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- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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The Hillsboro Savings and Loan Association opens its new downtown office
The association held a public open house with prize drawings at its new office on North Churton Street, the building later known as the Hillsborough Savings Bank. Its 1950 office stayed open as a second location.
People: Ira Ward
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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
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Kenan Oil opens its new bulk plant and warehouse north of Hillsborough
Work began in September on a bulk plant and warehouse on the north side of Highway 70 behind the Phillips 66 station, and the company invited the public to inspect the finished plant and offices on Saturday, November 11.
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Godfrey's Home Supply Store moves into a new building on Highway 70
E. W. "Booster" Godfrey opened a new, larger building for his hardware, clothing and household goods store next door to his old location on Highway 70 north of Hillsboro, with Esso gas out front.
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James J. Freeland's Dixie Motor Inn opens at Interstate 85 and NC 86
The Dixie Motor Inn, owned by James J. and James Rae Freeland, opened two miles south of Hillsborough where Interstate 85 meets NC 86. It had 16 air-conditioned units and was the sixth motel the elder Freeland had built in Orange, Durham and Wake counties.
People: James John Freeland
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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.
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Roosevelt Warner is elected the first Black member of the Hillsboro Board of Commissioners
Roosevelt Warner, a masonry contractor and business owner, led the field of eleven candidates with 281 votes for the five-member Board of Town Commissioners on his second try, unseating incumbent Herman H. Strayhorn. Two years earlier he had been the town's first Black candidate, finishing last with 180 votes.
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The Committee for Open Business presses Chapel Hill merchants to desegregate
The Committee for Open Business grew out of a Student Peace Union boycott of 13 segregated Chapel Hill restaurants and first met in early May 1963 to coordinate students and townspeople. On July 19 its sit-in at the Merchants Association office on West Franklin Street ended with 34 arrests.
Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 35 events
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Charles M. Walker Jr. announces that Walker Milling Co. will close
Walker said he would close the milling business in the three-story landmark on Court Square, which his father and uncle had run for decades before he bought it after World War II, and take a job in Battleboro. He pointed to changes in the farm economy.
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Warner's Motel and Warner's Wash-eteria invite the public to see their facilities
An advertisement invited everyone to visit Warner's Motel and Warner's Wash-eteria on Highway 70-A in Hillsboro on Friday, August 2, and inspect their modern facilities.
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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)
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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
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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
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The A&P opens its first Hillsborough supermarket at US 70 and Churton Street
The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company opened a supermarket of about 10,000 square feet in a red-brick "Early American" building with a cupola and parking for 165 cars. It was the chain's first store in Hillsborough and the first major unit of the North Hills Shopping Center.
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Walker's Funeral Home dedicates its chapel at 204 North Churton Street
On its 41st anniversary Walker's Funeral Home held an open house and dedicated the chapel in its brick building on North Churton Street, finished late in 1962, honoring founder Houston J. Walker and his late wife Minnie Montgomery Walker.
Subject: Walker’s Funeral Home
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Morris Telephone Company builds a larger exchange on East King Street
As part of a half-million-dollar improvement program around Hillsborough, the Morris Telephone Company put up a new telephone building on East King Street about twice the size of the old exchange. Subscribers got new numbers on May 17, and in November the company moved its business office into the new building.
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Watts Restaurant protests
Sit-ins at the segregated Watts Restaurant and Motel on South Columbia Street began on January 2, 1964. Over the next days demonstrators were urinated on, hosed and struck with a broom handle, and Duke and UNC faculty were among those arrested. The owners held out after the Civil Rights Act and desegregated on July 10, 1964.
Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 35 events
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The Efland brothers form Efland Tractor and Equipment Company
John L. Efland Jr. and Wilson Efland took the International Harvester franchise for Orange County and formed Efland Tractor and Equipment Company, with parts and service in the front of the Efland Knitting Company building.
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Kenan Oil Company opens the Colonial Phillips 66 service station at Churton and Tryon
Kenan Oil Company held a grand opening for its new Colonial Phillips 66 station on Churton Street at Tryon, with Fred Albert as station manager and door prizes drawn Friday night. The station opened for business the next day; Odis Johnson of Mebane was the builder.
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The Civil Rights Act changes the legal ground for local integration
The Civil Rights Act, signed on July 2, 1964, barred segregation in restaurants, hotels and theaters. Within a week, testers found eight of 13 previously segregated Chapel Hill-area businesses serving Black customers, while five, including a Franklin Street beer parlor, still refused.
