Chronology

George Campbell and his father build a stone house on North Graham Street

On a lot owned by George Campbell, he and his father John Wesley Campbell, helped by the other Campbell sons, designed and built a small one-story fieldstone house at 203 North Graham Street, finished in 1948. It is the only one of the family's Northside stone houses whose stonework runs up into the gable.

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

People: John Wesley Campbell

George Kirkland, Chapel Hill's first African American dentist, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

George Kirkland (1899-1948), the first Black dentist in Chapel Hill, was buried in the cemetery.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

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

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

Subject: Bank of Chapel Hill

James Welch Patton becomes director of the Southern Historical Collection

Patton succeeded J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton as director of the Southern Historical Collection at the UNC library and taught a North Carolina history course each year while he held the post.

People: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton

Subject: UNC Libraries

Jim Webb designs a house on Dogwood Drive for Thomas and Margaret Stanback

NCModernist lists the Thomas M. and Margaret Lide Stanback House at 531 Dogwood Drive, dated 1948, as Jim Webb's design, made in collaboration with Larry Enersen, which puts it among his first Chapel Hill commissions.

Lattisville Grove Baptist Church builds a Gothic Revival frame church

Lattisville Grove Baptist Church near Caldwell builds a frame church in the Gothic Revival manner in 1948, late for the style.

Lt. Gov. Alexander Graham has Watts Carr remodel Montrose as a Colonial Revival house

In 1948 Lt. Gov. Alexander Graham and his wife hired Durham architect Watts Carr to turn the Victorian house at Montrose into a Colonial Revival one, with a high hipped roof, side wings and a Georgian Revival entrance. Carr helped work in mantels, doors and trim from old Orange County houses, including double doors from the Burwell School.

Subject: Montrose

Orange County abolishes the office of treasurer

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

Ridge Road School reports 75 pupils and a 149-book library

The principal's report for 1948-49 counted 75 children enrolled, 57 in average attendance, with the sixth and seventh grades the largest group at 40. The school's equipment was a globe, a flag, word cards, art supplies and a library of 149 books.

People: Alethea Anne Arrington Burt

Subject: Ridge Road School

Ted Danziger names the passage to his Rathskeller Amber Alley

Danziger gave the name Amber Alley to the passageway off East Franklin Street that led down to his new Rathskeller. The Weekly said the name came from the yellow lanterns along its walls, not from the novel Forever Amber.

Subject: The Rathskeller (Amber Alley)

Ted Danziger opens the Rathskeller in the basement of his father's candy shop

Edward Danziger's son Ted opened the Rathskeller in the basement of the Danziger candy store on Franklin Street. The Hall of Fame credits it with being the first local restaurant to serve draft beer.

Subject: The Rathskeller (Amber Alley)

The A&P leaves East Franklin for a new store on the old Toy lot on West Franklin Street

The grocery chain moved off East Franklin into a building it put up on the former Walter Dallum Toy property, bought for the purpose in 1947. Rose's store then spread into the space the A&P had left.

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

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

Subject: The News of Orange County

The School of Public Health establishes a Department of Field Training

In the spring of 1948, early in Dean Edward G. McGavran's tenure, the School of Public Health set up a Department of Field Training, bringing it to eight departments.

Subject: UNC School of Public Health

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

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

People: Cora Paul Bomar

The county board moves Murphey School's seventh grade to Hillsboro

Many Murphey-district families had been sending children to Hillsboro, some riding the bus against the rules, and in 1947 the board agreed to keep the seventh grade at Murphey only until numbers justified a move. In 1948, with about seventy pupils left, it sent the seventh grade to the Hillsboro school.

Subject: Murphey School

UNC re-establishes its School of Education

The university, which had discontinued its School of Education in 1933, set it up again at Chapel Hill in 1948.

William Friday serves as assistant dean of students at UNC in Chapel Hill

After receiving his law degree from UNC in 1948, William Friday was assistant dean of students and later acting dean of students on the Chapel Hill campus until 1951, when he became assistant to Consolidated University president Gordon Gray.

