Chronology

UNC Press publishes Mangum's study of tenant farmer law

The University of North Carolina Press published The Legal Status of the Tenant Farmer in the Southeast by Charles S. Mangum Jr. of Chapel Hill, a 22-chapter treatise on farm tenancy law that closed with proposed reforms.

Orange County commissioners turn to professional appraisers for a property revaluation

In August 1952 the commissioners heard a representative of the Southern Mapping and Engineering Company and told county accountant and tax supervisor Ira Ward to draft a contract. By January 1953 they had decided with Ward that values would be set at current market value as of January 1, 1953, with a board of assessors overseeing the appraisers.

Dr. L. L. Vine buys the Nathan Veterinary Hospital and renames it

Dr. S. A. Nathan and Dr. L. L. Vine dissolved their partnership, and Vine, who had worked with Nathan for some years, took over the animal hospital on the Durham road as the Vine Veterinary Hospital.

People: S. A. Nathan

Ben Schreiber turns the Harry's Grill building into the Youth Center, a children's clothing store

Ben Schreiber and his wife closed their restaurant, Harry's Grill, and opened the Youth Center, a clothing store for infants and children, in the same building next to the Carolina Theatre.

The Hong Kong, an American-Chinese restaurant, opens in the former Curve Inn

The Hong Kong, advertised as an American-Chinese restaurant, held its grand opening on the site of the former Curve Inn on the Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard.

UNC cancels two football games after a player and three students get polio

The University of North Carolina called off its football games with Georgia on October 4 and N.C. State on October 11, 1952, because a player and three other students had been stricken with polio.

Hubert Robinson and Paul Wager are elected to the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen

Robinson led the five candidates with 571 votes and Wager followed with 560; Kenneth Putnam took the third seat. The Weekly noted Robinson was the second Black person elected to public office in Chapel Hill, the first since Reconstruction, and it was Wager's first run for office.

People: Hubert Robinson · Edwin Sidney Lanier

Edmund Strudwick's portrait of C. T. Council is given to the School of Pharmacy

University President Gordon Gray presented a portrait of Durham's C. T. Council, painted by Edmund Strudwick of Hillsborough, to the UNC School of Pharmacy, where Dean E. A. Brecht accepted it at a luncheon in the Morehead building.

People: Gordon Gray · E. A. (Edward Armond) Brecht · William D. Carmichael Jr.

Subject: UNC School of Pharmacy · Morehead Planetarium

Rock Hill Baptist, renamed First Baptist, holds its first services on North Roberson Street

The Black Baptist congregation organized in 1865 had worshipped for decades as Rock Hill Baptist Church on the south side of West Franklin Street. Under its pastor, the Rev. J. R. Manley, it raised $10,001 in the first months of 1952 and began a colonial-style brick church on North Roberson Street between Franklin and Rosemary streets. The first services in the $100,000 building were held on Sunday, September 27, 1953, opening three weeks of dedication services; with the move the congregation took the name First Baptist Church. By early 1954 the old Franklin Street lot stood vacant.

Subject: First Baptist Church, Chapel Hill

The Planning Board approves Muirhead's street layout around Glen Lennox

The Chapel Hill Planning Board approved new streets on the fringes of Glen Lennox, including Ayr Street, which Muirhead named, extending the colony's central road across the highway so children could reach the new Glenwood School more safely.

Carrboro adds a fire station to its town hall on Lloyd Street

With a new Ford fire truck delivered in February 1954, Carrboro finished a fire house addition to the Town Hall on Lloyd Street. In April the firemen posed in front of the new annex with all four trucks the department had owned.

Chapel Hill's aldermen adopt an ordinance setting separate sections for Black burials in the new town cemetery

The ordinance for the new Chapel Hill Memorial Cemetery on the Durham road reserved some sections for Black burials and others for other races, as the old cemetery had done. The Rev. Charles Jones of the Community Church called it illiberal in a September sermon, and the citizens' committee had urged the town to rid itself of the new Black cemetery north of town.

People: Charles M. Jones

Sophie Livas is installed as Worthy Matron of the Eastern Star chapter in Chapel Hill

Sophie Livas was installed as Worthy Matron of University Chapter 264, Order of the Eastern Star, succeeding Elizabeth Montgomery.