Part of Chapel Hill freedom movement, 1960–1964 · 35 events
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Clyde Eubanks sells his drugstore to Benjamin and Ellyn Courts, who rename it Courts' Drugs
The Courts kept the East Franklin store where it was for about two years, then moved it to University Square East in 1967 when North Carolina National Bank began expanding.
People: Clyde Eubanks
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The Occoneechee Steakhouse and a ten-room motel go up on South Churton Street
Among the restaurants that grew up around Daniel Boone Village was the Occoneechee Steakhouse, across South Churton Street, with a second small motel of ten rooms built beside it.
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James J. Freeland opens the Daniel Boone Inn and restaurant at South Churton Street and I-85
A 1966 plat of the "Daniel Boone Inn and Restaurant Tract", eleven acres lying behind the Shell station on the northeast side of the interchange, shows a pond, a general store, a restaurant later known as the D. B. Cafeteria and a long two-story motel. It was the start of Daniel Boone Village.
People: James John Freeland
Subject: Daniel Boone Village
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The Sharyn Lynn Shoppe moves into the former Village Cafeteria at 122 East Franklin Street
The Sharyn Lynn Shoppe, a women's clothing store, moved from farther along East Franklin Street into 122 East Franklin, the address the Village Cafeteria had used. The move marks the end of the cafeteria.
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Don Stewart designs the Chapel Hill Professional Village
Stewart's 1968 office complex of one and two stories rests on heavy stone supports, with covered parking and planting built into the design and a bridge through its middle that echoes Frank Lloyd Wright.
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Vic Huggins sells his East Franklin hardware store but lets it keep his name
Huggins sold the store he had owned since 1944, and Huggins Hardware ran on under new owners until Miami Subs replaced it between 1989 and 1993.
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Alexander Julian opens Alexander's Ambition on Franklin Street
At 21, while his parents were away for a month, Alexander Julian took over a Franklin Street storefront and opened his own shop, Alexander's Ambition, at the site where Julian's now operates.
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North Carolina National Bank builds a new office running from Franklin to Rosemary Street
NCNB finished its expansion with a single building, three stories tall on Franklin Street and six on Rosemary. Its Franklin frontage took in the old Bank of Chapel Hill and the stores beside it.
Subject: Bank of Chapel Hill
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The Cat's Cradle opens in Chapel Hill
Cat's Cradle opened in 1969 as a tiny basement music club near the UNC campus, named for Kurt Vonnegut's novel. After moves within Chapel Hill it settled at 300 East Main Street in Carrboro in 1993, where it became a regular stop for touring acts.
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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The Cat’s Cradle and the “Chapel Hill sound” of the
The Cat’s Cradle opened in 1969, Merge Records was founded in 1989, and by 1992 Superchunk, Polvo, Archers of Loaf and the clubs of Franklin Street had national magazines asking whether Chapel Hill was the next Seattle. The Cradle moved to Carrboro in 1993, Ben Folds Five and the Squirrel Nut Zippers followed, and Merge’s anniversary festivals and the Cradle’s 50th year in 2019 marked a scene that outlived the label hunt.
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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Fitch Lumber razes its early buildings and opens a self-service hardware store
All the first frame buildings on North Greensboro Street came down for new shops and sheds, and a large one-story hardware store was built south of the rail spur on ground once lined with mill houses.
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Don Stewart designs the State Employees Credit Union office on Pittsboro Street
Stewart's 1971 credit union building on Pittsboro Street uses stone walls and roof planes that seem to float above them, a mild form of modernism.
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Daniel Boone Village grows into an amusement park
By 1972 the Daniel Boone Recreation Park had a roller rink, an ice rink, a ski lift, a refrigerated toboggan slide, an antique car and wax museum, a fort, an amphitheater and a campground, circled by a small railroad on which costumed performers staged holdups. With relocated log cabins and false-front shops it looked like a frontier town, and Freeland was dubbed the "Walt Disney of Hillsborough."
People: James John Freeland
Subject: Daniel Boone Village
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The Woods family takes over the King Street hardware store that becomes Dual Supply
Wesley Woods, who had worked in the West King Street store when it was a Western Auto, bought the business and renamed it Dual Supply. His family ran it from 1973.
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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.
