Search and filters
Search and filters · 1 active
667 dated events match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 401–600 of 667, 200 to a page.Back to highlights
Entries
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
- 1950s
-
Architect John B. Webb joins his brother James in Chapel Hill
John B. Webb, also Berkeley-trained and shaped by William Wurster, practiced alongside his brother in Chapel Hill from 1952 to 1957. The two are credited with bringing the regional modernism of the San Francisco Bay area to the town.
-
Jim Webb designs a Contemporary house on Laurel Hill Road for psychologists Louis and Thelma Thurstone
The low L-shaped house has vertical wood siding, a hipped roof with wide eaves and a carport joined by a screen porch; Ellington & Sparrow built it. Webb counted it among his firm's best work.
-
Orange County sells $250,000 in bonds for a new courthouse
The courthouse bonds brought the county's net bonded debt to $1,378,000 at the end of 1952. The new courthouse was then rising beside the old one on the same axis, sharing a courtyard.
-
The county builds the classroom building and cafeteria later used by A. L. Stanback School
A classroom building and a cafeteria on the Hillsborough campus that became A. L. Stanback School, the grades 6-7 school by 1983, date from 1952 under Superintendent G. Paul Carr.
-
North Carolina Memorial Hospital opens
North Carolina Memorial Hospital opened to patients on Tuesday, September 2, 1952, without a formal ceremony, as the core of the new University Medical Center. Its opening allowed the UNC School of Medicine to grow from a two-year program into a four-year school.
-
Architect Edward Waugh designs a house for Dr. C. G. Thomas on Morgan Creek Road
Edward (Terry) Waugh of the State College School of Design drew several of the first Morgan Creek Hills houses for doctors who came to teach at the enlarged medical school. His 1953 house at 408 Morgan Creek Road, for surgery professor C. G. (Tim) Thomas and his wife, is a small side-gabled house of long red Norman brick and redwood that steps down its slope.
-
The Webb brothers build a small two-level house for Ruth Price in Westwood
University instructor Ruth Price, on a tight budget, hired James and John Webb in 1953 to build her house at 4 Briar Bridge Lane, a steep corner lot in the older Westwood subdivision. The book ranks it among the smallest and best of the Webb houses; its main floor centers on a skylit living room with a built-in study nook.
-
Milton Julian wins the right to build his modernist house on Ledge Lane
When W. C. Coker's chosen architect, Walter D. Toy, refused to approve the plans for clothier Milton Julian's house on Ledge Lane, designed by George Matsumoto of the State College School of Design, Milton and Virginia Julian sued on September 30, 1953; Coker's executors, his widow and neighbors Cornelius and Beulah Cathey opposed them. The North Carolina Supreme Court held on June 4, 1954 that the approval clause was personal to Coker and ended at his death in June 1953, and the International Style house was finished by November 1956.
-
A Modernist split-level with a butterfly roof is built on Fern Lane for Thomas H. Darden
The post-and-beam house has clerestory windows, vertical wood siding and a flat-roofed carport. Oral tradition credits the design to Jim Webb.
-
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.
-
Franc Sidler meets Troy and Robin Andrews on their farm and sketches a house for it
In the summer of 1954 the Swiss architect Franc Sidler, a guest of anthropologists renting a small house on the Andrews farm, met Troy and Robin Andrews there and drew a floor plan for a house they might build later. The sketch grew into the house finished on the farm in 1967.
-
William Sterling Roulhac dies and leaves the Ruffin house to his wife Charlotte
William Sterling Roulhac died and left the property to his wife, Charlotte Trant Roulhac, who owned it when the town of Hillsborough began negotiating to buy it for government offices.
-
Dr. Robert Murphy and his wife move into the Peter Taylor house on King Street
Dr. and Mrs. Robert Murphy moved from Chapel Hill into the Peter Taylor house on King Street in Hillsborough, and Mrs. M. B. Roberts gave a tea to welcome them. The Murphys went on to restore the house, later known as Seven Hearths.
-
Two forgotten graves in a Noble Street backyard come to light
A neighbor noticed two weathered, unlettered tombstones under oak trees in the backyard of 108 Noble Street, and the News Leader could not learn whose graves they were. Alice Noble recalled the land as the old Castlebury place and a log cabin that once stood nearby.
-
The county board ends the supervisor post for its Black schools under a new state staffing rule
In 1955 the state began allotting a county one supervisor per hundred teachers. The schools Norma Snipes supervised had fewer teachers than that, so the board ended her post and made her a primary teacher at Efland-Cheeks School.
-
Charles Blake and his wife buy the Coach House and rename it Chatwood
Charles Blake, a retired MIT professor who banded birds as a hobby, and his wife bought the Faucett House tract in 1956 and named it Chatwood for their interest in birds. In the 1950s they began the rose and perennial garden that became a noted heritage rose garden.
-
Don Stewart becomes James Webb's partner in City Planning and Architecture Associates
Don Stewart, an Ohio native, worked for James Webb while studying planning at UNC. Once licensed in 1956 he became Webb's partner, and the practice was renamed City Planning and Architecture Associates; Stewart brought Frank Lloyd Wright's organic ideas to its Chapel Hill houses.
-
Don Stewart designs the Kai Jurgenson House on Whitehead Circle
Stewart's 1956 house for Kai Jurgenson at 410 Whitehead Circle, one of his early works, blends Bay area regional modernism with the restrained domestic style of Walter Gropius's Harvard circle. The book notes that it won an award.
-
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.
-
The Susan Graham memorial fountain is moved from Franklin Street to the edge of Coker Arboretum
The 1922 memorial fountain was taken from the Franklin Street curb near the Methodist church and set up at the edge of Coker Arboretum near Morehead Planetarium.
-
Fire guts Dr. Marion B. Roberts's house at King and Hassell streets
An early-morning fire gutted the two-story house of Dr. and Mrs. Marion B. Roberts on the corner lot at West King and Hassell streets. The News of Orange County called it the worst fire in the Hillsboro Fire Department's history; firemen fought it for more than four hours in sub-freezing weather.