The Marathon Restaurant leaves its East Franklin Street building

The Marathon, a sandwich shop and restaurant in the building later numbered 115 East Franklin Street since the 1930s, gave up the building in the week before June 4, 1954. The College Cafe's owners had bought it from the J. T. Durham estate.

Subject: College Cafe

A windstorm damages the Frozen Kustard drive-in across from Brady's on the Durham road

An evening thunderstorm with winds put at 80 miles an hour struck the Durham road east of Chapel Hill. It tore two signs off the Frozen Kustard drive-in, damaged its roof and knocked down its phone booth; the wind blew Brady McLennan back through his restaurant door.

The College Cafe moves across Franklin Street into the former Marathon building

Max Yarbrough and Jesse West moved their College Cafe from the Robbins building across Franklin Street into the former Marathon Restaurant, which they had bought and rebuilt. It reopened next door to Rose's store with new equipment and seats for 40.

Subject: College Cafe

The University tears down Archer House to make room for the Ackland Art Museum

Demolition of the 47-year-old Archer House on South Columbia Street began in August 1954 and was still under way in late September. Its lot and the Roberson lot next door became the site of the Ackland museum.

Part of UNC expansion and neighborhood change · 29 events

Subject: Archer House

Harry Macklin comes back to Chapel Hill to reopen Harry's Grill in the old Campus Cafe

Harry Macklin, who had run Harry's Grill until 1944, bought the Campus Cafe two doors from the post office and reopened it as a new Harry's Grill and delicatessen. The town board granted him a beer and wine permit.

Bayard Wootten sells her Chapel Hill studio and returns to New Bern

Bayard Wootten sold the Wootten-Moulton Studio to her longtime manager T. C. Moore, who kept it running, and left Chapel Hill for her old home town of New Bern.

Chapel Hill aldermen elect Oliver K. Cornwell mayor

After Mayor Edwin S. Lanier won the Democratic nomination for county commissioner, the Board of Aldermen chose one of its own members, Oliver K. Cornwell, as mayor and elected Rogers Wade to his seat.

People: Edwin Sidney Lanier

A. D. Yates's Yates Motor Company takes over the Caston Motor Company's Dodge-Plymouth business

The Caston Motor Company, Dodge and Plymouth dealer at 419 West Franklin Street since 1946, gave way to the Yates Motor Company at the same address and telephone number in late May 1955. By October A. D. Yates was named as owner of the firm.

Mrs. Marvin Ivey reopens Ivey's Cafe in Carrboro after her husband's death

Ivey's Cafe, run for 29 years by Marvin C. Ivey and his wife, closed for eight months after his death the spring before. Mrs. Ivey reopened it herself in May 1955.

Orange County first and second graders get their second Salk shots

The district health department gave second Salk vaccine doses to children who had their first shot in the spring: in Chapel Hill on July 21 and 22 for pupils of the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Glenwood, Northside, White Cross and Little Red Schoolhouse schools, and in Hillsboro on July 27, with school buses sent to county schools. Turnout at Hillsboro was low, with only 65 children by 11 a.m.

Part of Public health in rural Orange County · 32 events

Aldermen rezone part of the Porthole lot so the restaurant can expand

Over the objections of University officials, the Chapel Hill aldermen rezoned 6,400 square feet of the Porthole restaurant's lot from residential to business use so that owner M. M. Timmons could enlarge the restaurant. It had been a nonconforming use on land zoned residential near the campus.

Milton Julian's Matsumoto-designed house on Ledge Lane is finished

The modernist house George Matsumoto designed for clothier Milton Julian and his family, which neighbors had gone to court to stop, stood finished by November 1956, when it was one of ten homes on the School Art Guild's tour of Chapel Hill homes.

People: George Matsumoto · Milton Julian

The Tempo Room, a basement beer and sandwich lounge, opens on East Franklin Street

The Tempo Room opened at noon in the basement space next to Town and Campus that had held the Baby Shop, selling beer and sandwiches in a room designed by Hank Gifford for about 75 people. J. D. Wright ran it.