Part of From West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town, 1882–1913 · 47 events
Subject: Carr Mill
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The ArtSchool is founded
Jacques Menache, who had earned an MFA at UNC the year before, opened the ArtSchool in Carrboro in August 1974 to offer art classes. By 1978 the Carrboro ArtSchool also ran a gallery theatre, and the organization later became The ArtsCenter, which moved to Roberson Street in 2023.
Subject: The ArtsCenter
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The Daniel Boone amusement park closes and Boone Square replaces its north end
By the end of the 1970s the rides were gone, leaving only the campground, ice rink and amphitheater, and the northern part of the property was rebuilt as the Boone Square shopping center; a big-box supermarket stood on the ride site by 1983. Daniel Boone Village became a center for antique shops and restaurants, with the Big Barn Convention Center for community events.
People: James John Freeland
Subject: Daniel Boone Village
- Recent decades · 1976–2026
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Mama Dip's Kitchen opens
Mildred "Mama Dip" Council opened Mama Dip's Kitchen in November 1976 in a small, failing 18-seat restaurant on Rosemary Street in Chapel Hill, starting with $40 for food and $24 for change. The restaurant moved to a new building in 1999 and closed in July 2025 after 49 years.
People: Mildred Council
Subject: Mama Dip’s Kitchen
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Planning begins for Carrboro’s farmers’ market
UNC organizing and town funding efforts supported a formal market.
Subject: Carrboro Farmers’ Market
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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.
Subject: Carr Mill
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Clements Funeral Service moves into the old Presbyterian manse on North Churton Street
Clements Funeral Service took over the house at 148 North Churton Street, which had served as a Presbyterian manse and a doctor's office, and built a chapel beside it in 1980.
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Carrboro Farmers’ Market is established
The market dates its founding to 1979, following organizing and planning in 1977.
Subject: Carrboro Farmers’ Market
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Rose's store leaves East Franklin Street, blaming high rent
After many years in the same spot, Rose's moved out, saying inflated rent forced it to go, and Rite Aid Pharmacy took the space.
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The Long Meadow dairy property on West Franklin becomes the Courtyard shops
The old dairy site was rebuilt as the Courtyard, a cluster of shops reached by a walkway off the street, joined to the Pyewacket Restaurant.
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Wootten-Moulton Photography closes
The photography studio shut after many years at a series of locations on East and West Franklin Street.
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The Shack, a longtime beer bar on West Rosemary Street, closes
Owner John L. "Wheaties" Richardson closed the Shack at 5 a.m. after a farewell party, and by late May the building was being emptied for demolition. Before it was a bar the building had been a garage for the jitneys to the Durham train station and a bicycle shop.
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The Parks-Richmond House opens as the Inn at Teardrops
As visitors returned to downtown Hillsborough, the Parks-Richmond House on West King Street was opened as a bed-and-breakfast, the Inn at Teardrops.
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The Phillips-Hill-Webb House opens as the Hillsborough House Inn
BelleVue, the Phillips-Hill-Webb House on East Tryon Street, began operating as a bed-and-breakfast called the Hillsborough House Inn.
Subject: BelleVue (Phillips-Hill-Webb House)
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Louis Rubin and Shannon Ravenel start the press that became Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Rubin, then a UNC English professor, and editor Shannon Ravenel formed Bright Leaf Press, Inc., working from a garage at Rubin's home with money for a first printing of 1,500 copies. As Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill it went on to publish Clyde Edgerton, Dori Sanders and Jill McCorkle.
People: Shannon Ravenel · Clyde Edgerton · Jill McCorkle
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Bill Neal and Gene Hamer reopen Crook's Corner
Bill Neal, a former manager of La Residence, and Gene Hamer leased Crook's Corner, a West Franklin Street barbecue restaurant opened by Cam Hill in 1978 and closed in November 1981, and planned to reopen it in February 1982 serving Southern-style meals. Under Neal and later chef Bill Smith it became nationally known.
Subject: Crook’s Corner
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Shanklin's Press prints Irene Oliver Pender's History of Orange County Schools
Shanklin's Press of Hillsborough, the Black-owned print shop run by the family of Thomas Shanklin, published Irene Oliver Pender's A History of Orange County Schools: 1752-1983. The shop began in the family home in the 1960s and later moved to Cornelius Street.
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Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen opens
Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen, a drive-through biscuit restaurant from a small chain begun in Henderson and Louisburg in 1977 and 1978, was operating at 1305 East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill by September 1983.
