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Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
- 1940s
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A wartime munitions plant opens in the former Mill No. 7
National Munitions Corporation converted the empty Mill No. 7 on Roberson Street into a shell-loading plant that pressed tetryl pellets for Navy anti-aircraft ammunition, growing from about 126 workers to more than 500; an explosion hit its pellet houses on September 6, 1942.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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Hesslein and Company buys the Belle-Vue mill, ending local ownership
Belle-Vue Manufacturing Company had been run from Hillsborough since 1904, lately under L. E. Beard. In 1945 Hesslein and Company bought it and spent over half a million dollars on new machinery and on baths for the mill village houses.
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The former Alberta mill reopens as Carrboro Woolen Mills
After fifteen idle years the modernized Mill No. 4 building reopened as Carrboro Woolen Mills, which ran until the early 1960s.
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The National Munitions plant in Mill No. 7 closes
The shell-loading plant that National Munitions Corporation had run in Mill No. 7 since 1942 closed in August 1945. At its peak it employed 1,600 people, many of them former mill hands assembling anti-aircraft rounds, and it won the Army-Navy E award for production three times.
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Local 403 petitions for student support in a campaign over university wages
After the legislature approved a 20 percent raise for state employees and the university dropped a wartime bonus, Local 403 workers circulated petitions and flyers asking students for support. Under shop steward Rebecca Clark laundry workers won wage increases, safer workspaces and better schedules.
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The Orange Hosiery Mill starts at Efland
Opened in 1947, the Orange Hosiery Mill was the only one of Efland's four family hosiery plants under corporate ownership. Together the four employed about 100.
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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.
- 1950s
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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.
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Eno Mill becomes part of Cone Mills
The subsidiary joined the Greensboro textile corporation.
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The Tar Heel Hosiery Mill starts at Efland
The newest of the Efland family hosiery plants, the Tar Heel Hosiery Mill, began in 1952 making full-fashioned hose.
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The Bellevue mill employs 355 workers on two shifts
In 1953 the mill had 355 workers on two shifts, and the company still owned its mill village, whose houses now had indoor plumbing.
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Pacific Mills closes its Carrboro woolen mills
Pacific Mills, which had reopened Mill No. 4 as Carrboro Woolen Mills in 1945 and later bought the idle Mill No. 7, shut the woolen operation in the mid-1950s. By then the university and nearby businesses had taken industry's place as Carrboro's employers.
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The Bellevue company's stock is worth $219,600, well under half its 1926 value
Still listed under the Bellevue name in 1955, the company had stock valued at $219,600, with 14,712 spindles and 499 looms.
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Eno Mill houses are relocated
Most company houses moved into nearby neighborhoods.
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Workers at the Reverie Lingerie plant in Hillsborough go on strike for a union
Employees of Reverie Lingerie, a New York-owned undergarment plant opened in Hillsborough in 1955, walked out and set up a picket line to win recognition for the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. The company asked for a labor board election, which the union opposed, and the strike lasted about six months.
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Fire destroys the old West Hillsboro School, then a mill-owned apartment house
About 11:30 on a Monday night the three-story frame building that had been the West Hillsboro School, later made into 13 apartments, burned to the ground. A taxi driver saw the flames and woke the five people inside, who escaped.
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An explosion and fire destroy the strikebound Reverie Lingerie plant
On a Friday night an explosion and fire wrecked the Reverie Lingerie plant, ending the six-month strike and the jobs of about eighty workers. The paper counted a lost local payroll of about $173,000 a year.
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The Bellevue mill village is platted and its houses sold to private owners
After the mill company had been sold by 1956, its village was surveyed into lots in 1958 so the houses could be sold. Unlike the Eno mill houses, which were carried off to new sites, the Bellevue houses stayed where they were, which is why the village keeps its original streets but has irregular lot lines.
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Duke Power dismantles its Eno steam plant
Duke Power sold most of the equipment of its standby steam plant in Eno Township to the Sid Rancer Company, a junk dealer, for $30,500 before January 1, 1960, and tore down six of the twelve company houses. The county lost several hundred thousand dollars in tax valuation.