Dr. John T. Sessions and his wife build a Webb and Stewart house on Morgan Creek Road

A split-level modern house designed by James Webb and Don Stewart was built for Dr. John T. Sessions and his wife in Morgan Creek Hills. It was on the School Art Guild tour of homes in the fall of 1958.

People: Don Stewart · James M. Webb

Pediatrician Judson Van Wyk builds a house in the Highland Woods cooperative

Dr. Judson J. Van Wyk, a pediatrician and a member of the faculty cooperative that bought the Highland Woods tract, planned in December 1956 to start building on his lot there. By September 1957 the town had issued permits for nine Highland Woods houses designed by architect James M. Webb.

People: James M. Webb

University Baptist Church acquires the McDade House lot next to its church

University Baptist Church voted to buy John Scott Trotter's properties beside its church at Franklin and Columbia streets for $250,000, among them the Cafe Mouza building, which was the old brick McDade House, and the Hill House. The church's later expansion plans on the lot led to the house's removal in 1997.

Subject: University Baptist Church

Frances Hargraves teaches Chapel Hill's new special education classes at Northside School

The Chapel Hill schools had begun special education classes, one at Chapel Hill Elementary School and one taught by Frances Hargraves at Northside School. The Junior Service League paid a $200 scholarship for her training.

Subject: Northside School · Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

Roland Giduz and Adelaide Walters are elected to the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen

In a heavy turnout that also re-elected Mayor Oliver K. Cornwell and approved a $500,000 bond issue, voters re-elected aldermen Hubert Robinson and Paul Wager and chose two new members, Adelaide Walters and Roland Giduz. As low man among the winners, Giduz drew a two-year term.

People: Paul W. Wager · Hubert Robinson · Oliver K. Cornwell · Adelaide Walters

Hubert Robinson is named Man of the Year

After Robinson was re-elected alderman with the highest vote on the ticket, a group of Black citizens representing churches, fraternal organizations and civic clubs named him Man of the Year and gave a reception in his honor at the Lincoln High School gymtorium on June 11.

Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

Watts Restaurant holds its grand opening on the Pittsboro highway south of Chapel Hill

The new Watts Restaurant, a concrete-block building a mile south of town on the Pittsboro highway with counter, booths and private dining rooms, advertised its gala opening in mid-August 1957 after first advertising as Chapel Hill's newest restaurant in early July.

Wes and Nancy Thompson hold a grand opening of the South 501 Restaurant under their ownership

Under the new ownership and management of Wes and Nancy Thompson, the South 501 Restaurant on the Durham highway bypass, across from the Valley Drive-In, announced its grand opening, with steaks, curb service and a tap room.

J. K. Ellis reopens his East Franklin Street grill as the Village Cafeteria

After a summer of renovation, J. K. Ellis reopened his Village Grill as the Village Cafeteria, the last step in turning the old four-lane bowling alley he had bought in the mid-1940s into a full restaurant.

La Pizza holds its grand opening on Carrboro's West Main Street

La Pizza opened on Friday, November 8, 1957, selling only pizza, in eight kinds and two sizes, under candlelight with checkered tablecloths. Chuck Gerke ran it as operator.

Chapel Hill Elementary pupils play carols with professional musicians at the school Christmas program

At the Chapel Hill Elementary School Christmas programs on December 17, 1957, directed musically by Adeline McCall, supervisor of music in the Chapel Hill schools, children playing psalteries, violins and bells accompanied the carols with two harpists, violinist Dorothy Alden and flutist Dorothy Hickok. The programs also staged the play Alias Santa Claus.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

The University's telephone system plans to double its East Rosemary Street exchange

The University-owned Chapel Hill telephone system announced a $300,000 addition that would double the size of its exchange building on East Rosemary Street, along with better party-line service. Bids for the addition were opened in March.

The Oh Boy Drive-In opens at West Rosemary and Church streets

The Oh Boy Drive-In, run by the Boy family of Durham, was nearing completion at the corner of West Rosemary and Church streets in early July 1959. It was hiring in early August and serving cars by late August.

The Chapel Hill News Leader suspends publication

The semiweekly Chapel Hill News Leader announced in its January 29, 1959 issue that it was stopping publication. The paper had gone into receivership.