Subject: Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen
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Eno Mill closes
Textile production ended at the Hillsborough plant.
Subject: Eno Mill
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The Saratoga Grill opens at 108 South Churton Street
The Saratoga Grill, among the first businesses to come back downtown as interest in the town's history grew, opened in the commercial building at 108 South Churton Street.
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Orange Speedway, Inc. is dissolved
The three shareholders of Orange Speedway, Inc., Ann and Bill France and Enoch Staley, voluntarily dissolved the corporation sixteen years after the last race. France Staley, LLC, which held title to the track, sold it to Preservation North Carolina in 1997.
Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events
People: Enoch Staley
Subject: Occoneechee Speedway
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Jim Heavner urges limits on sales at the UNC Student Stores
In a Village Advocate column, Heavner, president of the Village Companies, asked the university to take a hard look at the Student Stores under the Umstead Act, calling them Orange County's largest retail store. Student body president Paul Parker and university officials defended the stores, which funded financial aid.
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Estes Drive and Burlage Circle residents reach an agreement with Hakan-Corley over the Siena Hotel
Attorney Grainger Barrett announced an agreement between residents of the Burlage Circle and Estes Drive neighborhood and developer Hakan-Corley and Associates over the hotel planned for the former Brady's restaurant site.
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The Siena Hotel prepares to open on East Franklin Street
The 80-room Siena Hotel, built by the Siena Partnership of Joe Hakan and Sam Longiotti as part of a nine-acre development with the Chapel Hill Center, was scheduled to open in late October 1987.
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Barry Keith opens Surplus Sids on Main Street in Carrboro
Barry Keith, known as Sid, had worked for a surplus dealer called Poor Richard. When Richard retired, Keith bought his warehouse, kept the best stock and started his own military surplus store in 1988.
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Gold family acquires Eno Mill
The property became a business center with varied tenants.
Subject: Eno Mill
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Orange Federal Savings and Loan builds an office on the old service station lot at 137 North Churton Street
Orange Federal Savings and Loan Association acquired the former gas station property at 137 North Churton Street and put up a one-story brick office building with a cupola. The building later became county offices.
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Weaver Street Market opens
Weaver Street Market, a cooperative grocery owned by both its customers and its workers, opened in Carrboro in June 1988. Start-up money came from a Center for Community Self-Help loan, a $200,000 Community Development Block Grant from the Town of Carrboro, and shares and loans from local supporters.
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Fowler's Food Store closes and gives way to the 306 Shopping Center
The West Franklin grocery shut, and its site became a strip of shops set sideways to the street that opened with seven stores.
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Huggins Hardware closes and Miami Subs takes its East Franklin store
The hardware store that had carried Vic Huggins's name since the 1940s was replaced by a Miami Subs sandwich shop.
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James J. Freeland dies
The Hillsborough builder, motel owner and developer of Daniel Boone Village died in 1989 at the Highway 70 house he had built in 1964. His children kept Daniel Boone Village and Boone Square.
People: James John Freeland
Subject: Daniel Boone Village
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Louis Rubin hands Algonquin Books to Shannon Ravenel and Robert Rubin
A year after Workman Publishing of New York bought Algonquin, Rubin turned control over to his son Robert and to Shannon Ravenel, who moved the St. Louis office to Chapel Hill.
People: Shannon Ravenel
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A downtown visitors center opens in the McDade House
A welcome center for downtown visitors, run with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Downtown Commission, opened in the McDade House on West Franklin Street in the spring of 1991. The commission also had its office in the house during the 1990s.
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Robin and Bob Britt buy Merritt's store from the Merritt family
Robin and Bob Britt bought the South Columbia Street store from the Merritts in 1991. Robin Britt's BLT for her husband's lunch grew into the sandwich trade that made Merritt's Store and Grill a Chapel Hill landmark.
Subject: Merritt's Store and Grill
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Walter Faribault Jr. opens Faribault's Pit Cooked Bar-B-Q in Hillsborough
Dr. Walter Faribault Jr., a Chapel Hill physician, had opened Faribault's Pit Cooked Bar-B-Q in Hillsborough using a recipe that had been in his family for more than a hundred years. The family had cooked pork barbecue on Faribault Lane for generations, and by 1993 the business was running as a catering service.
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Joe Hakan becomes chairman of the chamber of commerce
Joe Hakan became chairman of the chamber's board of directors and led it out of a budget deficit, cutting salaries and staff and hiring a lower-paid director.
