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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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8 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–8.Back to highlights

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8 dated events
1918Early twentieth century
  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  2. The Carolina Playmakers are organized

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    Frederick H. Koch organized the Carolina Playmakers at UNC.

    Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 20 events

    People: Frederick H. Koch

    Subject: Carolina Playmakers

  3. Frederick H. Koch is hired as professor of dramatic literature

    Appointment, election or service · UNC, Chapel Hill

    Recruited by Edwin Greenlaw from the University of North Dakota, where he had founded the Dakota Playmakers, Frederick Henry Koch signed in late May 1918 at $2,500 a year to teach dramatic literature, a title he chose. He arrived that summer meaning to build a folk drama program in North Carolina.

    People: Frederick H. Koch · Edwin Greenlaw · Edward Kidder Graham

    Subject: Carolina Playmakers

  4. Frederick Koch reads A Christmas Carol in Gerrard Hall

    Publication, speech or performance · Gerrard Hall, Chapel Hill

    Koch brought his annual reading of Dickens's A Christmas Carol to UNC when he arrived in 1918. The Raleigh News and Observer described a 1919 reading in Gerrard Hall, with carols by university singing groups in the two intermissions, and he gave the reading 39 times on the UNC campus.

    Subject: Gerrard Hall

  5. Playmakers Theatre opens

    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill

    The Carolina Playmakers dedicated their theatre in the remodeled Smith Hall, the 1850s building later used as a library and law school, on Monday, November 23, 1925, with talks by Frederick Koch and President Harry W. Chase and three new folk plays.

    Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 20 events

    People: Frederick H. Koch

    Subject: Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre) · Carolina Playmakers

  6. Betty Smith comes to Chapel Hill with the Federal Theatre Project

    Life event · Chapel Hill

    The Federal Theater sent Smith to Chapel Hill in 1936 to work with Frederick H. Koch of the Carolina Playmakers. She stayed when the federal project expired, helped Koch compile American Folk Plays and took his classes for him in his absence.

    People: Frederick H. Koch

    Subject: Carolina Playmakers

  7. Betty Smith edits a collection of plays with Frederick Koch and Robert Finch

    Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill

    Smith coedited Plays for Schools and Little Theatres with Koch and Finch in 1937 and wrote a catalog of one-act plays.

    Part of The Carolina Playmakers and the founding of UNC Press · 20 events

    People: Frederick H. Koch

  8. Frederick Koch dies and is buried in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    Life event · Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

    Koch, who taught dramatic literature and playwriting at UNC for twenty-six years and organized the Carolina Playmakers, died on August 16, 1944 and was buried in the old Chapel Hill Cemetery. Samuel Selden succeeded him as chair of the Department of Dramatic Art and director of the Playmakers.

    People: Samuel Selden

    Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery · Carolina Playmakers

  9. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  10. UNC dedicates the Forest Theatre to Frederick Koch

    Naming or commemoration · Forest Theatre, Chapel Hill

    In 1953 the university dedicated the stone amphitheatre in Battle Park to Koch, who had developed the site of the 1916 Shakespeare tercentenary dramas into a permanent theatre after he joined the faculty. The stone stage and seating had been rebuilt with Works Progress Administration funds in 1940.

    Subject: Forest Theatre

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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