Subject: The Chapel Hill News

Dwight Ray and Seaton Lloyd sell the Lloyd-Ray Hardware Store after 37 years

The partners sold the Carrboro hardware store they had opened in April 1922, long a gathering place for local politics.

People: Dwight Ray

Chapel Hill Public Library shows Bayard Wootten photographs after her death

Weeks after Bayard Wootten died in New Bern, the Chapel Hill Public Library displayed her 1930s photographs of western North Carolina, made to illustrate two UNC Press books, Backwoods America and Cabins in the Laurel.

Subject: Chapel Hill Public Library

Sandy McClamroch is elected to the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen

McClamroch, one of five candidates for three seats, was elected on May 5, 1959 with F. E. Strowd and Roland Giduz, and was sworn in with Mayor Oliver K. Cornwell the following Monday night. Campaigning, he had called for coordinating town and university planning and for bringing the university's payments for town services above the table.

People: Oliver K. Cornwell · Roland Giduz

Mayor Cornwell presses the state to widen the highways into Chapel Hill

Sworn in for a new term with aldermen F. E. Strowd and Sandy McClamroch, Mayor Cornwell wrote to the state's director of highways urging four-lane roads toward Durham and Raleigh and calling U.S. 15-501 and N.C. 54 major entrances to the university.

Chapel Hill's ABC liquor store opens in Eastgate Shopping Center

The county ABC system's Chapel Hill store opened in Eastgate Shopping Center and sold between $2,000 and $3,000 of liquor a day in its first two days, about half again the daily average at the Hillsboro store, which had opened April 10.

Chapel Hill school board refuses Stanley Vickers a transfer to all-white Carrboro Elementary and adopts a first-grade proximity policy

The Chapel Hill City Board of Education denied ten-year-old Stanley Vickers a transfer from all-Black Northside Elementary to the nearer all-white Carrboro Elementary School, and at the same meeting adopted a policy of limited integration at the first-grade level starting with the 1960-61 year. UNC law dean Henry Brandis, who had twice moved to approve the transfer, resigned from the board in protest and called the action both morally and legally indefensible.

People: Stanley Vickers · Henry P. Brandis Jr.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · Carrboro Elementary School · Northside School

White Cross voters turn down a merger with the Chapel Hill schools a second time

White Cross voters defeated a merger of their school into the Chapel Hill city district, 116 to 110, a year after Carrboro had joined it; a first vote had failed in May 1958. A third vote failed in the spring of 1960, and the county closed the school in 1961. The county board sold the White Cross property to Edmiston Realty Company for $14,900 in 1967.

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · White Cross School

Brandis returns for the Vickers hearing, then leaves the Chapel Hill school board

Brandis withdrew his August 3 resignation so he could sit at the board's hearing on Stanley Vickers's transfer request on August 31. He resigned again after that meeting, and the board named a committee to find his successor.

People: Stanley Vickers

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

Chapel Hill opens its Glen Lennox fire station

The town's second fire station, on South Hamilton Road in Glen Lennox, opened without ceremony when two pumper trucks moved in from the main station on Columbia Street. The aldermen had let contracts in February for the building, designed by Archie Davis of Durham and paid for from 1957 bonds.

People: Archie Royal Davis

Orange County commissioners give a cool reception to a Research Triangle planning request

At a special meeting, Orange County commissioners gave only a lukewarm reception to a request to help fund a land development survey for the Research Triangle area and took no action pending firm figures. The Chapel Hill Weekly reported that the county expected to gain mostly new residents and school costs from the park rather than industry, and commissioners discussed zoning the area northeast of Chapel Hill toward the Durham County line.

People: Richard Junius Mendenhall Hobbs

Ted Danziger opens the Zoom-Zoom, a carryout restaurant on West Franklin Street

Ted Danziger opened Zigger's Zoom-Zoom, a carryout and home delivery restaurant managed by Hal Sieber, a block from his Rathskeller. Its menu ran from rotisserie chicken to lasagna in casseroles.

The Chapel Hill sit-in movement forms an executive committee and retains counsel

At a Tuesday night meeting the Lincoln High demonstrators and their adult supporters organized, set up an executive committee to coordinate the lunch-counter protests and acquired legal counsel.

Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 44 events

People: Harold Foster · Hilliard Caldwell

Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

The Chapel Hill CORE Committee rejects a second truce and resumes picketing as 27 ministers back the protests

After a week-long pause the students' 12-member executive committee, led by Harold Foster, declined the Human Relations Committee's request for a second truce and resumed afternoon picketing at Colonial Drug and Long Meadow Dairy. Twenty-seven Chapel Hill ministers issued a statement commending the peaceful, non-violent picketing.

Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 44 events

People: Harold Foster · Dudley Dewitt Carroll

Chapel Hill aldermen refuse Chief Blake's picketing-control ordinance

The Board of Aldermen unanimously declined to pass an ordinance against blocking sidewalks that Police Chief William W. Blake had requested as a safety measure, saying its passage would be misread as interference with the peaceful picketing at Colonial Drug.

Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 44 events

Chapel Hill aldermen pay the town's share of the Research Triangle planning commission budget

The Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen appropriated $1,545, six percent of the $25,750 budget of the Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission for 1960-61. The commission also asked the Orange County commissioners for four percent, or $1,030.

Young and Wilkins open the Better Homes and Gardens Idea Home on Christopher Road

The 1960 Better Homes and Gardens Idea Home, built by David Curl for the Chapel Hill realtors Young and Wilkins, opened for public tours at 808 Christopher Road, across the bypass from Glen Lennox. It was the only Idea Home shown in North Carolina that year and stayed open through October 2.

Leo Eliadis closes his bus station grill and opens Leo's Restaurant on West Franklin Street

After a Duke student sat in the Black section of the Chapel Hill bus station grill in June 1961 and was arrested at Leo Eliadis's request, Eliadis shut the grill. By early September he had opened Leo's Restaurant on West Franklin Street.

Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 44 events

Black parents at White Cross ask to send their children to White Cross School

The parents of 23 Black children living near White Cross applied to move them from the Hillsboro Negro elementary school, a long daily bus ride away, to the white school in their own community. Most of the children had gone to school in Chapel Hill until White Cross voters again turned down a merger with the Chapel Hill district in 1960.

Subject: White Cross School

The county school board refuses the White Cross transfer requests

The Orange County Board of Education turned down the Black families' request, saying no reassignment had been asked for within ten days of the parents being notified of their children's school.

Subject: White Cross School

UNC moves the Mitchell family graves from the campus to the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Four graves of Elisha Mitchell's infant sons and grandsons, in the old Mitchell garden near the center of campus, were exhumed under archaeologist Joffre Coe to make room for the expansion of the university's television and communications work. They were reburied in the Horace Williams plot in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery with the Rev. Vance Barron officiating.

Subject: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery

Floyd McKissick represents the White Cross children at a school board hearing

At a hearing on the transfers, the children were represented by Durham attorney Floyd McKissick; the county board denied them again, reading a statement it had prepared before the hearing began.

People: Floyd B. McKissick

Subject: White Cross School

The school board's lawyer advises closing White Cross School rather than fight the case

A. H. Graham, attorney for the county board, told it the transfer fight could not be won and recommended shutting White Cross School instead.

People: Alexander H. "Sandy" Graham

Subject: White Cross School

Carrboro shows off its new town hall in the old Carrboro School

Several hundred people toured the renovated school at an open house. It now held the mayor's and clerk's offices, an auditorium, the public library, the police and fire departments with a jail, and National Guard quarters; the town had begun moving in that winter.

Subject: Carrboro Elementary School

The county board votes to close White Cross School and send its white pupils to Hillsborough

Rather than admit the Black children, the Orange County school board decided to close White Cross School at the end of the school year and move its 75 white pupils to Cameron Park School in West Hillsboro, a step it tied to its ten-year building program.

Subject: White Cross School

McClamroch is sworn in as mayor and Joe Page is named to his aldermen seat

McClamroch and three re-elected aldermen, Adelaide Walters, Paul Wager and Hubert Robinson, were sworn in at the Monday night meeting of the Board of Aldermen by Recorder's Court Judge William Stewart. The board named businessman Joe Page to the unexpired two year aldermen's term McClamroch left on becoming mayor, and elected Mrs. Walters mayor pro tem.

