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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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13 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–13.Back to highlights

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13 dated events
1896Reconstruction and the New South
  1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
  2. John W. Canada starts the Canada School in Chapel Hill

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Soon after graduating from the university in 1896, John W. Canada organized a private school in Chapel Hill that prepared students for college. He ran it with his brother Charles, Sallie Wilson and a Miss Hendon until he left for Texas soon after 1900.

    People: Louis Graves · Charles Edward Maddry

  3. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  4. Louis Graves reports that Orange County has the state's biggest illicit distilling

    Statistic or record · Orange County

    Writing in the New Republic, Graves said North Carolina led the country in illicit still capacity and that Orange County, home of the University, had the largest distilling operations in the state, ahead of Wilkes.

  5. Louis Graves becomes the university's first journalism professor

    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill

    Louis Graves came back to Chapel Hill in 1921 as the University of North Carolina's first professor of journalism. He resigned in 1924 to give his time to his newspaper.

  6. Louis Graves founds the Orange Printshop in Chapel Hill

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Graves set up the Orange Printshop in 1923 alongside his Chapel Hill Weekly and leased it to W. M. Pugh in 1940. It printed books and magazines and set a record for delivering the state Session Laws.

    Subject: The Orange Printshop

  7. The Chapel Hill Weekly publishes its first issue

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Louis Graves published the first issue of his newspaper, the Chapel Hill Weekly, on March 2, 1923. He owned and edited it until 1954.

    Subject: The Chapel Hill Weekly

  8. Gerald W. Johnson heads the university's newly independent journalism department

    Chapel Hill

    After Louis Graves left in 1924, the university expanded journalism into an independent department with Johnson, an editorial writer, at its head. He left for the Baltimore Evening Sun in 1926.

    People: Louis Graves

  9. The Orange Printshop moves into a new brick building off Rosemary Street

    Construction or physical change · Rosemary Street, behind the Bank of Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill

    The Orange Printshop, which printed Louis Graves's Chapel Hill Weekly, moved into a new brick building made for it on the lot behind Patterson Brothers drug store. It added new presses and machinery with the move.

    People: Louis Graves

    Subject: The Orange Printshop

  10. John M. Booker offers to buy a Franklin Street lot for the new town hall

    Protest or organizing · Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    In a letter to the Chapel Hill Weekly, professor John M. Booker objected to the hurried choice of the old site and offered to buy and give a lot on Franklin Street, hoping it would start a civic center. Editor Louis Graves backed the idea and called for town planning.

    People: Louis Graves

    Subject: Chapel Hill Town Hall (1938)

  11. Citizens buy land for a Negro Community Center

    Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill

    Ten Chapel Hill men, among them Louis Graves, R. B. House and Paul Wager, signed a $1,500 note at the Bank of Chapel Hill to buy about five acres of the old Craig place at the west end of Rosemary Lane for a Black community center. The project grew out of concerns raised by the Negro Civic Club.

    People: William Chambers Coker · Louis Graves

    Subject: Hargraves Community Center

  12. Ralph H. Graves is buried in Chapel Hill

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    Ralph H. Graves, a New York editor and newspaper syndicate agent born in Chapel Hill, died at his home in Garden City, Long Island, on December 1, 1939. After a funeral there, a burial service was held at the Chapel Hill cemetery on the afternoon of Tuesday, December 5.

    People: Louis Graves · Ernest Graves

    Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

  13. Louis Graves starts a newspaper campaign to give Franklin Street a Williamsburg look

    Publication, speech or performance · Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    Feeling the business district looked shabby beside the new campus, Chapel Hill Weekly editor Louis Graves began praising Colonial Williamsburg's shops in editorials. Joseph Hyde Pratt, John M. Booker, W. D. Carmichael Jr., Collier Cobb and George Watts Hill backed the plan, and architect Archie Davis gave the planning commission watercolors showing owners how to remodel.

    People: Joseph Hyde Pratt · William D. Carmichael Jr. · George Watts Hill · Archie Royal Davis

    Subject: The Chapel Hill Weekly

  14. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  15. Louis Graves sells the Chapel Hill Weekly

    Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill

    After 31 years as its editor and owner, Louis Graves sold the Chapel Hill Weekly in 1954 to the Chapel Hill Publishing Company. He stayed on as contributing editor through 1960.

    Subject: The Chapel Hill Weekly

  16. Chapel Hill Weekly founder Louis Graves is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    Life event · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, South Road (NC 54) and Country Club Road, Chapel Hill

    Louis Graves (1883-1965), founder, publisher and editor of the Chapel Hill Weekly, was buried in the cemetery.

    Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

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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