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The Chapel Hill sound gains national attention
Spin's December 1992 feature "Robbing the Cradle," its title a play on the Cat's Cradle, looked at Polvo and other local bands as record scouts hunted for the next big thing after Seattle. By January 1993 the Daily Tar Heel counted about six publications calling Chapel Hill the next Seattle, and Details and Time followed that year.
Part of Chapel Hill and Carrboro music scene · 34 events
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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The Cat's Cradle moves to Carrboro
After about six months dark, the club reopened in the former Nice Price Books space at 300 East Main Street, a standing-room hall holding about 750.
People: Frank Heath
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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The George Watts Hill Alumni Center opens on Stadium Drive
The General Alumni Association dedicated its new Alumni Center on Stadium Drive in 1993, and the university named it for George Watts Hill, who had pledged a $3.5 million challenge grant when the building campaign began.
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Chapel Hill Town Council funds the Midway Development Commission
The council unanimously approved a $6,000 grant to promote Black-owned businesses and housing in the Midway district between Chapel Hill and Carrboro. James Brittian, NAACP president and the commission's project development coordinator, said the money would bring in millions.
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A new building fills the long-vacant corner of East Franklin and Columbia streets
The southeast corner, empty since its Texaco station was razed, gained a large building with Top of the Hill restaurant and a new Carolina Theatre among its tenants. Bryant says soil contamination had apparently kept the lot vacant.
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Farmers’ Market moves to Town Commons
The market opened at its new town-center site.
Subject: Carrboro Farmers’ Market
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The Hub closes after 37 years on East Franklin Street
Robert Rosenbacher's men's clothing store, open since 1959, shut in 1996 and a Starbucks coffee shop moved into its space.
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The Village Companies sells WCHL to Curtis Media Group
The Village Companies sold WCHL, then the smallest of its dozen or so media outlets, to Curtis Media Group, which paired it with Durham's WDNC and moved it out of Chapel Hill.
Subject: WCHL radio
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Sara Foster opens a Chapel Hill branch of Foster's Market
Sara Foster opened a second Foster's Market at 750 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Chapel Hill as an expansion of her Durham restaurant.
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Dr. Arch Jordan House is listed in the National Register
The National Park Service listed the Dr. Arch Jordan House at 7015 NC 57 in Caldwell in the National Register of Historic Places on August 6, 1998, for architecture and social history. The Italianate house, built between 1875 and 1885 and home to physician Arch Jordan until 1905, served as a manse for three churches from 1905 to 1929.
Subject: Arch Jordan House
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Vis Art Video closes its West Franklin Street store
Owner Andrea Kubachko said in March 2004 that the Vis Art Video store at 301 West Franklin Street would close at the end of August, when its five-year lease ran out, citing high rent and slow business.
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Gold Park opens on Dimmocks Mill Road
The twenty-acre Gold Park, with walking paths, footbridges, a dog park, a soccer field and three picnic shelters, opens on Dimmocks Mill Road in 2007. It takes in the baseball field long tied to the Eno Mill.
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Orange County's Museum and Historical Society Merge
In May 2007 the Orange County Historical Museum, founded by the Hillsborough Garden Club in 1957, merged with the Hillsborough Historical Society to form the Historical Foundation of Hillsborough and Orange County, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The News of Orange reported the merger in its June 20, 2007 issue.
Subject: Orange County Historical Museum
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Chipotle Mexican Grill opens in the old Vis Art Video building on West Franklin Street
Chipotle opened with a ribbon-cutting at 301 West Franklin Street after more than a year of delays. Part of the wait came from cleaning solvent left in the soil from the site's years as a dry cleaner.
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The Rathskeller on Amber Alley closes over unpaid taxes
Owner Francis Henry shut the Rathskeller in December 2007 after it failed to pay withholding taxes, ending a restaurant Ted Danziger had opened in 1948. Its contents were sold at auction in February 2008.
Subject: The Rathskeller (Amber Alley)
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Flyleaf Books opens
Flyleaf Books, an independent bookstore in the Midtown Market shopping center on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Chapel Hill, opened in November 2009 with a soft opening set for November 16. Jamie Fiocco, Sarah Carr and Land Arnold ran the store, and its grand opening followed on January 9, 2010.
Subject: Flyleaf Books
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Foster's Market in Chapel Hill passes to Sera Cuni and Susan White
Sera Cuni, who had managed Foster's Market in Chapel Hill since 2008, bought the market with her partner Susan White and later renamed it The Root Cellar.