People: Gordon Gray

William Sloan opens Sloan's Drugstore on East Franklin Street

Sloan opened his drugstore in the store where D. Pender's grocery had been. It lasted until the mid-1970s, when Spanky's Restaurant took the space.

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

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

Subject: Ridge Road School

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

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

Fire guts Pete McPherson's cafe and pool hall in West Hillsborough

A fire that started in a defective flue gutted the frame and brick building near the Black school in West Hillsboro where Pete McPherson ran a cafe with a pool and beer hall. Most of the stock was saved, but all the pool tables were lost.

Hillsboro Speedway, Inc. buys the Occoneechee Farm racetrack tract

W. S. Murchison and J. R. Rogers sold two hundred acres of the old Occoneechee Farm, including its horse track, to Hillsboro Speedway, Inc., the company Bill France and four partners had chartered to build a stock car track. France had spotted the track while flying over Orange County.

Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway · Occoneechee Farm

P. L. and Lloyd M. Senter open their new drugstore building next to Lloyd-Ray Hardware

Father and son pharmacists P. L. Senter and Lloyd M. Senter held a formal opening for their new Carrboro drugstore building, with a new soda fountain, on the evening of January 27, 1948. They treated it as the store's fifteenth anniversary.

Fire damages the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority house, the old Graham home on Battle Lane

A fire that began in the attic of the Alpha Gamma Delta house on Battle Lane, built for Edward Kidder Graham and still owned by his son, did about $6,000 in damage and left nine students without a home. Students carried out the furniture within ten minutes while a crowd of about 650 watched.

An Orange County Superior Court jury convicts Felmet and the other three Chapel Hill bus defendants

A jury found Andrew S. Johnson, Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko and Joseph Felmet guilty of breaking the bus seating law, and Judge Chester Morris sentenced each to 30 days. The men, defended by C. J. Gates, Herman L. Taylor and E. R. Avent, appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court and posted bond.

People: Bayard Rustin · Andrew Johnson (Journey of Reconciliation) · Igal Roodenko

Architect H. Raymond Weeks presents plans for a school for Black children in Cedar Grove Township

H. Raymond Weeks showed the Orange County Board of Education his design for a consolidated school for Black pupils in Cedar Grove Township. The board sent the plans to the Federal Works Agency, which lent school systems money for architects' fees.

Subject: Cedar Grove schools

The Farmers Mutual livestock market near Hillsborough reopens in a new auction building

A new auction building with a sale ring, loading ramps, automatic scales and offices replaced the one lost to fire in December, and regular Monday sales were set to resume on March 15.

Subject: Farmers Mutual Exchange

Political scientist Donald Hayman joins the Institute of Government staff

Recommended by political science chair Charles B. Robson when Coates wanted help screening Patrol recruits, Hayman was hired on the spot as an assistant director, the first non-lawyer on the staff since accountant T. N. Grice. He took the place of Terry Sanford, who had left to practice law in Fayetteville.

People: Albert Coates · Terry Sanford

Subject: Institute of Government

The district board of health extends its ordinances to Lee County

The District Board of Health for Orange, Person, Chatham and Lee counties met at the Bank of Chapel Hill and extended the district's milk and excreta disposal ordinances to Lee County, which had joined the district in September 1946. Collier Cobb Jr. chaired the board.

People: Collier Cobb · Collier Cobb Jr.

Hillsborough Presbyterian Church begins its educational building

After gifts starting in 1943 and a December 1947 drive that reached half the cost, the church started work on its educational wing in May 1948 and finished it that November.

Subject: Hillsborough Presbyterian Church

Health officer urges typhoid shots after a case in Hillsboro

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

Part of Public health in rural Orange County · 26 events

Fowler's Food Store opens its new building on West Franklin Street

Fowler's Food Store, successor to the old Model Market, held a grand opening in a new 80-by-200-foot building on West Franklin Street, with a parking lot reaching through to Rosemary Street. Robert L. Fowler of Chapel Hill and Marvin M. Fowler of Durham owned the store.