-
A Webb-designed house is built for Bob and Josie Stipe in Highland Woods
The Stipe House at 1022 Highland Woods, built in 1957, sets a post-and-beam frame living floor over a masonry lower level on a lot that slopes sideways to the street, with the kitchen at the front open to the living room. The book uses it as its model modernist house and says it cost about $10 a square foot, against $12 to $15 for a traditional house.
-
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.
-
Jim Webb designs a Contemporary Ranch on Pine Lane as a retirement home for Fred and Josephine Weedon
Ellington & Sparrow built the open-plan house on a slope with an exposed basement at the back. The Weedons' daughter Josie and her husband, preservationist Bob Stipe, later lived there for many years.
-
The county takes bids for a gymtorium and twelve classrooms at Central High School
H. F. Mitchell Construction Company was low bidder for two buildings at Central High, a twelve-classroom addition and a gymtorium seating about 1,200, designed by Archie Royal Davis. The whole project came to $266,094, and the gymtorium was nearly finished in February 1958.
-
The Orange County Historical Museum opens
The Hillsborough Garden Club, led by Mrs. Clarence Jones, founded the Orange County Historical Museum, which opened in November 1957 on the second floor of the 1845 Orange County Courthouse after the county commissioners approved the space and gave $250. The museum moved to its Churton Street home in 1983.
-
Central High's new gymnasium is finished after the fire
After the main building of Central High School burned in 1958, Archie Royal Davis designed a new school building and a gymnasium for the site; the gymnasium was finished in late 1958.
-
Engineer Bob Anderson joins City Planning and Architecture Associates
Engineer Bob Anderson joined the Webb and Stewart firm in 1958 and later became Stewart's partner.
-
Central High School burns
On the morning of February 14, 1958, fire destroyed the 1936 main building of Central High School, Hillsborough's high school for Black students, including its office, auditorium and several classrooms. Students moved into a newly built structure meant for junior high use, and a new main classroom building designed by Archie Royal Davis went up on the site in 1958.
-
The school board orders a new main building for Central High on the day of the fire
The night the old Central High building burned, the county board set aside $214,892 for a new 18-classroom building designed by Archie Royal Davis's firm. Construction went on through 1958.
-
The Hillsboro post office moves into Fred Cates's new building on South Churton Street
The post office moved to a new air-conditioned building by the Eno at the south edge of town, which Fred Cates built for about $25,000 and leased to the government over the objections of the mayor and town board. It was dedicated on August 9 before about 200 people.
-
The Ackland Art Museum opens
UNC dedicated the William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center on September 20, 1958, the morning after a preview for faculty. Ackland had left his bequest to Duke, which refused it, and nine years of litigation sent it to Chapel Hill; the Georgian building held galleries, an art library, classrooms, studios and offices.
-
Chapel Hill Public Library opens
Chapel Hill's first public library held its formal opening on December 15, 1958 in the east wing of the Hill House on West Franklin Street, with about 4,500 books, 2,000 of them lent by state and regional libraries. It moved to its own building at 523 East Franklin Street in 1967 and to Pritchard Park in 1994.
-
Archie Royal Davis's new main building for Central High goes up
After the 1958 fire, Archie Royal Davis designed a two-story, flat-roofed brick main building and a barrel-roofed gymnasium for Central High School. The main building went up in 1959-60; the campus is now Hillsborough Elementary.
-
Community Church dedicates its first building
The building housed worship, classes, and offices.
-
Mary Claire Engstrom and her husband buy the Nash-Hooper House in Hillsborough
In 1959 Mary Claire Engstrom, who had earned a UNC doctorate in English literature in 1939, and her husband, UNC French professor Alfred G. Engstrom, bought the Nash-Hooper House in Hillsborough. From then on she turned her research to the history of Hillsborough and its surroundings.
-
The Masonic Hall on West Franklin Street is torn down for a department store parking lot
The Masonic Hall at Church Street was razed and its ground paved as a parking lot for the Belk-Leggett store next door.
-
The county school board sells the old Carrboro School to the Town of Carrboro
After the new Carrboro elementary school opened, the Orange County Board of Education accepted the town's $30,000 bid, the only one at an August auction, for the empty 14-classroom building and auditorium on West Main Street. The town planned to make it a municipal building, and voters approved a $95,000 bond issue for the purchase and renovation on March 19, 1960.
-
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.
- 1960s
-
A vocational building is added at Central High School
Between 1960 and 1962 the county added a one-story, flat-roofed, brick-veneered vocational building with metal awning windows to the Central High campus in Hillsborough.
-
Architect Arthur Cogswell designs his own house on Marilyn Lane
Cogswell's 1960 house at 5 Marilyn Lane sits on two levels in a slope, planned on George Matsumoto's four-foot grid and sided in vertical pine, with a short bridge from the drive to the door and a living room under a row of small glass-ended gables. It won an award from the North Carolina chapter of the AIA.
-
Architect Wade Williams builds a Wright-influenced house for himself on Whitfield Road
Durham architect R. Wade Williams designed a flat-roofed Modernist house with exposed-aggregate block walls and dark-red board siding for himself and his wife, kitchen designer Mary Louise Gunter Williams, on an eighteen-acre wooded tract northeast of Chapel Hill. Her parents helped pay for it.
-
Central High builds its "300" elementary wing
Another classroom building, the "300" wing or Elementary School building, went up at Central High from 1960 to 1962. With a vocational and band building finished in 1962, the campus reached the six buildings that stand today.
-
Don Stewart designs a Japanese-influenced house for Robert and Ruth Mace
Around 1960 Stewart's work turned toward Asian models, as in the one-level house he drew for physicist Robert Mace and his wife Ruth at 222 Hillcrest Circle, off East Franklin Street. Its wide roof overhang and the screen beside the entrance have a Japanese cast, and a tall porch shades the south side.
-
Don Stewart designs the Bowers-Nelson House in Morgan Creek Hills
Built about 1960 at 903 Coker Drive, this small house on a sloping lot is Stewart's most direct borrowing from Japanese houses. Its post-and-beam frame is exposed outside and was first painted in bright colors, and paper shoji screens slide on tracks to divide the rooms.
-
James J. Freeland remodels and sells the Colonial Inn
Freeland, who also restored and moved old buildings, owned the Colonial Inn on West King Street for a time and remodeled it before selling it in the 1960s.
