Chronology

Hillsborough Presbyterian Church dedicates its debt-free educational building

Once the debt on the 1948 educational wing was paid, the church dedicated it in October 1949, under pastor Irving E. Birdseye.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

The Institute of Government delivers its Charlotte-Mecklenburg consolidation study

Asked in 1946 by Charlotte and Mecklenburg County leaders after a Charlotte News series, the Institute spent nearly three years inventorying every city and county department. Coates gave the first public report on November 1, 1949, staff members presented eight more over four months, and the study took no side on merger; the city and county schools were combined about a decade later.

People: Albert Coates · Henry W. Lewis · George H. Esser Jr.

Subject: Institute of Government

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

William Muirhead opens the rental office of Glen Lennox

Muirhead named his apartment colony on the Raleigh highway Glen Lennox, after his wife's family, and opened its rental office in one of the apartments. It was to have 314 apartments in 48 one-story buildings; by March 1950, 66 families had moved in.

Schley Grange dedicates the hall it won in a national contest

National Grange master Albert S. Goss and Governor W. Kerr Scott were set to take part in the dedication of the new $50,000 Schley Grange Hall. Sears-Roebuck Foundation built and furnished the hall after the Grange won the 1948 national community service contest.

People: W. Kerr Scott

Subject: Schley Grange Hall

Will W. Alexander speaks to the Chapel Hill AAUW on the Julius Rosenwald Fund

Alexander, retired and living in the country near Chapel Hill, was scheduled to address the Chapel Hill branch of the American Association of University Women in the Morehead building on his years as director of the Julius Rosenwald Fund.

Subject: Morehead Planetarium

A Weaver farm barn is rebuilt as a house, the Barnstable

While Sara Watters owned the Weaver House she deeded its two-story board-and-batten barn and several acres to her sister, a Charlotte interior decorator. The sister made it a dwelling with log and frame wings built from salvaged materials.

Subject: Weaver House

A brick Colonial Revival house is built at the entrance to Laurel Hill for Dean C. O. Cathy

The story-and-a-half house on Country Club Road has end wings and a recessed columned porch. Historian H. G. Jones, later curator of the North Carolina Collection, owned it for many years.

People: H. G. Jones

A two-story company house is moved from Maple Avenue to East Carr Street

Thomas F. Lloyd built a few identical L-shaped two-story houses about 1910 for large families working at his new mill. This one stood at the southwest end of Maple Avenue until it was moved to 203 East Carr Street in the 1950s.

People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)

Adelaide Walters is president of the Chapel Hill League of Women Voters

Adelaide Walters, who had come to the university for graduate study in 1940 and stayed on as a staff member and research assistant, served as president of the Chapel Hill League of Women Voters in 1950 and 1951. She was president of the state league from 1954 to 1956.

African American flower sellers known as the Flower Ladies set up on Franklin Street

A group of Black vendors, each working independently, began selling fresh-cut flowers on the Franklin Street sidewalk around 1950 and became one of the town's best-known enterprises.

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.

Charlie Justice receives UNC's Patterson Medal

UNC placed Justice in the 1950 class of Patterson Medal winners, the university's award for its leading athlete. He had been Walter Camp National Player of the Year in 1948 and Heisman Trophy runner-up in 1948 and 1949.

Cole Motor Company builds a streamlined garage on US 70

The dealership's building on Cornelius Street (US 70), streamlined with rounded brick corners and glass block, is one of the most modern commercial designs of its time on Hillsborough's outskirts.

Colonial Drugstore moves into the West Franklin store left by Milton's Clothing Cupboard

Colonial Drugstore took over the West Franklin building that Milton Julian's clothing store had vacated.

Guion Griffis Johnson is president of the Chapel Hill Council of Churches

After returning to Chapel Hill from Atlanta in 1947, Johnson served on the boards of the Chapel Hill Community Council and Community Club, and in 1950 she was president of the Chapel Hill Council of Churches.

James J. Freeland develops Mountain View and Colonial Hills east of Hillsborough

Freeland laid out two small subdivisions of Minimal Traditional and Ranch houses on curving streets: Mountain View, beside the Eno on its north side at Highway 70 Business, where the family built its second house, and Colonial Hills, off Lawrence Road close to Highway 70A.

People: James J. Freeland

James J. Freeland develops a small group of houses on Daye Street

Moving beyond single houses, Freeland laid out a small development along Daye Street northwest of Fairview, where tax records show he owned the land. He was known for selling homes to families who could not otherwise buy, with no down payment and a second mortgage instead.

People: James J. Freeland

James Webb designs a house on Dogwood Drive for Kenneth and Frances Brinkhous

Architect James Webb designed a one-story Contemporary house with wood-shingled walls, deep eaves and a walkout basement on a steep lot at 524 Dogwood Drive for pathologist Kenneth Brinkhous and his wife Frances.

People: James M. Webb

Jim and John Webb design a house on Stagecoach Road for Earl Wynn

The brothers designed a long house set at an angle to the road at 900 Stagecoach Road for Earl Wynn, head of UNC's radio, motion picture and television department, with low overhanging gables, a central clerestory, vertical pine siding and bands of windows.

People: James M. Webb

Nellie Stroud Strayhorn, who learned of her freedom in 1865 as a girl, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Nellie Stroud Strayhorn (1850-1950) was buried in the cemetery at about one hundred; as a teenager in 1865 she was said to have been told by passing soldiers, while sitting on a cabin porch, that she was free.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

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.

Paul Smith becomes owner of the Intimate Bookshop

Paul Smith took over the Intimate Bookshop on East Franklin Street, formerly Abernethy's, and fitted it with display fixtures designed for his earlier shop in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

People: Milton Abernethy

Subject: The Intimate Bookshop

Postwar houses begin to go up on Tuscarora Drive

A Cape Cod at 110 Tuscarora Drive, built about 1950 south of the Eno, was among the first postwar houses on the street. The oldest house left there, at 418, dates to about 1941.

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.