Piney Mountain School closes and its pupils go to Morris Grove School

The county consolidated Piney Mountain School, one of its Black schools, with Morris Grove School. A new gravel road into the area let a bus carry the children out; the school had been kept open only because no bus could reach it.

Subject: Piney Mountain School

Farmers Mutual opens its new farm supply warehouse on Margaret Lane

The farmers' cooperative Farmers Mutual, Inc. opened its new Hillsborough warehouse with a ribbon-cutting by manager J. H. McAdams before a large crowd of county farmers. The building replaced a machinery shed the co-op had used for eight years to buy supplies and market grain, poultry and eggs.

Subject: Farmers Mutual Exchange

Polio postpones the opening of Orange County schools twice

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

People: O. David Garvin

Chapel Hill's polio quarantine on children is lifted

The month long mandatory quarantine of children sixteen and under, imposed during a polio outbreak in Chapel Hill and the vicinity, was ended, though District Health Officer O. David Garvin asked parents to keep children close to home and discouraged trips to the movies. He and the university physician notified the Veterans' Club and Graham Memorial that they could reopen.

Hillsboro's Black All-Stars beat the town's white All-Stars at McPherson's Park

In a Sunday game at McPherson's Park billed as the Stars against the Stars, Hillsboro's Black All-Stars defeated the town's white All-Stars 13 to 10.

The Monogram Club opens the former Navy Hall to all students

After the war Navy Hall went to the Monogram Club of letter athletes; when it sat underused the university paid to renovate it, and on September 18, 1948 it reopened to every student with a basement dining room and the Circus Room lounge.

Fonty Flock wins both races of the Occoneechee double-header

Fonty Flock, who had won the speedway's opening race in June, won both feature events of the double-header at Occoneechee Speedway, the track's second and third races.

Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events

Subject: Occoneechee Speedway

George Esser and Alexander McMahon join the Institute of Government

Recruited by Coates at Harvard Law School that spring, Esser and McMahon started the same day, joining new Carolina law graduates Donald McCoy and Dickson Phillips; Philip Green came a few months later. It was the largest group of assistant directors Coates had yet employed, and he put them to work on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg study.

People: Albert Coates · James Dickson Phillips

Subject: Institute of Government

The university tears down the old Pre-Flight Armory on the day it was to meet student defenders

University officials bulldozed the former Pre-Flight Armory, then the Emerson Scuttlebutt, on the same day they were due to meet students petitioning to keep it, and did not come to the meeting. The administration said refreshments would move to the Monogram Club.

Subject: Navy Pre-Flight School

The Whitfield and Oakley department store moves into a new building on Carrboro's Main Street as White Oaks

The Whitfield and Oakley department store moved from across the street from the Carrboro post office into a new building facing the Carrboro bank, under a new neon sign reading "White Oaks." The White Oaks Department Store advertised in local papers into the mid-1960s.

Kay Kyser leads a rained-out pep rally in Memorial Hall

When rain cancelled the outdoor rally and torchlight parade before the Texas game, Kay Kyser, his wife Georgia Carroll and coach Carl Snavely entertained more than 1,800 students in a packed Memorial Hall.

People: Carl Snavely

Subject: Memorial Hall

Schley Grange brings telephones to fifty-one families and wins a national community award

For a National Grange and Sears-Roebuck Foundation contest, Schley Grange members cleared right-of-way, cut cedar poles and strung three miles of wire so the telephone company could give service to 51 families; they also held a soil conservation workshop with the extension service. Schley won the national prize in November 1948, and the new brick Grange hall it paid for was dedicated on December 6, 1949 before about five hundred people.

People: W. Kerr Scott

Subject: Schley Grange Hall

Alethea Burt starts a junior 4-H club at Ridge Road School

Principal Alethea Burt organized a junior 4-H club at Ridge Road School in the 1949-50 term, when 64 children were enrolled. She and her husband, farm agent Moses Burt, helped form 4-H clubs among Black youth in the county.