-
Mrs. Erle G. Hill restores the Patterson-Palmer House with architect Archie Royal Davis
Owner Mrs. Erle G. Hill restored the Federal house on West Margaret Lane with architect Archie Royal Davis, replacing the roof, dormers, front portico, shutters and siding and returning the rooms to their first plan. By 1963 it was shown on Hillsborough's spring pilgrimage.
-
The Haralson-Strudwick House on West Queen Street is torn down
The antebellum house that Dr. Edmund Strudwick had enlarged was razed in 1960. Its brick kitchen was kept and enlarged as a residence, and a Dutch Colonial Revival house went up on the site in 1969.
-
Roland and Clara McClamroch deed the Nash house to their daughter Anna McClamroch McFall
English professor Roland McClamroch and his wife had bought the house from the Nashes and rented it to Robert and Alpha Wettach, who moved out around 1960. The house stayed in the McClamroch family until 1983.
-
The Dickson house near Hillsborough is left empty when its last tenant moves out
The last tenant left the Dickson house, General Johnston's headquarters in 1865, and the house owned by Mary R. Few stood vacant beside the new Interstate 85 interchange. In March 1961 the News of Orange reported it crumbling while a motel site next door was offered for sale.
-
Clara Jones is appointed a supervisor of the Orange County schools
Clara Jones, a Person County principal for twenty-seven years, joined the county staff as supervisor in 1961, assigned to the Cedar Grove, Efland-Cheeks and A. L. Stanback schools for Black children. After integration she ran special education testing and placement, and she retired in 1974.
-
The Field-Robbins House goes up on Timberly Drive
Doris and James Field built a Modernist house of contrasting materials and varied roof levels on their Timbercrest land in 1961 but lost it after defaulting on the mortgage. Dermatologist Jack Robbins and nurse Catherine Robbins bought it in August 1962, finished the interior and lived there the rest of their lives.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Arthur Cogswell opens his own architecture firm in Chapel Hill
Arthur Cogswell, a UNC graduate of 1952 who trained in architecture at State College and spent the late 1950s in Don Stewart's office, opened his own Chapel Hill practice in 1962, designing flat-roofed, cantilevered houses in the spare manner he learned from George Matsumoto.
-
Beta Theta Pi builds a social hall annex and remodels its house
In 1962 the chapter put up a frame social hall behind the house, enclosed the porte cochere, raised the south wing to match the north wing, and replaced the main stair.
-
Robert Burns and Brian Shawcroft design a house for Robert Work on Hillcrest Circle
Robert Burns and Brian Shawcroft designed the 1962 house at 214 Hillcrest Circle for the chemist Robert Work and his wife: two levels stepped into the hillside, a glazed rear wall, an elevated deck and a central open stair. It won a national Homes for Better Living award and a state AIA award.
-
Arthur Cogswell designs a barrel-vaulted concrete house for David Hill
In 1963 Cogswell built a concrete house with a barrel-vaulted roof at 205 Wood Circle in Coker Hills for Duke engineering professor David Hill, an example of the period's trials of new building materials.
-
Chapel Hill Town Hall is remodeled with a mezzanine over the old fire bays
A general remodeling added a mezzanine over the first-floor fire engine garage and a new stair, and the engine doors on Columbia Street were later filled with windows.
-
Governor Terry Sanford establishes the Historic Hillsborough Commission
Interest stirred by the county and town bicentennials led to the commission, whose first projects included buying and restoring the Burwell School in 1965.
-
Mary Claire Engstrom documents 122 Hillsborough sites for the Historic American Buildings Survey
From 1963 to 1965 Mary Claire Engstrom documented 122 old structures and historic sites in and around Hillsborough for the Historic American Buildings Survey. Her research helped many of them reach the National Register, including the Nash-Hooper House as a National Historic Landmark, and helped establish two Hillsborough historic districts.
-
Mary Claire Engstrom helps found the Hillsborough Historical Society
Mary Claire Engstrom was instrumental in founding the Hillsborough Historical Society, which filed National Register applications for local buildings, led walking tours and published newsletters and journals. It merged with the Orange County Historical Museum in 2007.
-
The Underwood family buys Murphey School at public auction
The school property was sold at public auction in 1963 to the Underwood family.
-
UNC completes Coker Hall and names it for William C. Coker
The university completed a new building in 1963 and named it Coker Hall for William Chambers Coker, Kenan professor of botany and long-time head of the buildings and grounds committee.
-
A bronze plaque honoring builder John Berry is placed on the Old Orange County Courthouse
A bronze plaque naming John Berry a contributor to the tradition of American architecture was fixed to the 1845 courthouse he built in Hillsborough.
-
Arthur Cogswell designs the Koch House on Clayton Road
In 1964 Cogswell designed a one-story, flat-roofed house for botany professor Arthur Koch at 401 Clayton Road in Coker Hills: a floor plate projecting from a block base, with glass walls opening to a deck over a pond. It received a North Carolina AIA award.
-
Binkley moves to Willow Drive
The congregation occupied its first permanent building.
-
Central High principal A. L. Stanback dies
Albert Leon Stanback, who came to Central as a coach and mathematics teacher and led it for more than twenty years, died after a short illness. His funeral was held in the school's auditorium. Under him the school grew to about 1,200 students.
-
Mary Claire Engstrom chairs the Historic Hillsborough Commission
Mary Claire Engstrom chaired the Historic Hillsborough Commission, a state-appointed body created in 1963, from 1964 to 1966 and again from 1976 to 1983. Her research files for the commission and other projects cover deeds, cemeteries, mills, inns, Quaker settlements and schools such as the Hillsborough Academy and the Burwell School.
-
The old Walker Milling Co. building on courthouse square is torn down
Orange County, which bought the mill property in August 1963 for $25,000, had a Wilmington contractor raze the building to clear the lot for parking. Historical groups asked the commissioners to save it, but they would only agree, by a split vote, to buy the old handmade bricks for resale.
-
Architect Arthur Cogswell adds a flat-roofed art studio to the Voitle house on Country Club Road
The low modern studio at the rear has vertical wood siding and large fixed windows, a sharp contrast to the 1930s cottage in front of it.
