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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,531 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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6 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,531 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–6.Back to highlights

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6 dated events
1920Early twentieth century
  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  2. Contractor Charlie Lee Martindale builds his own bungalow on East Franklin Street

    Construction or physical change · Martindale House, 1518 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill

    Martindale, credited with many of the brick stores on Franklin Street and with the Gimghoul Castle, built the house at 1518 East Franklin Street on about two acres then outside town and did its interior woodwork himself. The Durham road first ran behind the house.

    People: Charlie Lee Martindale

  3. Engineering professor Ralph Trimble and his wife Hazel move into their new Gimghoul house

    Construction or physical change · 232 Glandon Drive, Chapel Hill

    Ralph M. Trimble, the UNC engineering professor who surveyed the lots of the Gimghoul subdivision, and his wife Hazel move into one of its first houses, built by contractor Charlie Martindale on Glandon Drive.

    People: Charlie Lee Martindale

    Subject: Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood

  4. Charles Martindale builds a bungalow in the Gimghoul colony for attorney L. J. Phipps

    Construction or physical change · 723 Gimghoul Road, Chapel Hill

    Contractor Charles Martindale nears completion of a Craftsman bungalow in the Gimghoul colony for Chapel Hill attorney L. J. Phipps and his wife Vivian. Its floor-length windows and front terrace are noted in later surveys.

    People: Charlie Lee Martindale

    Subject: Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood

  5. The Order of Gimghouls begins building its castle

    Construction or physical change · Gimghoul Castle, 746 Gimghoul Road, Chapel Hill

    Work on the Gimghouls' castle off the end of Gimghoul Road began in 1925: some 1,300 tons of stone were hauled to the site, stonemasons came from the Waldensian settlement at Valdese, and Chapel Hill builder Charlie Lee Martindale was general contractor. The order held its first gathering there in May 1926.

    People: Charlie Lee Martindale

    Subject: Gimghoul Castle and neighborhood

  6. Contractor Charlie Lee Martindale opens an airfield north of Chapel Hill

    Chapel Hill

    Martindale bought a 50-acre plot from philosophy professor Horace Williams and laid out an airfield he called Martindale Field. By 1931 it was known as the Chapel Hill airport.

    People: Henry Horace Williams

    Subject: Horace Williams Airport

  7. The Commerce Department puts Martindale's Chapel Hill airport on its air maps

    Chapel Hill

    C. L. Martindale, owner and manager, reported that the Department of Commerce had placed the independently owned Chapel Hill airport, two miles north of town, on its official air maps. The field measured 2,200 by 2,500 feet, and its hangar held three small planes.

    Subject: Horace Williams Airport

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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