People: Alethea Anne Arrington Burt

Subject: Ridge Road School

Bethel Baptist Church puts up an educational building beside its church

In the spring of 1949 Bethel Baptist Church, six miles west of Chapel Hill on the Greensboro highway, was finishing an educational building on its grounds and invited members to its May homecoming to look over the work.

Subject: Bethel Baptist Church

Carmichael serves as acting president of the consolidated university

Carmichael was acting president in 1949 and 1950, after Frank Porter Graham resigned to take a seat in the United States Senate.

People: Frank Porter Graham

Central High's 1949-50 reports show 649 pupils and crowded classrooms

Central High School served 443 elementary and 206 high school students with twelve and eight teachers. Its library of 1,120 books also served the Black community, but nine of its eleven elementary classrooms were too small.

Subject: Central High and Central Elementary, Hillsborough

Chapel Hill builds a brick tool shed in the wall between the white and Black sections of the cemetery

In October 1949 the cemetery committee found the old tool shed past repair and asked for a brick one at a gap in the wall dividing the white and Black burial grounds. The small shed stands in the rubblestone wall that separates Section B from Section I.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

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

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

People: Cora Paul Bomar

Edward T. Draper-Savage buys Moorefields and begins restoring it

Edward T. Draper-Savage, related to the Moore family by marriage, acquired Moorefields and began its restoration. The 1972 nomination found the house in excellent condition.

Subject: Moorefields

Efland Elementary School sets up the county schools' first centralized library

Under supervisor Cora Paul Bomar, Efland Elementary turned two empty classrooms into one library: local men took out the partition, painted and built shelves, Bomar classified the books, and Mrs. Turner Forrest, one of the teachers, ran it as teacher-librarian. When Irene Pender took over in 1951 it was still the only centralized library in the county schools.

People: Cora Paul Bomar

Subject: Efland schools

Henry Brandis becomes dean of the UNC law school

Brandis, the Institute's first associate director, was promoted from professor of law to dean in 1949. Under him the law school and the Institute drew closer, with Institute staff teaching Coates's classes when he was away.

People: Henry P. Brandis Jr.

Subject: UNC School of Law

Jim and John Webb design the Spearman house, the first of their Whitehead Circle houses

The Webb firm designed a house at 418 Whitehead Circle for Walter Spearman of the UNC School of Journalism and his wife Mary, placed around a large rock that juts from the site. It was the first of five houses the brothers designed on the street.

People: Walter Spearman · James M. Webb

Jim and John Webb open their office in the old Methodist church on Rosemary Street

The brothers opened a planning and architecture practice in the left side of the 1853 Methodist church at Rosemary and Henderson streets, which had been used as a garage. In the early 1970s they bought the building and turned all of it into offices.

People: James M. Webb

Subject: Old Methodist Church (Rosemary Street)

Joel Carter directs the Chapel Hill Choral Club

Joel Carter of the university's Music Department was musical director of the Chapel Hill Choral Club, a town choir founded in 1921, for fourteen years. The club's records he kept are now at Wilson Library.

Miltos Tassos buys J. Edgar Merritt's West Franklin property and opens the Cafe Mouza

Tassos renovated the building he bought from Merritt, next to 107 West Franklin, and opened it as The Cafe Mouza.

New Sharon Church members build a $50,000 church and pay for it in a year

Members of New Sharon Church, most of them poultry farmers, put up a $50,000 building in 1949 and cleared the cost within one year.

Subject: New Sharon Methodist Church

Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation builds its headquarters in Hillsborough

The rural electric cooperative serving Orange and five nearby counties put up a new headquarters building in Hillsborough in 1949. By 1953 it ran about 1,100 miles of line to more than 4,000 customers.

Subject: Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation

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

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

Subject: Efland schools · Aycock School · Hillsborough High School

The Carl Smith Building is completed on North Columbia Street

Carl Smith's commercial building on North Columbia Street was completed in 1949; Gooch's Cafe moved in, and the area office of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis took rooms on the second floor.