-
Black masons build Troy and Roberta Andrews's Sidler-designed house on the family farm
Working from plans by Swiss architect Franc Sidler, a former Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice, builder Carl Ellington and the African American masons Willis, Alfred Sr. and Alfred Jr. Barbee raised the Andrews House from stone gathered on the farm, starting in 1965 and finishing in 1967. It is Sidler's only building in the United States and one of the few architect-designed Modernist houses in rural Orange County.
-
Brian Shawcroft designs a modernist house on Davie Lane for chemist Donald A. Seanor
Architect Brian Shawcroft designs a modernist house in the Glendale subdivision for Donald A. Seanor, an English-born research chemist at the Chemstrand Research Center; it was commissioned in 1963 and dated 1965.
-
Central Elementary School is built north of West Hillsborough
Planned as a segregated school for Black pupils next to Central High School, the flat-roofed brick and concrete building designed by Archie Royal Davis was finished a few years before desegregation and then served an integrated student body. Additions followed in 1975 and during the 1990s.
-
Lucius and Nellie Cheshire buy and restore the Commandant's House
Eula Cole, who had bought the house from John W. Hill's estate in 1938, sold it in 1965 to Lucius and Nellie Cheshire. By 1972 they had restored it to excellent condition.
-
Stewart and Anderson build a new office on Estes Drive as Webb stays in the old Methodist church
In the mid-1960s Don Stewart and Bob Anderson bought a lot on Estes Drive and built a new office for the firm, while James Webb returned to the old Methodist church on Rosemary Street, the firm's former office, where he worked until he retired.
-
The Historic American Buildings Survey documents the Berry Brick House
In 1965 the Historic American Buildings Survey recorded the Berry Brick House, the earliest surviving brick house in the original town, built about 1805 for Rhody Berry.
-
Arthur Cogswell designs a pyramid-roofed house for Marion Townend
At 411 Clayton Road in Coker Hills, Cogswell designed a house in 1966 for Marion Townend under a tall pyramidal roof. A skylight at the peak lights the central living room and the rooms around it, whose light shifts as the sun moves.
-
The Mary Manning house on East Franklin Street, where Arthur Nash boarded, is torn down
Nash lodged with Mary Manning from his arrival in 1922 until his own house was finished in 1926. The house stood at what is now 507 East Franklin Street, first numbered 402.
-
Arthur Cogswell and Werner Hausler form Cogswell/Hausler Architects
In 1967 Cogswell went into partnership with Werner Hausler, an East German-born architect he had met at State College. In its early years the firm worked mostly on houses, designing many in Coker Hills, Lake Forest, Morgan Creek Hills and Glendale, and it lasted until Hausler retired in 1990.
-
Central High School becomes A. L. Stanback School
After Central High's last high school class graduated in 1968 and its older students moved to Orange High School, the school was renamed for its longtime principal A. L. Stanback and became an elementary school.
-
Don Stewart designs a house on stilts over Booker Creek for his partner Bob Anderson
Stewart's 1968 house for Bob Anderson at 601 Brookview Drive in Lake Shore Hills sets a steep-gabled living pavilion on stilts over rocky Booker Creek, linked by a raised kitchen bridge to a bedroom wing on the hillside above.
-
The old Hill House on West Franklin is condemned and boarded up after the library leaves
With the public library gone to its new building on East Franklin, the run-down Hill House beside the Baptist church was condemned and closed up.
-
Alethea Burt retires from teaching at Central High School
Alethea Burt, who had led Ridge Road School until it closed in 1951 and then moved with her pupils to teach the elementary grades at Central High School in Hillsboro, retired at the end of the 1968-69 year.
-
Arthur Cleveland Nash, UNC's architect of the 1920s, dies in Baltimore
He died at the home of his daughter Katharine and her husband, Edward Caldwell, and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
-
Cogswell/Hausler design Arthur Cogswell's second house on Elliott Road
The firm's 1969 house for Arthur Cogswell at 308 Elliott Road is a flat-roofed steel-frame building, plain and white outside, whose glass-walled rooms wrap around a terrace with a heated pool. It won a North Carolina AIA award.
-
The McCauley house, said to be part of the old Patterson inn and Nunn tavern, is razed for a Dunkin Donuts
A two-story house on West Franklin, once William W. McCauley's home, was torn down to clear the lot for a Dunkin Donuts. Bryant identifies it as an original section of James Patterson's inn, later Nunn's tavern and the John Canada School, moved here in stages from Franklin and Columbia.
-
Two wings designed by Archie Royal Davis are added to the Carolina Inn
The third major addition to the Carolina Inn, designed by Archie Royal Davis in 1969, was largely finished by commencement in May 1970. Two wings on the Pittsboro Street side held a new cafeteria, ballroom and larger kitchen and forty-five more guest rooms, and the main entrance moved from Cameron Avenue to Pittsboro Street.
- 1970s
-
James J. Freeland remodels the William Whitted House on East Queen Street
In the 1970s Freeland remodeled the William Whitted House, one of several historic Hillsborough buildings he restored or moved.
-
The Hillsborough Historical Society buys the Nash Law Office
After several private owners, the Hillsborough Historical Society bought the Nash Law Office on West Margaret Lane, the oldest law office in town. It had served as a music studio for the Nash and Kollock School until 1907.
-
The former Murphey School becomes a nightclub
From some time in the early 1970s until the mid-1980s the old school was run as a nightclub. It stood empty from 1986.
-
The old Methodist parsonage, later the Kappa Psi house, is torn down for a parking lot
A contractor demolished the brick house on West Rosemary Street that had been the Methodist parsonage and then the Kappa Psi house, turning down a $10,000 offer to move and restore it. Its owner, county commissioner Carl Smith, planned to lease the lot to the town for parking.