The Cedar Grove Ruritan Club is organized

Formed in 1950, the club helped landscape the new Aycock School and equip its gym, fielded a community baseball team and arranged group hospital insurance for members. In 1952 it placed first among 22 rural groups in the community improvement contest.

Subject: Aycock School

The Harmony Primitive Baptist congregation disbands

The Harmony Primitive Baptist congregation northwest of Hillsborough breaks up in the 1950s, leaving its 1880 frame church empty. The building still had its original siding when surveyed.

The Nash house's open sleeping porch is enclosed and a flat-roofed carport is added

The same round of changes enclosed the rear porch, covered the original fanlight over the back door and added French doors. The nomination judges these changes minor and reversible.

The Navy installs an "Attack Teacher" submarine-hunting trainer in the armory basement

A mock warship interior with sonar room, bridge and plotting room was built into the armory basement to train midshipmen in antisubmarine work; it was still in use around 1970.

The Payne rental houses are built on South Nash Street

A group of compact rental houses and duplexes at 205-209 South Nash Street used the Minimal Traditional form with deep eaves, concrete block and metal windows, a pattern also seen in the Freeland houses on Daye Street.

The Southern Part of Heaven is published

William Meade Prince wrote and illustrated The Southern Part of Heaven, a book about growing up in Chapel Hill. Its title became a common nickname for the town.

The Webb brothers design a Whitehead Circle house for Bill and Ida Friday

In the early 1950s James and John Webb designed a group of similar Bay area style houses on Whitehead Circle for young faculty families. The one built for William and Ida Friday at 412 Whitehead Circle is a long, plain rectangle whose translucent back wall looks out into the woods.

People: William C. Friday · John B. Webb · James M. Webb

The census counts 37 masons in Chapel Hill, up from five in

Federal census returns show the number of masons living in Chapel Hill rising from seven in 1930 and five in 1940 to 37 in 1950, growth the nomination ties to the town's Black masonry trade.

UNC establishes its School of Dentistry

The university's School of Dentistry dates from 1950, with John C. Brauer as dean. Its first class was due to graduate in 1954.

UNC trustees create schools of social work and journalism

In 1950 the Board of Trustees established a School of Social Work and a School of Journalism, and renamed the School of Commerce the School of Business Administration.

West Hillsborough outnumbers Hillsborough

In 1950 the mill villages of West Hillsborough held 1,456 people, more than the 1,329 in the town itself, whose population barely moved from 1,311 in 1940 to 1,349 in 1960.

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.

William Van Sprinkle designs a shingled Colonial Ranch on Laurel Hill Road for math professor Ed Cameron

T. D. Green built the four-bay house, which has a board-and-batten front wing and an original screen porch. The nomination cites it as Sprinkle dressing the new Ranch form in colonial details.

People: William Van Sprinkle

Cedar Grove parents ask that Black educators help plan their new school

A delegation from the Cedar Grove Parent-Teacher Association asked the county board to let Central High principal A. L. Stanback and M. C. Burt, the county's agricultural agent for Black farmers, take part in planning the new Cedar Grove school.

People: A. L. Stanback

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

Andrews and Riggsbee sell their Carrboro grocery to two other men named Andrews and Riggsbee

The partners Andrews and Riggsbee sold their Carrboro grocery to two men also named Andrews and Riggsbee, who kept the store's name. The sellers kept the tractor business they had bought from Bruce Strowd, which was moving into a new building on Greensboro Street.

People: Bruce Strowd

R. D. W. Connor is buried in the Chapel Hill Cemetery

Connor died in February 1950, a year after retiring from the university, and was buried in the Chapel Hill Cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

B. S. Carr Grocery reopens as Carr's Super Market, Hillsboro's first supermarket

After a full renovation, the B. S. Carr Grocery reopened as a self-service supermarket with an open meat counter, refrigerated produce cases and parking for 50 cars. The paper called Carr the owner of the first supermarket in the Hillsboro area.

Subject: Carr’s Super Market

W. N. Tyler's Esso Servicenter holds its formal opening at West Franklin and Church streets

W. N. Tyler, a former Standard Oil sales supervisor, opened a new Colonial-style Esso station on the site of the old Ralph Weaver home at West Franklin and Church streets, with free movies and prizes on opening day.

Carrboro Civic Club opens a public library

The Carrboro Public Library, a project of the Carrboro Civic Club, opened on March 22, 1950, with an open house at the club's building near the Carrboro school. Mrs. Jack Shields was librarian, and books were lent free each Wednesday afternoon, with loans from the bookmobile and the county library in Hillsborough adding to the collection.

UNC's General Faculty adopts new rules creating a Faculty Council

The General Faculty approved the Faculty Legislation on University Government on May 10, 1950, to take effect in January 1951. It made an elected Faculty Council, meeting each month, the faculty's governing body.

People: John M. Booker

Archie Royal Davis replaces H. Raymond Weeks as architect of the Cedar Grove school

When state school planners faulted H. Raymond Weeks's design in April 1950, the board sent him to W. F. Credle and Edward Waugh of the Division of Schoolhouse Planning, but Weeks would not rework it on short notice. By May the job had gone to Archie Royal Davis, who was also designing Lincoln High School in Chapel Hill; the board approved his preliminary plans in June.

People: Archie Royal Davis

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

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

Black residents opened a fund drive to build the Orange County Negro Public Library a building of its own

The library then held 2,254 books in a single room with shelves full and volumes stacked on the floor, and had circulated 2,015 books in the year. A committee including Mrs. Marinda D. McPherson, A. L. Stanback and Mrs. M. C. Burt asked for donations, naming $100 for outside sheeting and $70 for a roof.

People: Marinda D. McPherson · A. L. Stanback

Subject: Orange County Public Library

The pre-Civil War Hume house is moved across the Chapel Hill High School grounds

To clear ground for a new high school building, the pre-Civil War house known in turn as the Hume, Hogan and Cone house was put on rollers and moved to the west edge of the school lot, still facing Franklin Street, for use as offices and classrooms.