Subject: Gooch’s Café

The Town of Chapel Hill buys land for a new cemetery for its Black residents

The town bought about ten acres of the former Roberson property, just beyond the railroad on the Carrboro side of town, for a segregated cemetery for Black residents. It became the West Chapel Hill Cemetery on Village Drive.

The two Orange County dairy cooperatives merge and take the Long Meadow name

In 1949 the Latta and Farmers cooperatives merged and bought the Long Meadow Dairies plant in Durham County, taking its name. Processing stopped in Hillsborough and went on in Chapel Hill.

UNC organizes the Division of Health Affairs

In 1949 the university grouped its schools of medicine, public health and pharmacy, the new schools of nursing and dentistry, and the University Hospital into a Division of Health Affairs to coordinate teaching and research.

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

Writer Peter Taylor buys the old Laws house on East King Street

Short story writer Peter Taylor, then teaching English at the Woman's College in Greensboro, bought the Ed Laws house on East King Street. The paper reported the purchase when he won a Guggenheim Fellowship in April 1950.

Subject: Seven Hearths (William Reed’s Ordinary)

North Carolina Supreme Court upholds the convictions of Felmet and the other Chapel Hill bus riders

In State v. Johnson the court affirmed the Orange County convictions, holding that the state seating statutes applied unless the riders proved they were interstate passengers. The opinion, like the lower court record, spells his name Joseph A. Felmont.

People: Bayard Rustin · Andrew Johnson (Journey of Reconciliation) · Igal Roodenko

The county school board puts the Piney Mountain School site up for auction

The Board of Education advertised the two-acre Piney Mountain School site for public auction at the Hillsboro courthouse door, with its two one-room frame buildings to be sold apart from the land.

Subject: Piney Mountain School

A federal appeals court awards the Ackland Trust to the university at Chapel Hill

After Duke refused Ackland's bequest, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled for UNC-Chapel Hill over Rollins College, citing the university's finances, its graduate arts program and its nearness to Duke.

Subject: Ackland Art Museum

The Pilgrim Holiness Church in West Hillsborough holds its first service in a new building

The Pilgrim Holiness congregation met for the first time in its new church, under construction since August 1948 near the site of its old building. District superintendent William S. Deal preached, and the Rev. J. F. Kernodle was pastor.

Governor Kerr Scott appoints UNC President Frank Graham to the U.S. Senate

On March 22, 1949, Governor W. Kerr Scott named Frank Porter Graham to the United States Senate, ending his presidency of the university. Controller W. D. Carmichael Jr. became acting president.

People: W. Kerr Scott

District health department takes UNC public health students for field training

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

People: O. David Garvin

Subject: UNC School of Public Health

Hillsborough holds a combined flower show and garden pilgrimage

The Hillsborough Garden Club held its flower show together with the state garden pilgrimage, opening historic homes and gardens on a "Colonial Hillsboro" theme. Addie Williams Totten of Chapel Hill, state flower show chairman, planned it with the club; it was the first time the two events had been combined.

Marinda McPherson sponsors the annual kite contest at the Hillsboro school

The annual kite contest sponsored by Mrs. M. D. McPherson was held on the school playground in Hillsboro, with prizes for the fastest getaway, the longest distance, dash and altitude, and the most original kite.

Subject: Hillsborough High School

Railway Express agent Lonas Williams starts Chapel Hill's first Lustron house, on Stephens Street

Lonas Williams and his wife began putting up a factory-made Lustron house of porcelain-enameled steel off Airport Road, the first of its kind in or near Chapel Hill. Mrs. Williams had read about the houses in Life, and the parts came by trailer from the Columbus, Ohio, plant through Taylor-Made Homes of Greensboro.

Subject: Williams Lustron House (109 Stephens Street)

Edwin S. Lanier unseats Mayor Madry in the Chapel Hill election

In a town election that drew 1,442 of 1,726 registered voters, Edwin S. Lanier defeated Mayor Robert W. Madry by 811 votes to 589, ending Madry's seven years as mayor.