-
The Hazel-Nash House is listed in the National Register
On March 31, 1971 the National Park Service listed the Hazel-Nash House in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
Eagle Lodge is listed in the National Register
On April 16, 1971 the National Park Service listed Eagle Lodge in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
The Old Orange County Courthouse is listed in the National Register
On June 24, 1971 the National Park Service listed the Old Orange County Courthouse in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
The Ruffin-Roulhac House is listed in the National Register
On August 5, 1971 the National Park Service listed the Ruffin-Roulhac House in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
Ayr Mount is listed in the National Register
On August 26, 1971 the National Park Service listed Ayr Mount in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
Sans Souci is listed in the National Register
On August 26, 1971 the National Park Service listed Sans Souci in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
The Nash Law Office is listed in the National Register
On September 28, 1971 the National Park Service listed the Nash Law Office in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
The Nash-Hooper House is listed in the National Register
On November 11, 1971 the National Park Service listed the Nash-Hooper House in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
The Chapel Hill Historic District is listed in the National Register
On December 16, 1971 the National Park Service listed the Chapel Hill Historic District in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
Jon Condoret designs a Modernist house for Drs. Jerome and Jacqueline Harris
Chapel Hill architect Jon Andre Condoret, an Algerian-born graduate of the Ecole Speciale d'Architecture, designed an L-shaped brick and cedar house with clerestory windows for Duke physicians Jerome and Jacqueline Harris on a wooded tract of nearly fifty acres northeast of Hillsborough.
-
The James Tilley farmhouse is moved farther back from NC 54
In 1972 the Tilley I-house was shifted to a spot farther from NC 54, a move the report says damaged its historic character.
-
The Town of Hillsborough buys the Ruffin-Roulhac House for its town hall
The Ruffin-Roulhac House and its outbuildings, empty since the 1920s, were sold to the Town of Hillsborough in 1972. The town rehabilitated them as its town hall complex by 1975.
-
Moorefields is listed in the National Register
Moorefields was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It was the earliest listing among the six rural Orange County properties the 1993 county survey found on the Register.
-
The Commandant's House is listed in the National Register
The castellated brick house built for the Hillsborough Military Academy's commandant, the academy's only major surviving building, was entered in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
Hillsborough designates its local historic district
In the same year the Hillsborough Historic District was nominated to the National Register, the town designated a local historic district.
-
The William Rand Kenan Jr. Laboratories of Chemistry are dedicated
The university dedicated the William Rand Kenan Jr. Laboratories of Chemistry, and the chemistry faculty marked the occasion with two days of short courses on their current research.
-
Heartsease is listed in the National Register
On April 11, 1973 the National Park Service listed Heartsease in Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
The Hillsborough Historic District is listed in the National Register
The original one-square-mile town laid out in 1754 around Churton and King streets entered the National Register in 1973 as the Hillsborough Historic District. Its survey and nomination were brought up to date in 2014.
-
Residents campaign to save Carrboro's former textile mill from demolition
In 1974 the Carrboro Board of Aldermen decided the vacant former Alberta mill should be demolished to make way for a modern shopping center. Residents led by Frances Shetley petitioned against it, the owner agreed not to tear it down, and the complex was nominated for the National Register in June 1975.
-
Vandals break or topple forty to fifty monuments in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery
On the night of November 27, 1974, vandals broke or pushed over forty or fifty gravestones, and police patrolled for a week. Cemetery committee chair Shirley Marshall then faulted the town for ignoring earlier requests about ownership and repairs.
-
The Ruffin-Roulhac House and its outbuildings are fitted up as Hillsborough's town hall
After the Town of Hillsborough buys the Ruffin-Roulhac House at 101 East Orange Street in 1972, it rehabilitates the house and its outbuildings, empty since the 1920s, as a town hall complex by 1975.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
-
The Paisley-Rice log house joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Paisley-Rice log house near Mebane on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
-
Wiley and Erika Shearin buy the Faucette House and name it The Elms
Maude Faucette sold the house and about thirty acres to Dr. Wiley Shearin and his wife Erika, who shared the house with her, called it The Elms and added a one-story east wing in the 1970s.
-
Carr Mill Shopping Village opens in Carrboro's renovated mill
Carr Mill Shopping Village, a shopping center built inside Carrboro's renovated former textile mill, was scheduled to open on May 1, 1977, with ten retail stores, a Harris Teeter supermarket and a Revco drug store. By that September it advertised about 25 businesses; the complex is now known as Carr Mill Mall.
-
James J. Freeland moves the Gatewood House from Yanceyville to Daniel Boone Village
Continuing his habit of relocating old buildings to his South Churton Street development, Freeland brought the Gatewood House from Yanceyville in Caswell County to Daniel Boone Village in 1978.
-
The Hillsborough Chamber of Commerce holds its first Candlelight Tour
The Chamber of Commerce organized the first Candlelight Tour of Hillsborough's historic houses as heritage tourism grew in importance to the town.
-
The Bingham School site is listed in the National Register
The Bingham School was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, one of six rural Orange County listings the 1993 county survey recorded.
-
St. Mary's Chapel is listed in the National Register
St. Mary's Chapel, the brick Gothic Revival Episcopal chapel on St. Mary's Road northeast of Hillsborough, built in 1859 for a congregation dating to the late 1750s, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on July 12, 1978.
-
Steven Fisher and Marcia Hawk move a threatened mill house to their Maple Avenue lot
The one-story house was to be torn down for an Andrews-Riggsbee Hardware expansion. The couple set it behind their own mill house at 202-A Maple Avenue and joined the two with a small room so they qualified as condominiums.
-
The Town of Carrboro pledges $2,500 for an architectural and historic inventory
In 1979, at the Appearance Commission's request, the town committed $2,500 for a survey of Carrboro's historic buildings, seeing such a record as a basis for planning decisions. The commission hired UNC geographer John Florin to lead the work.
-
The old Samuel Phillips law office on East Franklin is enlarged as a home
A new owner, Philip Bens, bought the former law office of Samuel Phillips and doubled its floor space with a rear addition to make a more comfortable house.
-
The Paisley-Rice Log House is listed in the National Register
The Paisley-Rice Log House was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, one of six rural Orange County properties on the Register by July 1993.
- 1980s
-
A second story is added to the Hargraves Center's lower stone wing
In 1980 the one-story stone wing at the lower east side of the Hargraves Community Center on North Roberson Street was enlarged with a frame second story clad in horizontal siding.
-
An antebellum office from the Henderson Jones house is moved to Montrose
A small frame office of about 1840, built for the Henderson Jones house north of Hillsborough, was moved to the Montrose grounds around 1980.