People: Paul W. Wager · Hubert Robinson · Adelaide Walters

Sandy McClamroch is elected mayor of Chapel Hill without opposition

McClamroch ran unopposed for mayor in the May 1961 town election. Before the vote he took questions from residents at a public meeting at the Negro Community Center sponsored by the Chapel Hill Fellowship for School Integration and the Civic Club, and on a WUNC radio panel, saying he wanted to improve the town's public relations and would discuss merging Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

Subject: Hargraves Community Center · WUNC radio and television

R. D. Smith is named to a new Chapel Hill Planning Board

After the whole Planning Board resigned in June 1961 in protest at the aldermen's handling of its recommendations, the aldermen named five members of a new board, among them R. D. Smith, the vocational agriculture teacher at Lincoln High School. The county commissioners named the other five.

Workmen begin tearing down Dave Neville's old store at Main Street and the railroad

Dismantling began on the frame store at Main Street and the University Railroad tracks, known over the years as Dave Neville's general store, Partin's grocery and the Carrboro Feed and Seed Store. Owner Harvey Bennett took it down at the town board's informal request, since Carrboro's fire code barred prolonging the life of frame buildings downtown.

People: Harvey Bennett

The Railway Express Agency moves its office to East Main Street in Carrboro

The Chapel Hill express office moved into new quarters at 209 East Main Street in Carrboro, with room for customers to park. Its old building on North Columbia Street was coming down for the new Orange Savings and Loan office.

University National Bank of Chapel Hill becomes part of Central Carolina Bank

The University National Bank of Chapel Hill merged into the Durham Bank and Trust Company, which took the new name Central Carolina Bank and Trust Company. Both Chapel Hill offices reopened under the new name, with O. Gordon Perry as manager for Chapel Hill.

People: Oliver K. Cornwell

Ruth Faison Shaw holds a finger-painting show in Chapel Hill

The Chapel Hill Weekly ran a page of photographs of a finger-painting show by Shaw, showing her at work and a display in a garden.

Carl Smith leads the Democratic primary for Orange County commissioner

Carl Smith of Chapel Hill topped the six-man Democratic primary for three county commissioner seats with 3,783 votes, ahead of Gordon Cleveland and Donald McDade; nomination usually amounted to election in the county.

Chapel Hill Human Relations Committee asks for a Black nurse on the district health staff

At a Chapel Hill Human Relations Committee meeting, Esther Atwater said the district health department needed a Black nurse on its staff. Chairman Dr. William Joyner said he would take the request to District Health Officer Dr. O. D. Garvin.

People: O. David Garvin

The Orange County Council on Alcoholism opens its headquarters in an addition to Calvin Burch's cabinet shop

The council's rehabilitation committee moved into a new office built onto Calvin Burch's cabinet shop on old NC 86, rented as a round-the-clock place for counseling and advice. Burch chaired the committee, which reported 54 cases in its first year there.

The Presbyterians dedicate a new sanctuary where the burned church stood

Four years after the 1958 fire, the Chapel Hill Presbyterian Church held its first service in a new $460,000 sanctuary on the old East Franklin Street site on November 11, 1962 and dedicated it a week later, the last part of a church and educational building complex.

Subject: University Presbyterian Church

Chapel Hill Planning Board reviews the Research Triangle Planning Area land use plan

The Chapel Hill Planning Board held a special meeting to review the Research Triangle Planning Commission's land use plan for the planning area, which projected population and density to 1980. The Chapel Hill Weekly described the plan as a major guide for future zoning changes and school locations.

Mrs. Troy Andrews asks the county commissioners to pave SR 1111 near Calvander

Mrs. Troy Andrews brought the Orange County commissioners a petition from residents asking them to pave SR 1111, a two-mile road between Calvander and the Union Church road. The commissioners agreed to send the petition on to state highway officials.

Subject: Bolin Brook Farm (Troy and Roberta Andrews House)

Chapel Hill Planning Board favors a large village in response to the Triangle commission's development plan

Reviewing the Research Triangle Planning Commission staff's General Development Plan for Chapel Hill to 1980, the Planning Board went on record preferring that the town grow as a large village rather than a small city. The plan also addressed subdivision layout, a collector road system and a proposed lake on Bolin Creek north of town.