People: Thomas Hume

Subject: Chapel Hill High School

Henry T. Clark Jr. heads the university's Division of Health Affairs

Clark became the first permanent administrator of the Division of Health Affairs, created in 1948, with charge of the schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, public health and pharmacy and of North Carolina Memorial Hospital. His title later became vice chancellor.

People: Edward G. McGavran

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

The Carrboro Church of God is organized

Clyde Maynor, Frank King and Robert Hill organized a second Church of God congregation in Carrboro in July 1950. It built a 300-seat church in 1952.

Health officer closes the University pool as polio cases rise in Chapel Hill

After an emergency conference with six Chapel Hill physicians, District Health Officer O. David Garvin ordered the University swimming pool and all recreational facilities closed, with six polio cases in Chapel Hill and three more in the county. He asked parents to keep children at home or on their own block but did not recommend cancelling University classes or closing nursery schools.

People: O. David Garvin

Fireball Roberts wins his first NASCAR Grand National race at Occoneechee

Twenty-one-year-old Fireball Roberts of Daytona Beach won the 100-lap Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway, his first victory in NASCAR's top series, in only his third start. Curtis Turner led the first 45 laps before a flat tire and finished second; Louise Smith drove a new Nash Ambassador in the field.

Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events

People: Louise Smith · Curtis Turner

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway

The Parkvue Drive-In Theatre opens west of Carrboro

The Parkvue, a drive-in theater for 280 cars on the Greensboro highway (N.C. 54) west of Carrboro, opened with two evening showings of Three Little Girls in Blue. J. W. Thompson and C. M. Rumley owned and ran it.

Reeves Service Station takes over the Phillip Andrews station on West Franklin Street

The Gulf station at 214 West Franklin Street reopened under new management as Reeves Service Station on October 7, 1950, replacing Phillip Andrews Service Station.

The Hillsboro Building and Loan Association opens its first office building on Calvin Street

After 37 years of meeting in stores and a depot office, the association held an open house for its own one-story Colonial-style brick office on Calvin Street in West Hillsboro, built with a fireproof vault.

Subject: Hillsboro Building and Loan (Savings and Loan)

Gordon Gray is installed as president of the University of North Carolina

Gray, who had been secretary of the army, was installed as president of the three-campus University of North Carolina on October 10, 1950 at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, the last day of a program that moved from Greensboro to Chapel Hill to Raleigh. The board of trustees had approved his selection on February 6, 1950.

Lee Petty wins the 1950 season finale as Bill Rexford clinches the title

Lee Petty of Greensboro won the 200-mile race that closed NASCAR's 1950 Grand National season at Occoneechee Speedway, his first win at the track. Bill Rexford dropped out with engine trouble but took the championship when Fireball Roberts also failed to finish.

Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events

People: Fireball Roberts

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway

The county board accepts Archie Royal Davis's plans for Cedar Grove School

The Orange County Board of Education approved Davis's final design for the Cedar Grove school for Black children: a low, flat-roofed brick building with long bands of classroom windows.

People: Archie Royal Davis

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

The Terrace View Supper Club is advertised for foreclosure sale

After Efthimios and Virginia Mariakakis defaulted on a deed of trust, a trustee advertised the 32.5-acre tract "commonly known as the Terrace View Supper Club" for auction on the premises on December 9, 1950. A second trustee advertised a sale for December 30 under another deed of trust.

Subject: Terrace View supper club

Bids for Cedar Grove School run over budget and the board asks the state for $147,000

None of the construction bids opened on December 6, 1950, came within the budget, so the board rejected them all. On December 28 it voted to ask the state School Plant Construction, Improvement, and Repair Fund for a $147,000 grant to build the school.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

Alpha B. Wettach joins the university as dean of women students

Wettach also founded the Chapel Hill Experimental Kindergarten, the town's first kindergarten, and ran it in Mary Nash's old painting studio in the Nash house, where she and her husband rented.

Charles E. Maddry returns to First Baptist Church, Hillsborough, for his last pastorate

After his years with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, Charles Edward Maddry served his final pastorate at the First Baptist Church in Hillsborough.

Colonial Stores opens on West Franklin Street in a building put up by Jack Hazzard

The Colonial Stores chain opened in a new building Hazzard had built. After Colonial Stores left, the Chapel Hill Newspaper moved into the building in late 1973.

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.

Gordon Ellis of the UNC education department builds a brick Cape Cod house on Pine Lane

Chemistry professor Henry Thomas and his wife Mary, a librarian at the UNC medical school, bought the house soon after it was finished.

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.

People: Cora Paul Bomar

James Webb designs a house on Whitehead Circle for Joseph and Pearl Morrison

Architect James Webb designed a modern house at 407 Whitehead Circle for Joseph L. Morrison, a member of the university's journalism faculty, and his wife Pearl. The Morrisons lived there for more than fifty years; the house was sold in 2010.

People: James M. Webb

John Ehle teaches in UNC's radio, television and motion pictures department

Ehle, an Asheville native who came to Chapel Hill after infantry service in World War II and graduated from UNC in 1949, taught in the university's Communications Center, later the Department of Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures, from 1951 to 1963. He published his first books while teaching there.

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

Kay Kyser retires from show business and settles in Chapel Hill

Kay Kyser left radio and television and returned with his wife Georgia to Chapel Hill, where he lived on East Franklin Street for the rest of his life.

Manly Wade Wellman settles in Chapel Hill

The writer Manly Wade Wellman, who had moved to Pinebluff, North Carolina, after the Second World War, relocated to Chapel Hill, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Masons lay the cornerstone of North Carolina Memorial Hospital

University Lodge No. 408 shared in the Masonic ceremony that laid the cornerstone of the new Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill.

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

Orange County 4-H members win at the Durham Fat Stock Show

In 1951 fifteen Orange County 4-H members showed fat steers, the largest group from any county, and ten took blue ribbons. Oliver Roberts showed the grand champion hog and Carl Walters the reserve champion.

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

Produce seller Rachel Crook is abducted and murdered

Rachel Crook, who ran a fish and produce stand at the corner of West Franklin and Merritt Mill Road, was kidnapped and killed. Her killer was never identified, and the restaurant that later opened on her corner took the name Crook's Corner.