The old flour mill at Efland burns and is rebuilt

The Efland Milling Company's flour mill, owned by John L. Efland Sr. and in use for more than 150 years, burned on the night of May 13, 1949, with losses put above $50,000, and was rebuilt almost at once. It may stand near the old Hart's mill on the Thomas Hart place.

The Orange County Negro Public Library held its grand opening at the community center in Hillsboro

The library opened on a Sunday afternoon from 3 to 5 p.m. with Mrs. M. D. McPherson as directress and Miss Victoria Craig as librarian. Mrs. Douglas Davis, the tri-county regional librarian, sponsored the event and spoke, and Mrs. Eliza Webb attended for the Confederate Memorial Library.

People: Marinda D. McPherson

Subject: Orange County Public Library

The county board names A. J. Breeze, James Clark and Otho Thompson to the Ridge Road school committee

The Orange County board appointed three local men as the Ridge Road district's advisory committee; they served until April 1951, the school's last spring.

Subject: Ridge Road School

The Chapel Hill Jaycees open the Williams Lustron house for public inspection

For a week the Junior Chamber of Commerce showed Lonas Williams's new all-steel Lustron house, furnished by local stores, at 25 cents a visitor, expecting guests from Raleigh, Durham, Pittsboro and Hillsborough. The showing cleared $240 for the club's community projects.

Subject: Williams Lustron House (109 Stephens Street)

Arthur Wells is named to the advisory committee for the Sartin school

The News of Orange County printed the county's new school committees, including the suggested advisory committee members for the Black schools. Oscar Beasley, Euddie Villines and Arthur Wells were listed for the Sartin school, on two-year terms.

Orange County sets up a county recorder's court

Under a 1949 act, the commissioners created a recorder's court for the six townships outside Chapel Hill, sitting every Monday, with the clerk of superior court as its clerk.

Owner W. M. Chance puts a neon marquee on the Osbunn Theater

W. M. Chance, owner of the Osbunn Theater on West King Street, had a steel marquee 32 feet long and 8 feet wide built across its front, lit by 300 feet of neon tubing. New aluminum display cases went in across the front as well.

Subject: Osbunn Theater

Phillip Andrews opens a Gulf service station at 214 West Franklin Street

Phillip Andrews opened a Gulf service station in a new Colonial-style building at 214 West Franklin Street, next to Fowler's Food Store, with three opening days starting Thursday, July 7.

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

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

Political scientist Federico Gil moves into Chapel Hill's second Lustron house, on Mount Bolus

Federico G. Gil, an assistant professor of political science, moved into a factory-made, all-steel Lustron house in the new Mount Bolus colony north of town, the second in Chapel Hill. By March 1950 it was one of three houses built on the tract.

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

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

Principal C. A. McDougle opens Lincoln High School's year under its new name

The Chapel Hill Weekly reported that Lincoln High School, the town's school for Black students, would open at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, September 12, 1949, as announced by Principal C. A. McDougle. The faculty list printed with the notice includes elementary teacher Mrs. Lucille R. McDougle and high school teacher Reginald D. Smith.

Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

D. E. and Marie Hollandsworth buy Maple Hill and begin restoring it

D. E. and Marie B. Hollandsworth bought the Jacob Jackson farmhouse on St. Mary's Road and restored its Federal block and Greek Revival wing, adding bathrooms and heat. Mrs. Hollandsworth and her daughter still owned it when it was listed in the National Register in 1994.

Subject: Jacob Jackson Farm (Maple Hill)

Dr. D. Efland Forrest opens the Forrest Clinic, Hillsborough's first private hospital

The Forrest Clinic, a colonial-style brick hospital on North Churton Street, held a public open house on a Sunday afternoon and began taking patients the next morning. Dr. Forrest served as his own contractor, with Hillsborough native William S. Arrasmith as architectural adviser.

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 · Isabel Smith

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 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.

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