-
Archaeological sites are added to the Hillsborough Historic District record
Additional National Register documentation submitted in 1980 identified archaeological resources within the Hillsborough Historic District; more followed in 1984.
-
Carrboro's historic buildings are surveyed
The town of Carrboro had its architectural survey in 1980, more than a decade before the rural townships around it were recorded; the report mentions it as groundwork for the county survey.
-
A former mill house at 203 Weaver Street is renovated as offices
In 1981 the old mill house at 203 Weaver Street was rehabilitated for office use, one of the early private preservation projects in central Carrboro.
-
Anna and Larry Hayes restore the old Lloyd grist mill as the Broad Street shop
The Hayeses bought the brick mill, long a Johnson-Strowd Furniture warehouse, and restored it to federal preservation guidelines as a wine and cheese shop named for the street that once ran in front. They rebuilt the lost loading dock and set stained glass in the arched openings.
-
James J. Freeland moves Poplar Hill across the Eno to South Cameron Street
Freeland, who had moved the Gatewood House in 1978, had the Poplar Hill house hauled over the Eno River from Tuscarora Drive to a new lot at 203 South Cameron Street, just south of Burnside, on the north side of the river.
-
Reviewers hold back Carrboro's Oak Avenue and Maple Avenue districts from the Study List
Four Carrboro requests from owners or interested parties came before the State Professional Review Committee on April 9, 1981. Staff asked that the proposed Oak Avenue and Maple Avenue historic districts be deferred, and the committee approved the rest of the day's Study List without them, including the Weaver House and the Old Carrboro Business District.
-
State reviewers put several Carrboro buildings on the National Register Study List
On April 9, 1981, as the inventory was being finished, the State Professional Review Committee of the Department of Cultural Resources judged several Carrboro buildings eligible for the National Register and added them to the state Study List.
-
Orange County Public Library moves to larger quarters in Hillsborough
Volunteers were sought to move the Orange County Public Library's 30,000 books from the 1934 library building on Churton Street to new quarters in the Human Services Complex in Hillsborough, the former Hillsborough High School on West Tryon Street, with the move planned for the end of December 1981. The old building became the Orange County Historical Museum.
-
The Hill House is moved to Oak Avenue and joined to the Half House
Velma Hill sold her Weaver Street corner in 1981 to Orange Savings and Loan for a branch office. A contractor split her mill house, built by Brodie Lloyd early in the century for Alberta workers, moved it to 209-A Oak Avenue, rejoined it and attached it to the Half House to meet a one-house-per-lot zoning rule.
-
Friends of Old Carrboro holds its first annual house tour
In October 1982 Friends of Old Carrboro held its first yearly tour of the town's old houses, collecting oral history about their builders and owners that the 1983 inventory later used.
-
Carrboro aldermen appoint a subcommittee to study historic district zoning
In 1983 the Board of Aldermen named a Subcommittee on Historic Districts, under its Blue Ribbon Downtown Revitalization Task Force, to look into local historic district zoning.
-
The Alexander Dickson House is moved into Hillsborough to East King Street
The late-Georgian house that Alexander Dickson owned from about 1839 was moved from its farm site near Interstate 85 and NC 86 to a lot at East King and South Cameron streets. Restored, it became the Chamber of Commerce and visitors center.
-
The Nash house is renovated, with picture windows in Mary Nash's old studio and a third-floor bathroom
Three large picture windows went into the north wall of the former studio, the rear French doors were replaced, and a bathroom was added on the third floor.
-
Law professors Joseph and Monica Kalo buy the Nash house from the McClamroch estate
The sale ended the McClamroch family's long ownership, which began when the Nashes sold them the house. The Kalos renovated it soon after.
-
The Carrboro Appearance Commission publishes the town's architectural and historical inventory
Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory, by Claudia Roberts Brown, Burgess McSwain and John Florin with photographs by Jane Hamborsky, came out in 1983. It grew from the 1980 survey of more than 150 pre-1930 buildings and covers 75 of them; the aldermen funded printing in 1981 and local businesses covered rising costs.
-
Gregory and Dale Georgiade buy the Cabe-Pratt-Harris House and rework the 1940s wing
The Georgiades bought the house and 27.3 acres from Robert Hill and remodeled the rear addition on its old footprint, replacing its metal casements with copies of the original sash and leaving the old rooms unpainted on the advice of the state preservation office.
-
The Cabe-Pratt-Harris House joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Cabe-Pratt-Harris House on the Eno near Hillsborough on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
-
Hillsborough's preservation groups form the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough
By the late 1980s Hillsborough had so many preservation organizations that the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough was created to coordinate them.
-
Richard Jenrette buys Ayr Mount
Richard H. Jenrette bought Ayr Mount, the 1815 Kirkland house outside Hillsborough, from the Kirkland family and paid for its restoration, hiring specialists to find its original paint colors and decor. It was the only house he bought in North Carolina.
-
Shingled pent roofs and Colonial Revival storefronts are added along West King Street
Around 1985 several stores on the first block of West King Street, at 103-105, 107, 109, 115 and 117, were given asphalt-shingled pent roofs, and some got replacement Colonial Revival storefronts. The 2014 survey counts these changes against most of them.
-
Nancy and Craufurd Goodwin acquire Montrose
Nancy and Craufurd Goodwin have owned and lived at Montrose since 1986. A greenhouse, lath house and pineapple-topped entrance gate on St. Mary's Road date from about 1987, and the gardens behind the house are theirs.
-
Rigsbee's Rock House joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed Mack and Julie Rigsbee's quartz-faced Rock House east of Hillsborough on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
-
James and Judy Singleton restore Rigsbee's Rock House
New owners who bought the neglected house in June 1986 carried out its one major refurbishing in 1986-87, keeping the original fabric while reworking the kitchen and upstairs baths. The rock garage became a guest apartment in 1986.
-
The state holds the Weaver House nomination until Orange County is surveyed
Staff doubted the integrity of the Carrboro log house, which had been covered in weatherboards and remodeled several times, and noted that Orange County had no architectural survey against which to judge its log buildings. On July 10, 1986 the committee postponed the nomination until such a survey was done and asked staff to suggest that the owners urge their legislators to pay for one. In January it had already withheld approval pending a staff visit.