People: Ross Scroggs

Orange County Board of Education closes Caldwell School

In spring 1961 the county board weighed its attorney's proposal to close White Cross and Caldwell schools. In March 1963, in the consolidation that came with the new Orange High School, it eliminated the Caldwell district and closed Caldwell School, a school for white pupils built in 1925; that May Caldwell pupils were moved into the Aycock district, and other parts of the old district joined Cameron Park. A sale of the building fell through in 1963 because the board could not give clear title, and it was not sold until the 1970s.

Subject: Caldwell School · Orange High School · Aycock School · Cameron Park School · White Cross School

Orange County completes a new Agricultural Building in Hillsborough

The county's new Agricultural Building, designed by Archie Davis, passed final inspection and the county's agricultural offices moved in. A dedication and open house were set for April 1.

People: Archie Royal Davis

Student pickets begin marching outside the segregated College Cafe

The Student Peace Union and the NAACP put pickets in front of the segregated College Cafe on East Franklin Street, saying they would keep on until it integrated. The picketing led to the forming of the Committee for Open Business that May.

Part of The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–1964 · 25 events

Subject: College Cafe

Police carry out demonstrators sitting in at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Merchants Association office

Members of the Committee for Open Business sat in and sang in the Merchants Association office on West Franklin Street to press merchants to desegregate. Police carried out 27 on trespass warrants signed by director Joe Augustine, and 34 were arrested that day in all.

Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 44 events

People: Harold Foster · Pat Cusick

Fire breaks out in the Rathskeller and spreads through its East Franklin Street building

A fire of unknown origin started in the wall behind a stove in the Rathskeller on a Thursday evening and crept through the walls of the building. Ted Danziger put the damage to the restaurant and his Old World Gift Center at about $70,000, and water stood ankle deep in Amber Alley.

Subject: The Rathskeller (Amber Alley)

Pat Cusick leads a CURED march down West Franklin Street

Sixty-eight members of Citizens United for Racial Equality and Dignity, led by Pat Cusick, marched from St. Joseph's Church on West Rosemary Street down West Franklin Street to the Carolina Grill on a Friday night, singing a few songs. A street march to the post office was planned for the next day.

Part of The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–1964 · 25 events

George Esser proposes an ordinance barring discrimination by new Chapel Hill businesses

After the aldermen declined a public accommodations law in June, Esser suggested as a private citizen an ordinance that would bar racial discrimination by businesses opening in the future, applied like zoning rules. The Board of Aldermen began considering it in August while the Committee for Open Business kept up its marches.

Part of The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–1964 · 25 events

A tobacco truck crashes into Carlton Mize's Rock Pile store

A tractor-trailer carrying 25,000 pounds of tobacco went out of control and crashed into the side of the Rock Pile, Carlton Mize's grocery on the Chapel Hill-Durham Road. No one was hurt, but the west wall was crushed and the front windows shattered.

Subject: The Rock Pile

The Bank of Chapel Hill merges into North Carolina National Bank

At the close of business on September 27, 1963, the Bank of Chapel Hill, founded in 1899, became part of North Carolina National Bank. Its office at 137 East Franklin Street made Chapel Hill the twelfth city in the NCNB system.

People: Collier Cobb Jr.

Subject: Bank of Chapel Hill

Carrboro Baptist Church remodels its sanctuary

Work on an extensive remodeling of the sanctuary began after the first Sunday in October 1963, alongside a new educational building. By September 1964 the renovation was finished and the church invited the community to see the new facilities.

Subject: Carrboro Baptist Church (Century Center)

Orange Superior Court convicts Pat Cusick and three others for the Merchants Association sit-in

A jury in Orange Superior Court at Hillsborough convicted Pat Cusick, Hope Van Riper, Charliese Pearl Cotton and Christine Glover of trespass for the July sit-in at the Merchants Association office. Cusick chose 30 days on the roads over paying the fine and fasted 17 days in protest at being placed in a segregated prison camp.

Part of The Chapel Hill civil-rights demonstrations, 1963–1964 · 25 events

People: Floyd B. McKissick