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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis.

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11 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–11.Back to highlights

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11 dated events
1930Early twentieth century
  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  2. Albert Coates establishes the Institute of Government

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    UNC law professor Albert Coates began building the Institute of Government in 1931, with police schools that September and a Carolina Inn planning meeting in December, and the Institute was formally organized and named in May 1932. Working with his wife, Gladys Hall Coates, he ran it as a private enterprise until it became part of the University in 1942; it is now the UNC School of Government.

    People: Albert Coates · Gladys Hall Coates

    Subject: Institute of Government

  3. About two hundred officials organize and name the Institute of Government

    Founding or opening · Graham Memorial, UNC, Chapel Hill

    Mayors, legislators, judges and county commissioners met at the new Graham Memorial, endorsed Coates's plan for an association of government officials and formally adopted the name Institute of Government. Junius G. Adams chaired, with Coates as secretary, and a larger meeting was set for September.

    People: Albert Coates · Gladys Hall Coates

    Subject: Institute of Government · Graham Memorial

  4. House Speaker William Bankhead dedicates the Institute of Government building

    Naming or commemoration · Hill Music Hall and Institute of Government building, Chapel Hill

    On the eve of Thanksgiving a standing-room crowd in Hill Music Hall heard Bankhead, Governor Clyde Hoey and President Frank Graham praise Coates, with eight of the state's eleven congressmen and former governor O. Max Gardner on hand. A reception followed in Graham Memorial, and guests stayed for the Virginia football game the next day.

    People: Clyde Roark Hoey · Frank Porter Graham · Albert Coates · Gladys Hall Coates · O. Max Gardner

    Subject: Institute of Government · Hill Hall

  5. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  6. The Saturday Evening Post profiles Coates as 'The Ugly Duckling at Chapel Hill'

    Publication, speech or performance · Institute of Government, Chapel Hill

    Warner Olivier's article cast Coates as the law school's misfit who had overcome objections to build an Institute admired around the country. It opened with a photograph of Albert and Gladys Coates in front of the Institute building.

    People: Gladys Hall Coates

    Subject: Institute of Government

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

    Construction or physical change · Hooper Lane, Chapel Hill

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

    People: Gladys Hall Coates · John B. Webb

  8. Recent decades · 1976–2026
  9. The Institute's former Franklin Street building is dedicated in the names of Albert and Gladys Coates

    Naming or commemoration · former Institute of Government building, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    The building the Coateses had given years and money to put up for the Institute, used after 1956 as the Consolidated University's headquarters and later by other programs, was dedicated in their name. Coates had earlier asked the School of Social Work not to name one of its new buildings for him.

    People: Gladys Hall Coates

    Subject: Institute of Government

  10. Albert and Gladys Coates publish The Story of Student Government in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

    Publication, speech or performance · UNC, Chapel Hill

    The book rested on research Gladys Coates had begun in the 1930s in the University archives, literary society records and student publications, with chapters by Albert on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and chapters by student leaders on recent decades.

    People: Gladys Hall Coates

  11. UNC awards Gladys Coates an honorary doctor of laws

    Award or honor · UNC, Chapel Hill

    At ninety-nine, Gladys Coates, who had worked beside her husband in building the Institute and spent decades researching the University's past, received an honorary LL.D. from the University.

  12. Institute of Government names a Knapp Building courtyard for Gladys Coates

    Naming or commemoration · Knapp Building, UNC, Chapel Hill

    After Gladys Hall Coates died at 100 at her Chapel Hill home on September 25, 2002, the Institute of Government named a garden courtyard and veranda beside the former auditorium in the Knapp Building's east wing in her memory.

    Subject: Institute of Government

  13. Gladys Coates dies at one hundred

    Life event · Chapel of the Cross and Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, Chapel Hill

    Gladys Coates, partner in the founding of the Institute of Government and a student of the University's history, died at a hundred. After a service at the Chapel of the Cross she was buried beside Albert Coates in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, across the road from the School of Government.

    Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Chapel of the Cross · Institute of Government

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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.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026