-
A master plan for the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery is completed
The master plan, finished in 1987 and revised by landscape architect David Swanson, set goals, service levels and management for the cemetery and first called for settling its ownership. A new gazebo and lawn followed.
-
The Berry Gordon House is moved to 410 West Margaret Lane
The Berry Gordon House, built about 1899 at the northwest corner of South Wake Street and West Margaret Lane, is moved down the street to 410 West Margaret Lane in 1987. The nomination still counts it as contributing.
-
The East Orange Street house built around Edmund Strudwick's old office is raised to two stories
The house at 110 East Orange Street grew out of Dr. Edmund Strudwick's one-story office, moved there in 1889. Enlarged by 1943, it was remodeled again in 1987 with a second story, and no trace of the office remains visible.
-
The Trimble house, one of the first in the Gimghoul subdivision, is torn down
The 1924 house built for Ralph and Hazel Trimble on Glandon Drive, one of the first in the Gimghoul subdivision, is demolished, leaving a vacant lot.
-
Town of Hillsborough restores Margaret Lane Cemetery and dedicates a memorial plaque
After a restoration by the Town of Hillsborough, a bronze plaque on a large stone was dedicated at the center of the cemetery listing people known to have been buried there from before 1852 to 1931. It notes that the exact location of most of their graves is not known.
-
Gold family acquires Eno Mill
The property became a business center with varied tenants.
-
The state adds Rocky Ridge Farm and Chapel Hill Town Hall to the Study List
Acting on requests from owners and sponsors, the State Professional Review Committee on April 14, 1988 placed the Rocky Ridge Farm Development Historic District, the Laurel Hill neighborhood, and Chapel Hill Town Hall on the Study List. Robert Stipe abstained on the two Chapel Hill votes.
-
Faucett Mill and House, also called Chatwood, is listed in the National Register
The Faucett Mill and House, known as Chatwood, joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
-
Rigsbee's Rock House is listed in the National Register
Rigsbee's Rock House was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
-
Additional documentation extends the Hillsborough Historic District's period of significance into the 1920s and
A 1989 amendment to the 1973 Hillsborough Historic District nomination records changes to the commercial buildings, extends the period of significance to take in the town's growth in the 1920s and 1930s, and counts forty more commercial buildings as contributing.
-
The Holman-Gates House is moved from Person County to South Cameron Street
The Holman-Gates House, a Quaker-plan farmhouse built about 1785 in Person County just north of the Orange line, is moved to 207 South Cameron Street, beside the relocated Poplar Hill. It was enlarged in 1998.
-
The university and the state quitclaim the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery to the town
A quitclaim deed dated February 22, 1989 released the university's and the state's rights in the cemetery to the Town of Chapel Hill, settling a question of ownership open since the 1920s.
-
The Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District is listed in the National Register
On August 8, 1989 the National Park Service listed the Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
The Gimghoul neighborhood joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Gimghoul neighborhood in Chapel Hill as a historic district on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.
- 1990s
-
Cornelia Spencer Love's Laurel Hill cottage is remodeled and enlarged with a modern two-story wing
The work replaced the shingles with wood siding and added a large glassy wing with a metal balcony. So little original fabric survives that the 2008 documentation reclassified the house as noncontributing.
-
The early twentieth-century building at 110 South Churton Street is torn down
The building that had stood at 110 South Churton Street since the early 1900s is demolished in 1990, and a two-story brick building replaces it in 1991.
-
The state puts Merritt's Store, a 1920s Chapel Hill gas station, on the Study List
Members questioned whether a 1920s gas station belonged on the Study List until Robert Stipe and H. G. Jones spoke to the store's place in local social history. The committee then approved Merritt's Store with the day's other central and eastern requests on January 11, 1990.
-
Chapel Hill Town Hall is listed in the National Register
On March 20, 1990 the National Park Service listed Chapel Hill Town Hall in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
The McDade House on West Franklin Street joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Hudson-Merritt-McDade House at 113 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. It came to the committee as a public request.
-
Paul Green's writing cabin is moved to the North Carolina Botanical Garden
The 16-by-18-foot log cabin where the playwright wrote was moved to the Botanical Garden and restored when its old lot was to be sold. A Paul Green Cabin Task Force pressed for the move, citing Green's study of native plants.
-
Students campaign for a freestanding Black Cultural Center
After Sonja Haynes Stone died in 1991, students, faculty and Black athletes at UNC pressed for a freestanding Black Cultural Center named for her. Following marches in September 1992, Chancellor Paul Hardin endorsed a freestanding building on October 15, 1992, and the trustees approved a site in 1993.
-
Kelly Lally and Ruth Little survey the historic buildings of Chapel Hill Township
From December 1991 to April 1992 architectural historians Kelly Lally and Ruth Little drove every road in Chapel Hill Township outside the Chapel Hill and Carrboro limits and recorded 160 historic properties in detail, the first phase of a county-wide survey of Orange County buildings.
-
The Herndon House bungalow at Airport Road and Stephens Street is torn down
The story-and-a-half bungalow at 113 Stephens Street, sided in brown wood shingles with a porch on tapered columns over stone piers, stood until February 1992. A low stone wall and steps were left at the property line.
-
The state adds the Elms, Little Ayr Mount and Maple Hill near Hillsborough to the Study List
Public requests for three houses outside Hillsborough came before the committee on April 9, 1992: the Faucette House, known as the Elms; Little Ayr Mount; and Maple Hill. Staff raised no questions about them, and the committee approved them with the other central and southeastern applications.
-
The state adds ten Chapel Hill Township farms and buildings to the Study List
Ruth Little, co-principal investigator for the first phase of the Orange County survey, presented ten properties from Chapel Hill Township on July 8, 1992, and the National Register Advisory Committee approved all of them. They ran from the Smith-Cole House and the two Couch farms to Bethel Baptist Church and Murphy School.
-
The Colonial Revival gas station at 100 East Franklin Street is torn down
The one-story, gabled brick filling station, built between 1949 and 1960 at the west end of the 100 block of East Franklin Street, was demolished in August 1992.