Subject: Crook’s Corner

The Unitarian Fellowship of Chapel Hill is organized

A lay Unitarian fellowship began holding religious meetings in Chapel Hill. It had 25 members in 1953.

People: John Gillin

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.

People: G. Paul Carr

The first Morehead scholars are selected

The scholarship Morehead endowed at Chapel Hill made its first selections in 1951.

The name Northside began to replace Pottersfield and Sunset

When the old Lincoln building became Northside Elementary in 1951, the school's name spread to the Black neighborhoods around it. By the mid-1950s Pottersfield, north of West Rosemary and west of Columbia Street, and its western neighbor Sunset were both being called Northside.

Subject: Northside School

UNC establishes its School of Nursing

The School of Nursing was established at Chapel Hill in 1951, with Elizabeth L. Kemble as dean. Its first class was due to graduate in 1955.

The county board buys the Morrow land for Efland-Cheeks, a new school for Black children

The board decided to buy the Morrow land for a new school for Black children in the Efland district, named Efland-Cheeks.

Subject: Efland schools

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

Construction of Cedar Grove School begins

Work on the new school for Black children on NC 86 north of Hillsborough started in January 1951. By early February a well had been drilled and the footings poured.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

The board cuts the north wing and kitchen from the Cedar Grove School plans

To lower costs, the county board struck the six-classroom north wing, the kitchen, floor tile, clocks, bells, sidewalks and other items from Davis's design. The gymnasium was to serve as a multipurpose room partitioned into four classrooms until money for more space could be found.

People: Archie Royal Davis

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

Visiting Japanese educator-librarians tour the Efland school library

A group of Japanese educator-librarians hosted by the UNC School of Education visited the Orange County schools under the lead of helping teacher Cora Paul Bomar. They asked to see the Efland school library, built the year before by community volunteers, after reading her article on it in North Carolina Education.

Subject: Efland schools

Annie Strowd becomes superintendent of public welfare

Strowd succeeded Mrs. Jean Heer, who had followed W. T. Mattox after his death in 1947, and still held the post when the book was written.

Efland businessman Stephen Carl Forrest dies

S. C. Forrest, 68, a leading Efland businessman whose 1920s house on US 70 is on the state Study List, died at Duke Hospital after a heart attack and was buried at Fairfield cemetery. His sons T. J. and S. C. Forrest Jr. stayed in Efland.

The News of Orange prints a photograph of a Ridge Road School classroom

An article on newer classroom methods in the county's Black schools ran a picture of Ridge Road pupils adding to a bulletin board, a few months before the school closed. It is the only historic photograph of the interior that has been found.

Subject: Ridge Road School

UNC admits Edward O. Diggs, its first Black medical student

UNC mailed Edward O. Diggs of Winston-Salem, a pre-medical student at A&T College in Greensboro, his letter of admission to the School of Medicine under the trustees' April 4, 1951 policy. He enrolled in the fall of 1951.

People: W. Reece Berryhill · Gordon Gray · R. B. House

Subject: UNC School of Medicine

Fonty Flock wins the spring race at Occoneechee

Fonty Flock won the spring NASCAR Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway, with Frank Mundy second and Bill Blair third.

Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway

The Grand Lodge of North Carolina meets in Chapel Hill

The state's Grand Lodge of Masons came to Chapel Hill for its annual session, with W. E. Caldwell, a member of University Lodge, as Grand Master.

The Village Theatre becomes the Varsity under new owners

Varsity Theatres, Inc., of High Point, headed by Hugh J. Smart, took over Chapel Hill's Village Theatre, renamed it the Varsity and made it a first-run house. The Village was the old Carolina Theatre, renamed in 1942 when the new Carolina opened.

Subject: Varsity Theatre (the first Carolina Theatre)

Dean Brandis handles the applications of Pauli Murray and three other Black students to the law school

After the trustees left admissions to each professional school's dean, Brandis wrote Chancellor R. B. House about four Black applicants, Pauli Murray, J. Kenneth Lee, Harvey E. Beech and William C. Chance Jr., and on June 6 told Murray the school offered no graduate law courses. The UNC Libraries exhibit reads these letters as showing the law school resisting integration.

People: Pauli Murray · R. B. House · J. Kenneth Lee · Harvey E. Beech

Subject: UNC School of Law

Trustees make the campus heads chancellors and add a university vice-presidency

On May 22, 1951, on President Gordon Gray's recommendation, the trustees made the controller a vice-president, created a second vice-presidency, and gave the heads of the branches the title of chancellor. Logan Wilson filled the new post that fall.

People: Gordon Gray

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

Bethel Baptist Church marks its hundredth anniversary

Bethel Baptist Church celebrated its centennial with an all-day program and picnic on the grounds. UNC Chancellor Robert B. House gave the morning address and Annie Strowd read notes on the church's history.

People: R. B. House

Subject: Bethel Baptist Church

The main building of Chapel Hill High School opens on West Franklin Street

The new main building of the high school on West Franklin Street opened in part on September 10, 1951, with five classrooms and the science department ready and the rest due about two months later. It joined the first section, later called the old wing, in use since 1947.

Subject: Chapel Hill High School

State says Chapel Hill's new tuberculosis hospital will take Black and white patients

A State Medical Care Commission spokesman said the $1,100,000 tuberculosis hospital under construction at Chapel Hill would treat Black and white patients. He noted that federal rules barred discrimination in federally aided hospitals but still allowed patients to be segregated.

Lochiel, the Fagan family home outside Hillsborough, burns to the ground

Fire destroyed the Fagan home, the three-story frame house known as Lochiel, on a Saturday afternoon while no one was home. Only a few pieces of furniture were saved, and onlookers following the fire truck blocked it on the way back from refilling.

Subject: Lochiel

Bill Chance opens the Hillsboro Lunch on West King Street

Bill Chance opened the Hillsboro Lunch, a sandwich bar and short-order eatery next to Wynne's Beauty Salon, serving Cotton Nichols' barbecue, Brunswick stew and milkshakes from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Margaret Riley, formerly of the Hickory House, ran the service.