- 1960s
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A mill house is moved from South Wake Street to West Orange Street
The small house at 330 West Orange Street, built around 1941, is a mill house moved in the 1960s from the 200 block of South Wake Street.
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James J. Freeland develops Holiday Park with a swimming pool
In the 1960s Freeland built Holiday Park northwest of town, a development with its own pool and other amenities; some of its houses were former Eno Mill village houses moved to the site.
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The Bellevue mill changes hands and runs as Hillsboro Mills
In the 1960s the mill was sold to investors from the Northeast, and trade directories list it as Hillsboro Mills.
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The open court in the middle of the Bellevue mill is roofed over for storage
For more storage, the owners roofed the space inside the U-shaped mill with open-web steel trusses running from the main mill to the weaving room and closed its east side with a new wall, removing the 1923 stair tower.
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Cone Mills honors Eno plant workers, most of them women, for fifty years at the mill
At the Eno Plant's seventieth anniversary celebration in Hillsborough, Cone Mills recognized at least six of its 385 employees for fifty or more years of work at the mill, five of them women.
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UNC food workers' strike
On February 23, 1969 food service workers at UNC's Lenoir Hall left their counters and sat down at the cafeteria tables, and by the next morning nearly 100 dining hall employees had refused to report for work. The strike ended on March 21 when the University agreed to raise the hourly minimum from $1.60 to $1.80, pay roughly $180,000 in back wages, and appoint a Black supervisor.
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UNC hands campus dining to the SAGA Food Service contract
Two months after settling the spring strike the University signed a contract with SAGA Food Services on May 19, 1969, ending its own management of campus dining. SAGA laid off many temporary and part-time workers within weeks, which set up the second strike that autumn.
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UNC foodworkers strike a second time
About 250 of UNC's 275 cafeteria workers, organized as the UNC Non-Academic Employees Union, struck SAGA Food Services on November 7, 1969 over pay, job reclassification, and the firing of workers for union activity. They voted on November 21 to affiliate with AFSCME, and the strike was settled in December after Ralph Abernathy visited the strikers and Black students from across the state threatened to converge on the campus.
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Striking SAGA cafeteria workers vote 94 to 26 to join AFSCME
In the strike's third week the full-time SAGA food service workers marched from a noon rally at Wilson Library to the Student Union and voted 94 to 26 for representation by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. SAGA's regional director said mediation with the union would begin that weekend.
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Two union officials and a striking worker are arrested at Lenoir Hall; Chancellor Sitterson pledges to subsidize workers SAGA does not rehire
On the strike's 24th day two union officials and a striking worker were arrested at Lenoir Dining Hall in the morning. Later that day Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson said the University would subsidize any workers SAGA did not rehire, after efforts to revive negotiations had stalled on the rehiring question.
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Police charge pickets at Lenoir Hall; nine are arrested and four hurt
About 25 police charged a group of pickets and sympathizers at the north end of Lenoir Hall when they did not disperse. Nine people were arrested, including AFSCME official Gene Gore and graduate student John Wheeler, and four were treated at Memorial Hospital. The next day Mayor Howard Lee announced that town police were being withdrawn from the strike scene.
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The 31-day SAGA strike is settled
Union and management reached a settlement on Monday morning and the workers approved the contract unanimously, returning to work the next day. The contract ran to June 30, 1970 and provided job classification, seniority, a minimum four-hour day, ten paid holidays, ten sick days, an end to split shifts and a no-strike clause; the University promised to find jobs for the more than 50 workers SAGA planned to phase out by February 1, 1970.
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Eight men charged during the cafeteria strike appear in Orange County District Court
Howard Fuller of Malcolm X Liberation University, two of its students, AFSCME official Gene Gore and four others charged with disorderly conduct, riot, failure to disperse or interfering with officers during the strike appeared before Judge D. M. McLellan, who continued the cases to January 7, 1970 at the defendants' request.
- 1970s
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The former Bellevue mill is sold again and runs as Falk Fibers and Fabrics
In the 1970s northeastern investors bought the mill again; directories list it as Falk, Fibers, and Fabrics, with a dyeing and finishing subsidiary at the same site.