-
Fire damages the store building at 119 East Franklin Street
A two-story brick commercial building of 1915-25, with crenellated brickwork and grouped upper windows, was damaged by fire in September 1992, the month the survey was finished.
-
Reviewers turn down Tinnin Plantation near Efland for the Study List
Staff recommended rejecting the plantation because alterations had cost it much of its historic fabric, and on October 8, 1992 the committee accepted the recommendation. The applicant was to be told that the investigators of the countywide Orange County survey, then about to start, would look at the property again when their work was done.
-
Jody Carter and Todd Peck survey rural Orange County buildings
From October 1992 to July 1993 Jody Carter and Todd Peck drove every passable road in Orange County outside Chapel Hill Township and the Hillsborough town limits, recording 507 buildings and complexes at least fifty years old and taking down oral history where they could.
-
Jenrette founds the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust with Ayr Mount
Richard Jenrette founded the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust with his gift of Ayr Mount, which became the first of his houses opened to the public. The trust, later renamed the Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation, came to own land around Ayr Mount including Poet's Walk and the Occoneechee Speedway site.
-
The Hamlett House at 423 West King Street burns
Fire destroys the Hamlett House at 423 West King Street in 1993, and a new house is later built on the lot.
-
The Long House at 112 North Nash Street is torn down
The deteriorated Long House at 112 North Nash Street is demolished in 1993, and a new house is built on the lot in 1998.
-
The state puts the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery on the Study List
A committee member asked how the cemetery differed from other town burial grounds that held a community's leading people. Staff answered that cemeteries had to be judged one at a time and that the cemetery's clearly bounded older sections and the importance of those buried there met the test for cemeteries. The committee approved it on January 14, 1993.
-
The state places rural Orange County houses, churches, schools and districts on the Study List
On July 8, 1993, after the survey of the rural county, the National Register Advisory Committee placed 23 rural Orange County properties on the state Study List: eighteen farmhouses and log houses, the Carr Methodist and Harmony churches, White Cross School, and the Cedar Grove and Oaks Rural historic districts.
-
UNC Trustees approve a freestanding Black Cultural Center on the Coker site
On July 23, 1993, the UNC Board of Trustees approved building a freestanding Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center on the Coker Woods site between Coker Hall and the Bell Tower. Supporters had wanted the Wilson-Dey site on the main quad, and student leaders accepted the Coker site that November.
-
The Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District is listed in the National Register
On August 5, 1993 the National Park Service listed the Gimghoul Neighborhood Historic District in Chapel Hill in the National Register of Historic Places.
-
Sunnyside, the John Berry farm, joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed Sunnyside, the farm of the builder John Berry east of Hillsborough (later the Baldwin farm), on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. It came to the committee as a public request.
-
C. D. Spangler Jr. buys the old Green-Phillips house at 513 East Franklin
After stepping down as president of the University, Spangler bought the house Walter and Anne Dellinger had owned since before 1973 and began restoring it. The house, built for William Mercer Green in the 1840s, later belonged to Charles Phillips and then served the Presbyterians as their manse.
-
Jacob Jackson Farm is listed in the National Register
The National Park Service listed the Jacob Jackson Farm, also called Maple Hill, in the National Register of Historic Places on March 17, 1994, for its architecture and agriculture. The 63-acre district on St. Mary's Road northeast of Hillsborough includes a c. 1810 log cabin, a c. 1820 Federal farmhouse and a barn built about 1855 to 1910.
-
The Few's Ford site near Hillsborough joins the Study List
The state archaeology branch presented Few's Ford, outside Hillsborough, with two sites in Cabarrus and Davidson counties, and on April 14, 1994 the committee approved all three for the Study List. The minutes record no discussion of Few's Ford itself.
-
Owens 501 Diner is honored for turning a former gas station into a diner
The Chapel Hill Appearance Commission recognized Owens 501 Diner at a Town Council meeting for the creative reuse of a commercial building, a rehabilitated gas station made into a diner. The diner was advertising for staff in all positions in November 1992.
-
An old frame store on South Hillsborough Avenue is torn down
An earlier frame store building at 219 South Hillsborough Avenue was demolished in 1995, and a one-and-a-half-story house was built on the site the next year.
-
Chapel Hill Museum is organized in the former town library
In 1995 a museum study committee proposed a town museum for the former public library at 523 East Franklin Street, and in November the town council agreed to negotiate a rent-free lease with Chapel Hill Museum Inc. The nonprofit museum opened its first exhibit to the public in February 1998.
-
The Alexander Hogan Plantation site in Duke Forest joins the Study List
The state archaeology branch presented the plantation site in Duke Forest on April 13, 1995. Members observed that such sites were not unique but were becoming rare, and that Duke's long ownership had kept this one undisturbed; the committee approved it unanimously.
-
A Lustron house on Stephens Street joins the Study List
On July 13, 1995 the committee placed the Lustron house at 109 Stephens Street in Chapel Hill on the Study List. Discussion turned to how many intact Lustron houses survived in North Carolina and whether a statewide count was needed; staff noted that intact examples in other states had been nominated under the exception for buildings less than fifty years old.
-
State reviewers back the Hogan Plantation site nomination over Orange County's objection
After a September 12, 1995 hearing, the Orange County Historic Preservation Commission found the Duke Forest site ineligible, and the county commissioners agreed, while the tract was under study for a new county landfill. That kept the nomination from the committee in October 1995 until Duke Forest appealed. On January 10, 1996 the committee heard the case, one member questioned whether landfill politics had shaped the county's finding, and it approved the nomination unanimously for the Keeper to decide.
-
The Historic District Commission approves tearing down the McDade House after a one-year delay
Chapel Hill's Historic District Commission granted University Baptist Church a certificate of appropriateness to demolish the brick McDade House, the last house still standing on that end of Franklin Street, but held off demolition for a year so preservationists could try to save it.
-
Beta Theta Pi alumni begin renovating the chapter house
Following an alumni capital campaign, work began in 1997 to bring the 1929 house up to code while keeping its plan and original materials; architect and Beta alumnus Arthur Cogswell Jr. led it, and the Betas were the first fraternity to add a sprinkler system after the 1996 fire.
Suggest a correction to an entry →
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.