Subject: Hillsboro Lunch

Cedar Grove parents ask for a say in hiring teachers and get a Black building committee

Seven Cedar Grove PTA members asked for a local committee with power to hire and dismiss the new school's teachers, and for paint and tile floors. The board named a building committee of Dallas Sheppherd Burnett, Wayne Compton, D. W. Torain, Elijah Poole and Oscar Carver Beasley but gave it no say over staff; it did approve the paint and the floor tile.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

The register of deeds begins photographing and microfilming deeds

New deeds were photographed, with the film kept by Hall and McChesney of Syracuse and a print returned for the county's books, and the older deed books were filmed as well. Deeds had been typed rather than handwritten since January 1, 1930.

William Meade Prince dies at his home in Greenwood

William Meade Prince, illustrator, former head of the university's art department and author of The Southern Part of Heaven, died by suicide in the studio of his Greenwood home. The Weekly wrote that the village felt the loss deeply.

Morris Telephone Company opens an exchange at Efland with lines to Cedar Grove

The Morris Telephone Company put a new 30-line switchboard into service in its new building next to the Baptist church in Efland, along with about 14 miles of rural lines running to the Cedar Grove community.

Albert and Gladys Coates move into their own house on Hooper Lane

In 1947 the couple bought a lot on Hooper Lane in what had been the back garden of Edward Kidder Graham's house. Coates rejected a contemporary design by architects Jim and John Webb, the house went up as a two-story Georgian, and they moved in about the time the Gardner Award money arrived.

People: Gladys Hall Coates · John B. Webb · James M. Webb

Architect George Matsumoto draws plans for Dr. Isaac Taylor's house on Morgan Creek Road

George Matsumoto of the State College School of Design drew the plans for the house of Dr. Isaac M. Taylor, new to the medical school faculty, in Morgan Creek Hills. The Taylors raised their children there, among them the singer James Taylor.

People: Isaac Montrose Taylor · George Matsumoto

Architect John B. Webb joins his brother James in Chapel Hill

John B. Webb, also Berkeley-trained and shaped by William Wurster, practiced alongside his brother in Chapel Hill from 1952 to 1957. The two are credited with bringing the regional modernism of the San Francisco Bay area to the town.

People: John B. Webb · James M. Webb

Bob Cox and Monk Jennings open Town & Campus in place of Wilbur Kutz's Varsity Shop

Cox and Jennings's clothing store, Town & Campus, took over the East Franklin store where Kutz had run the Varsity Shop. It was replaced by another clothier between 1989 and 1993.

Carl Snavely leaves UNC after three losing seasons

Disputes over the size of the recruiting budget and Snavely's difficulty moving from the single wing to the split T weakened the program. After losing seasons in 1950, 1951 and 1952 he left UNC with a record there of 59 wins, 35 losses and 5 ties.

Chapel Hill builds a new elementary school in the Glen Lennox area

In the fall of 1952 an elementary school was being built in the Glen Lennox area, the first of several planned so young children would not have to travel into downtown traffic.

Cole's Store opens beside its owner's house on West Hill Avenue

The small concrete-block store and gas station on North West Hill Avenue, built on the same lot as the owner's home, follows the pattern of rural crossroads stores of the 1940s and 1950s.

Dr. Robert T. Cadmus, first director of Memorial Hospital, builds a colonial Ranch on Iris Lane

The five-bay brick Ranch has a large picture window and a sunporch at one end. Cadmus came to run the new North Carolina Memorial Hospital, part of the postwar wave of medical staff who needed houses near campus.

Eno Mill becomes part of Cone Mills

The subsidiary joined the Greensboro textile corporation.

Subject: Eno Mill

Frank McGuire arrives at UNC to coach basketball

McGuire came to Chapel Hill in 1952 to take over a basketball program that ranked far behind football in the university's priorities. His first office at Carolina was the ticket booth at Woollen Gym.

Isaac M. Taylor joins the new Department of Medicine at the UNC School of Medicine

Taylor, a 1942 Carolina graduate with a Harvard medical degree, returned to Chapel Hill in 1952 at the invitation of medical dean Reece Berryhill as one of the first members of the medical school's department of medicine.

People: W. Reece Berryhill

Subject: UNC School of Medicine

J. Spencer Love gives the Institute of Government $50,000 to spend as Coates sees fit

Textile executive J. Spencer Love, whose $15,000 in 1942 had carried the Institute until the state budget took over its costs, sent Albert Coates another $50,000 with no conditions on its use.

Subject: Institute of Government

James and Maxine Freeland open the Ja-Max Motor Lodge on US 70

Named for its owners, the long one-story motel northwest of town on the main Greensboro-Durham road let guests park at their own doors, and its hipped roof, stone veneer and horizontal-pane windows borrow from the Ranch house. It was probably the first of Freeland's motels, a string that later ran to Durham, Mebane and Roxboro and included Chapel Hill's Tar Heel Motel.

People: James J. Freeland

Subject: Ja-Max Motor Lodge

Jim Webb designs a Contemporary house on Laurel Hill Road for psychologists Louis and Thelma Thurstone

The low L-shaped house has vertical wood siding, a hipped roof with wide eaves and a carport joined by a screen porch; Ellington & Sparrow built it. Webb counted it among his firm's best work.

People: James M. Webb

Joffre Coe publishes an archaeological survey of the Occoneechee Hills area

Coe's study The Cultural Sequence of the Carolina Piedmont, in a volume edited by James B. Griffin, reported a survey and excavation near the Occoneechee Hills outside Hillsborough carried out under the Archaeological Society of North Carolina.

Morgan Creek Hills subdivision begins beside the new 15-501 Bypass

Work on Morgan Creek Hills, on the south side of the 15-501 Bypass, started while the bypass itself was being built between 1952 and 1954. The land had several owners, among them William Chambers Coker and Bill Hunt, and the neighborhood filled in over many years with large houses on rough, hilly lots.

