Search and filters
Search and filters
6,531 dated events and 63 storylines match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,531 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 4,201–4,400 of 6,594, 200 to a page.Back to highlights
Entries
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
- 1940s
-
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.
-
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.
-
Hyconeechee Regional Library is established
The three county library systems incorporated as one region to enlarge book collections, run a shared bookmobile and provide trained supervision. The regional board held its second meeting on September 13, 1948 at the Confederate Memorial Library in Hillsboro, with Sydney Green of Orange County as president and Mrs. Douglas Davis as regional librarian.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
The county board hires supervisors of instruction for its Black and white schools
The board decided to hire supervisors of instruction and chose Norma Snipes for the Black schools and later Cora Paul Bomar for the white schools. In 1955 the state ended Snipes's position under a rule of one supervisor per hundred teachers, and she went to teach at Efland-Cheeks.
-
The county board 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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Occoneechee Speedway opens
Occoneechee Speedway, a one-mile dirt oval that Bill France and four North Carolina partners built on the old Occoneechee Farm horse track outside Hillsborough, opened with a 100-mile NASCAR stock car race won by Fonty Flock.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Orange County Training School is renamed Lincoln High School
In March 1949 the Parent-Teachers Association of the Orange County Training School, Chapel Hill's school for Black students, voted to rename it Lincoln High School and sent the request to the superintendent and school board. By May 13, 1949, the Chapel Hill Weekly reported that the name had been changed.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Morehead Planetarium is dedicated
Morehead Planetarium was dedicated at UNC on May 10, 1949.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
NASCAR comes to Occoneechee Speedway
Occoneechee Speedway near Hillsborough hosted the third race of NASCAR's first Strictly Stock season, a 200-lap event won by Bob Flock. It is the only dirt track from that inaugural season that still survives.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Black law students sue to enter UNC's Law School
On October 25, 1949, Harold Epps and other law students at North Carolina College in Durham sued for admission to UNC's law school. A federal district court ruled against them on October 9, 1950, but the Fourth Circuit reversed on March 27, 1951, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the university's appeal on June 4, 1951.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
- 1950s
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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 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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Lincoln High School opens on Merritt Mill Road
In 1951 Lincoln High School, Chapel Hill's high school for Black students, moved from the old Orange County Training School building on Caldwell Street to a new building on Merritt Mill Road, and the old building became Northside Elementary. Lincoln used the Merritt Mill Road campus until 1966; the building is now the school district's Lincoln Center.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Lucille Caldwell becomes the Negro Community Center's first paid director
Lucille Caldwell was hired in February 1951 as the first paid director of Chapel Hill's Negro Community Center on Roberson Street, now the Hargraves Center. A town history calls her North Carolina's first Black professional recreation administrator. She led the center for twelve years and resigned in 1963.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Orange County Negro Public Library dedicates its own building
About 150 people attended an open house on May 27, 1951 dedicating the Orange County Negro Public Library's own building in Hillsborough, a structure bought from Camp Butner and put up with volunteer labor. Begun in 1942 by Marinda McPherson, the library had opened to the public in 1949 and now held more than 3,000 books.
-
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.
-
Desegregating the University of North Carolina
After a 1951 federal court decision in McKissick v. Carmichael, five Black students began law school classes at UNC on June 22, 1951. In September 1955, again under court order, LeRoy and Ralph Frasier and John Lewis Brandon of Durham registered as the university's first Black undergraduates.
-
UNC Law School begins desegregation
About a week after the Supreme Court refused on June 4, 1951, to review McKissick v. Carmichael, Black students registered for summer session at UNC's law school, the first African Americans to enroll at the university. UNC Law names them as Harvey E. Beech, James L. Lassiter, J. Kenneth Lee, Floyd B. McKissick and James R. Walker.
-
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.
-
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.
Suggest a correction to an entry →
A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →
Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.
