation, a joint preserve and connectivity. A November 2021 resolution then approved the recombination plat and the conceptual plan for the 60-acre county tract and the 107-acre joint tract.
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Lydia Lavelle announces she will not seek a fifth term as Carrboro mayor
After four terms as mayor and fourteen years in town office, Lavelle said she would not run again, saying that to everything there is a season and that she looked forward to what came next.
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Orange County Public Library adds Spanish-language classes and bilingual storytimes
Beginning in the 2021–22 fiscal year the library offered Spanish-language computer basics classes with the Family Success Alliance and UNC's Community Workshop Series. By 2023–24 it held storytimes in English and Spanish at Carrboro's Century Center, added Spanish interpretation to free computer classes and ran a health series for Spanish speakers with El Centro Hispano, and in 2024–25 it added bilingual storytimes at the Carrboro Farmers' Market and monthly conversational Spanish programs.
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Carrboro unveils a truth plaque naming Green Cordal and Benjamin Craig
The Town of Carrboro unveiled its second truth plaque at the former freedmen's school site on North Merritt Mill Road, next to St. Paul AME Church. The text reads that Green Cordal and Benjamin Craig, freed from bondage, purchased this land for a Freedman School and church, and that with funds from the Society of Friends they built a schoolhouse that served hundreds of free Black children and adults.
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