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UNC student strike of
After the Kent State shootings and the invasion of Cambodia, UNC students began a class boycott on May 5, 1970, and more than 4,000 people marched through downtown Chapel Hill the next day. Classes were not cancelled; the faculty instead voted to let striking students take grades on work completed or finish courses later.
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Student Government's 'The Strike Continues?' release turns the strike toward canvassing and calls a Memorial Hall teach-in
Tom Bello's Student Government press release declared that rallies alone would not end the war and redirected the strike, which it said now involved well over half the student body, toward canvassing, petitions and visits to Congress. It announced a faculty panel on the war for 3 p.m. Monday, May 11 in Memorial Hall with Samuel Wells, James Leutze, Andrew Scott, Daniel Pollitt and David Lapkin.
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Residents campaign to save Carrboro's former textile mill from demolition
When the vacant former Alberta mill was to be torn down in the mid-1970s, Frances Shetley and other Carrboro residents circulated a petition against its demolition. Shown the petition, the owner said he would sell the mill instead, and it became Carr Mill. The mill, the depot and the brick grist mill were nominated together to the National Register of Historic Places in June 1975.
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The Southern Oral History Program is founded
UNC's Southern Oral History Program was founded in 1973 under historian Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, its founding director until 2011, and was first housed in the history department. Its interviews with Southerners, now more than 7,500 recordings kept in Wilson Library, include many Chapel Hill and Orange County narrators.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
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The idle Carrboro depot is converted into The Station
Lee Epting restored the idle Carrboro depot and opened it as The Station restaurant, which was operating by April 1976. By the late 1970s The Station was also a bar with live bands.
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The Alberta Mill complex is listed on the National Register
The mill, the railroad depot and the brick grist mill were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places, a year after the 1975 nomination made during the fight over demolishing the mill.
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Carr Mill Shopping Village opens in Carrboro's renovated mill
Carr Mill Shopping Village, a shopping center built inside Carrboro's renovated former textile mill, was scheduled to open on May 1, 1977, with ten retail stores, a Harris Teeter supermarket and a Revco drug store. By that September it advertised about 25 businesses; the complex is now known as Carr Mill Mall.
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Steven Fisher and Marcia Hawk move a threatened mill house to their Maple Avenue lot
The one-story house was to be torn down for an Andrews-Riggsbee Hardware expansion. The couple set it behind their own mill house at 202-A Maple Avenue and joined the two with a small room so they qualified as condominiums.
- 1980s
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A mill-style house is moved from Churton Street to North Hassell Street
A one-story frame house of about 1910, built like the town's early twentieth-century mill housing, was moved in the 1980s from a lot facing Churton Street just south of the New Orange County Courthouse parking lot to 310 North Hassell Street.
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Chapel Hill brings public housing under direct town control after a rent strike
After a rent strike and other problems in the 1980s, the town council took over public housing from a separate housing authority and ran it as a town department. Chapel Hill and Shelby are the only North Carolina municipalities with that structure.
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UNC housekeepers present grievances to the Physical Plant
Thirty Physical Plant housekeeping assistants gave director Claude Swecker a list of grievances in Berryhill Hall, including the rehiring of Gene Alston, an organizer they said had been fired for organizing. On April 2 Swecker granted two concessions to about sixty housekeepers.
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A former mill house at 203 Weaver Street is renovated as offices
In 1981 the old mill house at 203 Weaver Street was rehabilitated for office use, one of the early private preservation projects in central Carrboro.
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Anna and Larry Hayes restore the old Lloyd grist mill as the Broad Street shop
The Hayeses bought the brick mill, long a Johnson-Strowd Furniture warehouse, and restored it to federal preservation guidelines as a wine and cheese shop named for the street that once ran in front. They rebuilt the lost loading dock and set stained glass in the arched openings.
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Eno Mill closes
Textile production ended at the Hillsborough plant.
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The Carrboro Commercial Historic District is listed in the National Register
On June 20, 1985 the National Park Service listed the Carrboro Commercial Historic District in Carrboro in the National Register of Historic Places.