People: William Chambers Coker

Neurosurgeon Warner Wells buys the Pratt house on East Franklin Street

Ten years after Joseph Hyde Pratt's death, Dr. Warner Wells, a neurosurgeon on the UNC medical school faculty, buys the Pratt house on East Franklin Street, which became known as the Pratt-Wells House.

People: Joseph Hyde Pratt

Oliver K. Cornwell becomes chair of UNC's Department of Physical Education and Athletics

After Robert Fetzer retired in 1952, Cornwell became chair of the combined department, while Charles P. Erickson became director of athletics. By 1955 the two parts had been separated again.

Orange County sells $250,000 in bonds for a new courthouse

The courthouse bonds brought the county's net bonded debt to $1,378,000 at the end of 1952. The new courthouse was then rising beside the old one on the same axis, sharing a courtyard.

Subject: Orange County Courthouse, Hillsborough

Philip Green's guidebook for zoning and planning boards is published

Green, who had learned the field on the Charlotte study, wrote a 430-page guidebook that the Institute published in 1952, the first such work for local zoning and planning boards in North Carolina. He went on to a national reputation in zoning and planning law.

Subject: Institute of Government

Service station operator Roseman builds a brick Ranch house on West Tryon Street

Mr. Roseman, who ran a gas station downtown, built a brick Ranch house with an attached carport at 311 West Tryon Street in 1952, replacing an earlier frame house.

The 15-501 Bypass is built along the south side of Chapel Hill

The book places construction of the 15-501 Bypass in 1952 to 1954. Morgan Creek Hills, one of the town's large postwar subdivisions, was laid out along its south side during those same years.

The Tar Heel Hosiery Mill starts at Efland

The newest of the Efland family hosiery plants, the Tar Heel Hosiery Mill, began in 1952 making full-fashioned hose.

The Webb brothers design a house on Whitehead Circle for Alex and Betty McMahon

James M. Webb and John B. Webb Associates designed the J. Alex and Betty W. McMahon House at 419 Whitehead Circle, a long house with flat roofs at different heights, a privacy wall and small windows toward the street, and large windows opening to the woods behind.

People: John B. Webb

The county builds the classroom building and cafeteria later used by A. L. Stanback School

A classroom building and a cafeteria on the Hillsborough campus that became A. L. Stanback School, the grades 6-7 school by 1983, date from 1952 under Superintendent G. Paul Carr.

People: G. Paul Carr

The district health department starts bedside nursing in southern Orange County

When the book was written, the health department's latest service was a small bedside nursing program for southern Orange County, carried on jointly with the University Hospital and its outpatient department. For 1952-53 the county appropriated $14,000 to the department.

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

The last three schools for Black children near Efland are consolidated at Efland-Cheeks

In the 1952-53 school year the three remaining small schools for Black children in the Efland area were merged into Efland-Cheeks School, completing the consolidation of the county's Black schools begun the year before.

Subject: Efland schools

UNC names Cobb Dormitory for Collier Cobb

The university named its new Cobb Dormitory in honor of the geologist Collier Cobb, who had taught at UNC for forty years.

UNC trustees set aside Mason Farm land for a botanical garden

The university's Board of Trustees allocated about 72 acres of its Mason Farm property for the North Carolina Botanical Garden, officially establishing it. Botanist H. R. Totten's efforts helped procure the site.

Subject: North Carolina Botanical Garden

UNC's new dental school building opens with separate facilities for Black and white patients

The School of Dentistry's new building opened with what a university memo called separate, complete facilities for white and Black patients. Publicity photographs showed separate waiting rooms for each race.

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church consecrates its Chapel Hill church

Holy Trinity Lutheran's new church in Chapel Hill, built in 1951 with 300 seats, was consecrated on January 6, 1952.

Subject: Holy Trinity Lutheran Church

Episcopalians organize the Church of the Holy Family in Chapel Hill

A second Episcopal congregation in Chapel Hill was organized with Maurice Arthur Kidder as its first pastor. Ground was broken for its building in June 1953.

People: W. Robert (William Robert) Mann

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.

Howard Mumford Jones gives the address at the dedication of the university library addition

Howard Mumford Jones, a former member of the university's English faculty then at Harvard, gave the principal address, on the library in higher education, at the dedication of the $1.6 million addition to the university library, held in Memorial Hall.

People: Robert B (Robert Bingham) Downs · Charles E. (Charles Everett) Rush

Subject: UNC Libraries · Memorial Hall

Hillsborough Baptist Church ordains J. G. Goodwin Jr.

J. G. Goodwin Jr. was ordained in the Hillsborough church and later went as a missionary to Korea.

Eben Merritt stops highway crews with an injunction over land taken for the new bypass

Filling station owner Eben G. Merritt got an injunction that briefly halted State Highway Commission work near Morgan Creek, arguing that the new bypass and the rerouted Pittsboro road would cut through his pasture, isolate his new house and pull his station off the main highway for far less than they were worth. A court-appointed commission set his damages at $6,000 in March 1953, and he appealed.

Subject: Merritt's Store and Grill

Tim Flock wins the 100-mile Grand National at Occoneechee

Tim Flock, driving a 1951 Hudson Hornet, took the lead on the 45th lap and won the 100-mile NASCAR Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway before 5,000 spectators, with his brother Fonty second.

People: Fonty Flock

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway

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.

Assistant track coach Joe Hilton designs and builds his own house on Oakwood Drive

Joe Hilton, UNC's assistant track coach, cleared the lot by axe, drew the plans with his wife, and with their son and Victory Village neighbors built a $22,000 ranch house, starting in June 1952. Carrboro contractor Herman Lloyd advised him; the family hoped to move in by September 1953.

Harvey Beech and J. Kenneth Lee graduate from UNC's law school

A year after they entered as the first Black students at UNC's law school, Harvey Beech and J. Kenneth Lee received their law degrees. UNC also lists James Robert Walker among the 1952 graduates.

People: J. Kenneth Lee

Subject: UNC School of Law

Orange Speedway, Inc. takes over the Hillsborough track

Bill France Sr. became president of the new Orange Speedway, Inc., with Ann France as secretary-treasurer and Enoch Staley as vice-president; the other three original partners were no longer with the track. It was known as Orange Speedway from 1954.

Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events

People: Enoch Staley

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway

Farmers Home Administration pushes livestock to raise tenant incomes near Cedar Grove

The News of Orange County reported a Farmers Home Administration effort to raise tenant income by adding livestock to tobacco farming. Tenants on the Banks Wilson farm near Cedar Grove added hogs and other animals, and 42 county farm families had FHA operating loans.

Orange County commissioners turn to professional appraisers for a property revaluation

In August 1952 the commissioners heard a representative of the Southern Mapping and Engineering Company and told county accountant and tax supervisor Ira Ward to draft a contract. By January 1953 they had decided with Ward that values would be set at current market value as of January 1, 1953, with a board of assessors overseeing the appraisers.

Dr. L. L. Vine buys the Nathan Veterinary Hospital and renames it

Dr. S. A. Nathan and Dr. L. L. Vine dissolved their partnership, and Vine, who had worked with Nathan for some years, took over the animal hospital on the Durham road as the Vine Veterinary Hospital.

People: S. A. Nathan

The county board votes to borrow for a six-classroom wing at Cedar Grove School

On a motion by board member Kemp S. Cate, the board voted to borrow $30,000 from the state literary fund and add $25,000 from its capital budget to build the north classroom wing cut from the 1951 plans. The county commissioners approved the loan.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

Ben Schreiber turns the Harry's Grill building into the Youth Center, a children's clothing store

Ben Schreiber and his wife closed their restaurant, Harry's Grill, and opened the Youth Center, a clothing store for infants and children, in the same building next to the Carolina Theatre.

The county board buys the Cameron Park property in Hillsborough for a new elementary school

The board paid Rebecca Wall $18,000 for the Cameron Park property and named the school to be built there Cameron Park.

Subject: Cameron Park School

Millard Lee Bess joins the Cedar Grove School staff

The county board hired Millard Lee Bess, a Gaston County native, Winston-Salem State graduate and World War II veteran, for Cedar Grove School in September 1952.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

The Hong Kong, an American-Chinese restaurant, opens in the former Curve Inn

The Hong Kong, advertised as an American-Chinese restaurant, held its grand opening on the site of the former Curve Inn on the Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard.

About forty groups report on the Rural Progress Program at a county meeting in Hillsborough

In 1952 farm, civic and church groups competed to raise family farm income by $1,000, improve every home and finish a community project. Results and awards were given at a county-wide meeting in Hillsborough on October 30, and the program was repeated in 1953.

Fairview Baptist Church is organized in Hillsborough

Fairview Baptist Church was organized in Hillsborough in October 1952 under pastor James Clegg and put up a 250-seat building that year.

People: James J. Freeland

Fonty Flock wins at Occoneechee weeks after his Darlington victory

Fonty Flock, winner of the Southern 500 at Darlington, won the October Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway weeks after his 500-mile Darlington victory.

Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway

UNC School of Medicine admits its first third-year class

A month after the hospital opened, the School of Medicine admitted its first third-year class, beginning clinical training in Chapel Hill. The school had offered only the first two years of medical study since its Raleigh clinical branch closed in 1910.

Subject: UNC School of Medicine

UNC cancels two football games after a player and three students get polio

The University of North Carolina called off its football games with Georgia on October 4 and N.C. State on October 11, 1952, because a player and three other students had been stricken with polio.

The Knapp Foundation pledges $500,000 toward a new building for the Institute of Government

University President Gordon Gray secured a commitment from the foundation of the late Joseph Palmer Knapp for a $500,000 grant, to be matched by the same sum from the state, to build the Institute a new home. Coates had wanted the money as an endowment beside a state-built building, but Gray followed the matching plan that Margaret Knapp favored.

People: Gordon Gray · Albert Coates

Subject: Institute of Government

The county school board advertises the White Oak Grove school lot for sale

The Orange County Board of Education gave notice that it would sell at the courthouse on January 10, 1953, a lot on the Cedar Grove-Carr road beside White Oak Grove Church, with its frame, tin-roofed building. The sale followed the opening of the new Cedar Grove school for Black children, which replaced the small rural schools.

Subject: White Oak Grove School

Stephen J. Edwards's Midway Barber Shop is open on West Rosemary Street

Edwards's Midway Barber Shop was advertising on West Rosemary Street, at the Chapel Hill and Carrboro line, by late 1952. His son Stepney Edwards later ran the Black-owned shop.

Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

Architect Edward Waugh designs a house for Dr. C. G. Thomas on Morgan Creek Road

Edward (Terry) Waugh of the State College School of Design drew several of the first Morgan Creek Hills houses for doctors who came to teach at the enlarged medical school. His 1953 house at 408 Morgan Creek Road, for surgery professor C. G. (Tim) Thomas and his wife, is a small side-gabled house of long red Norman brick and redwood that steps down its slope.

Bruce Strowd sells his car business to Crowell Little and Grady Pritchard

After thirty years at 100 West Franklin Street, Strowd sold the dealership in 1953. The new owners kept it in the same building for two more years.

People: Bruce Strowd

Carroll Hall is built and named for Dudley D. Carroll

The university completed the main building of its business school in 1953 and named it Carroll Hall for the School of Commerce's first dean. It became home to the journalism school in 1999.

Cedar Grove School's six-classroom north wing is finished

The north wing Archie Royal Davis had drawn in 1951 was finished late in 1953 and closely matches the original classroom wing. With the new rooms the multipurpose room became the gymnasium and auditorium. Davis and board members Harry Breeze and C. W. Stanford inspected the wing in January 1954.

People: Archie Royal Davis

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

Community Church of Chapel Hill forms

An interracial congregation organized with Charles M. Jones as minister.

People: Charles M. Jones · Joe Straley

Subject: Community Church of Chapel Hill

Fletcher M. Green chairs the UNC history department

Green, a Kenan Professor since 1946, chaired the University of North Carolina's Department of History from 1953 to 1960. He retired in 1968.

Hillsborough Heights is laid out, with a street named for James J. Freeland

The African American neighborhood on Terrell, Central, Forrest, Coley and Freeland streets, below US 70 on the west side of North Nash Street, was laid out in the 1950s. Its Freeland Street was named for the builder, who probably put up houses there.

People: James J. Freeland

Hillsborough Presbyterian Church adds Strudwick Hall, a fellowship hall named for Shepperd Strudwick

In C. H. Reckard's pastorate the church built a fellowship hall to his drawings and named it for Shepperd Strudwick, elder, Sunday school superintendent and clerk of session.

People: C. H. Reckard

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

Hugh Lefler and Paul Wager edit a bicentennial history of Orange County

For the county's 200th anniversary, Lefler and Wager edited Orange County, 1752-1952, with chapters by about fifteen contributors on early history, agriculture, industry, schools and more, plus a dictionary of county biography and lists of county officials.

Kay Kyser helps raise the money to put WUNC-TV on the air

Kay Kyser toured the state with William C. Friday and Billy Carmichael Jr. to raise money for UNC's educational television station, which went on the air from Chapel Hill in January 1955.

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

Subject: WUNC radio and television

Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church builds a parsonage on West Corbin Street

Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church builds a brick parsonage at 211 West Corbin Street in 1953, under its pastor the Rev. J. R. Bridges. The church still owns the house.

Rebecca Clark moves from the University Laundry to nursing at Memorial Hospital

In 1953 Clark left the University Laundry for the newly built university hospital, where she spent the rest of her working years as a nurse. UNC's Employee Forum says she was the first licensed practical nurse in the campus infirmary and retired in 1979.

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

Robert F. Schenkkan becomes director of the university's educational television venture

After the FCC granted the Consolidated University of North Carolina an educational television license, Schenkkan became director of the new venture, which went on the air as WUNC-TV from the Communication Center in Chapel Hill on January 8, 1955.

Subject: WUNC radio and television

The Bellevue mill employs 355 workers on two shifts

In 1953 the mill had 355 workers on two shifts, and the company still owned its mill village, whose houses now had indoor plumbing.

Subject: Bellevue Mill

The Hospital Savings Association moves from East Franklin into a large new building on West Franklin

The association left its two-bay store on East Franklin for big new quarters on West Franklin. By the late 1960s it had become Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

The Rock Baptist Church building on West Franklin Street is torn down

The Black Baptist congregation's church on West Franklin, in use since 1908, was demolished late in 1953 once its new church on North Roberson Street was finished.

The Webb brothers build a small two-level house for Ruth Price in Westwood

University instructor Ruth Price, on a tight budget, hired James and John Webb in 1953 to build her house at 4 Briar Bridge Lane, a steep corner lot in the older Westwood subdivision. The book ranks it among the smallest and best of the Webb houses; its main floor centers on a skylit living room with a built-in study nook.

People: John B. Webb · James M. Webb

UNC dedicates the Forest Theatre to Frederick Koch

In 1953 the university dedicated the stone amphitheatre in Battle Park to Koch, who had developed the site of the 1916 Shakespeare tercentenary dramas into a permanent theatre after he joined the faculty. The stone stage and seating had been rebuilt with Works Progress Administration funds in 1940.

Subject: Forest Theatre

William C. Coker dies and leaves his land north of town to Coker College

At his death in 1953, botanist and real estate developer William Chambers Coker left a large tract along Estes Drive, including the land around Eastwood Lake, to Coker College in Hartsville, South Carolina. The college later had the land developed, producing Coker Hills and Lake Forest.

Covenant Presbyterian Church is organized in Chapel Hill

A second Presbyterian congregation, Covenant, was organized in Chapel Hill. It had 33 members and no building in 1953.

People: C. Hugh Holman

The county board gives up the High Rock School land

The county board waived its rights to the two acres of the abandoned High Rock School near Efland in favor of the landowner, John A. Thompson. High Rock had been merged into the Efland-Cheeks school in 1952.

Fire damages the Hillsboro Lunch on West King Street

A Sunday night fire, blamed on spontaneous combustion, broke a front plate glass window and damaged the partition between the kitchen and the lunch room. Owner Bill Chance said he was fully insured and would reopen once repairs were made.

Subject: Hillsboro Lunch

Matthew Strum takes over Dud's Tavern

Dud's Tavern advertised that it was under the new ownership and management of Matthew Strum, offering home-cooked food along with gas, oil and auto service.

Subject: Dud’s Tavern

North Carolina Memorial Hospital is dedicated

Exercises at Chapel Hill on April 23-24, 1953, dedicated North Carolina Memorial Hospital and marked the new four-year School of Medicine and the schools of dentistry and nursing. The hospital had opened in September 1952.

People: W. Reece Berryhill

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

Hubert Robinson and Paul Wager are elected to the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen

Robinson led the five candidates with 571 votes and Wager followed with 560; Kenneth Putnam took the third seat. The Weekly noted Robinson was the second Black person elected to public office in Chapel Hill, the first since Reconstruction, and it was Wager's first run for office.

People: Hubert Robinson · Wilson Swain Caldwell

The News of Orange prints the first picture of the Cedar Grove Negro School

A front-page photograph presented the new school as a major piece of the county's three-year building program. The story listed seven classrooms, a library, an office, a heating plant, two toilets and a multipurpose room used from the start as four classrooms.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

Edmund Strudwick's portrait of C. T. Council is given to the School of Pharmacy

University President Gordon Gray presented a portrait of Durham's C. T. Council, painted by Edmund Strudwick of Hillsborough, to the UNC School of Pharmacy, where Dean E. A. Brecht accepted it at a luncheon in the Morehead building.

People: Gordon Gray · E. A. (Edward Armond) Brecht

Subject: UNC School of Pharmacy · Morehead Planetarium

Gardner Hall, named for O. Max Gardner, opens with the new business school buildings

Gardner Hall, named for former governor O. Max Gardner, was one of three new School of Business Administration buildings set between the Library and South Building, with Carroll and Hanes halls. The University Placement Service moved into it, and the formal dedication of the three buildings was set for May 25, 1953.