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The Thomas F. Lloyd Historic District is listed in the National Register
On August 14, 1986 the National Park Service listed the Thomas F. Lloyd Historic District in Carrboro in the National Register of Historic Places.
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Gold family acquires Eno Mill
The property became a business center with varied tenants.
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The Faucette mill and coach house join the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Faucette mill and coach house on the Eno on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
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Weaver Street Market opens
Weaver Street Market, a cooperative grocery owned by both its customers and its workers, opened in Carrboro in June 1988. Start-up money came from a Center for Community Self-Help loan, a $200,000 Community Development Block Grant from the Town of Carrboro, and shares and loans from local supporters.
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Faucett Mill and House, also called Chatwood, is listed in the National Register
The Faucett Mill and House, known as Chatwood, joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
- 1990s
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UNC Housekeepers organize for pay and respect
UNC housekeepers formed the Housekeepers Association in 1991 and brought a class-action discrimination suit against the University over pay, advancement and treatment. Led by Marsha Tinnen and Barbara Prear, they signed a settlement with UNC on November 26, 1996, that brought raises, a career training program and monthly meetings with administrators.
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UNC Housekeepers’ settlement is reached
UNC administrators and leaders of the UNC Housekeepers Association signed a mediated agreement on November 26, 1996, meant to end the housekeepers' 5 1/2-year-old discrimination suit. Housekeepers had approved it 212 to 1; it included back pay for about 340 workers, a career training program and regular meetings with administrators.
- 2000s
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Flynt Fabrics and Finishing closes the former Bellevue mill
The shutdown of the Flynt Fabrics and Finishing Company, successor to the Bellevue Manufacturing Company, in 2000 followed the Eno mill's 1984 closing and dealt Hillsborough a second economic blow. The mill buildings still stand between the town and West Hillsborough.
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The Bellevue mill joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Belle-Vue Manufacturing Company mill in West Hillsborough on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
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The Bellevue Manufacturing Company is listed in the National Register
On August 28, 2003 the National Park Service listed the Bellevue Manufacturing Company in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
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UNC Libraries opens the exhibit Slavery and the Making of the University
University archivists mounted an exhibit on the enslaved and free Black people who built and served the early university, including cabinetmaker Thomas Day and poet George Moses Horton.
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Gold Park opens on Dimmocks Mill Road
The twenty-acre Gold Park, with walking paths, footbridges, a dog park, a soccer field and three picnic shelters, opens on Dimmocks Mill Road in 2007. It takes in the baseball field long tied to the Eno Mill.
- 2010s
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The Eno Cotton Mill joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Eno Cotton Mill in West Hillsborough on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
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The Eno Cotton Mill is listed in the National Register
On September 1, 2011 the National Park Service listed the Eno Cotton Mill in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
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The North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls at Efland joins the Study List
Orange County submitted the Study List application for the former Efland home with the owner's knowledge, and the committee approved it with the other central region requests on February 9, 2017. A member asked whether the grounds had been assessed for archaeology; none had.
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The North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls is listed in the National Register
On January 25, 2018 the National Park Service listed the North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls near Efland in the National Register of Historic Places.
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Schley Grange Hall near Hurdle Mills joins the Study List
Staff proposed the grange hall as eligible for its place in the social history of the area. With no questions from members or the audience, the committee approved it by a 7-0 roll call vote on October 11, 2018.
- 2020s
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Carrboro backs a study of turning the old University Railroad line into a greenway
The Town Council unanimously approved an agreement to study converting the 11-mile rail corridor, which still carries coal to UNC's cogeneration plant, into a multi-use trail once the plant stops using coal.
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Drakeford Library Complex opens
Orange County's Southern Branch Library opened in February 2025 in the $42 million Drakeford Library Complex at 203 South Greensboro Street in Carrboro, replacing the Carrboro Cybrary, which had closed on January 31, 2025. The building, named for Robert Drakeford, Carrboro's first Black mayor, also houses town recreation offices and WCOM Radio.
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