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Merge Records holds its 25th anniversary festival in Carrboro
Merge marked 25 years with a festival built around Cat's Cradle, ending with an outdoor show in the club's parking lot that organizers expected to draw about 3,000 people after the indoor nights sold out. Passes were sold through the Cat's Cradle website.
Part of The Cat’s Cradle and the “Chapel Hill sound” of the 1990s · 27 events
People: Mac McCaughan
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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Frank Heath tells the Carrboro Board of Aldermen that the Cat's Cradle has outgrown its building
At the second public hearing on a proposed arts and innovation center and hotel at East Main Street, Heath said the Cat's Cradle and the ArtsCenter were both too big for their buildings and that expansion had become urgent. He called it a dilemma for a small town with two successful arts organizations.
People: Lydia Lavelle
Subject: Cat’s Cradle · The ArtsCenter
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Mildred Council receives EmPOWERment's first POWER award
At a gala at the Friday Center, basketball coach Roy Williams presented Mildred "Mama Dip" Council with the inaugural POWER award from EmPOWERment Inc., a group promoting affordable housing and economic development in Chapel Hill's neediest neighborhoods. The honor came in the month of her restaurant's 40th anniversary.
People: Roy Williams
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Fire collapses the roof of the old ABC building at 122 US 70 in Hillsborough
A fire found about 12:30 a.m. brought down the roof of Triangle Environmental Services at 122 US 70 and damaged the meat market next door. The building was empty and one minor injury was reported.
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Mutual Aid Carrboro opens a COVID-19 solidarity fund for workers
Mutual Aid Carrboro partnered with NC Piedmont DSA to raise money for workers sent home without pay, running a solidarity fund for emergencies such as evictions and utility shutoffs. Applications were offered in Spanish, English and Chinese, with interpreter lines for Karen, Burmese and Kinyarwanda speakers.
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Orange County and the towns launch a Housing Helpline for emergency rental aid
Orange County and the Towns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough opened a Housing Helpline in April 2020 to connect residents with emergency rent, utility and deposit assistance. The county's Emergency Housing Assistance program paid out $2.5 million to 1,005 residents in 2020, and an Eviction Diversion Program followed in July 2020.
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Drive-through food distribution at Chapel Hill Public Library serves 576 households
PORCH, the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina and the Town of Chapel Hill ran a drive-through food distribution in the Chapel Hill Public Library's lower parking lot, serving 576 households, or 2,391 people, with about 40 volunteers.
Subject: Chapel Hill Public Library
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A car crash sets fire to the Farm & Garden Center on NC 86
Early on June 17, 2020, a speeding car hit the gas pumps at the Farm & Garden Center, a gas station, country store and produce stand on NC 86 near Walnut Grove Church Road. The car and the store caught fire and the canopy collapsed; the two young people in the car were hurt.
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North Carolina musicians release Cover Charge to benefit the Cat's Cradle
Twenty-five North Carolina acts, among them Superchunk, the Mountain Goats, Tift Merritt and Iron and Wine, recorded cover songs for an album to raise money for the closed Carrboro club. Musician and UNC professor Florence Dore organized it, and Heath said presales were running better than expected.
Part of The Cat’s Cradle and the “Chapel Hill sound” of the 1990s · 27 events
Subject: Cat’s Cradle
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UNC Health opens a large vaccination clinic at the Friday Center
UNC Health opened its largest appointment-only COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the Friday Conference Center in Chapel Hill, starting with people 75 and older. Staff expected about 600 patients a day in the first week and up to 1,500 a day at full capacity.
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Health department vaccinates its first recipients at drive-through clinics
By early January 2021 the Orange County Health Department had vaccinated about 1,000 Phase 1a personnel at drive-through clinics in Hillsborough and Chapel Hill and opened sign-ups for residents 75 and older, more than 4,200 of whom registered.
People: Quintana Stewart
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Crook's Corner announces its closure
On June 9, 2021, the owners of Crook's Corner told customers the West Franklin Street restaurant was closing, saying the COVID-19 crisis had made their position untenable. Gene Hamer and chef Bill Neal opened it in 1982, Bill Smith later led the kitchen, and the James Beard Foundation named it an America's Classic in 2011.
Part of COVID-19 in Orange County, 2020–2022 · 31 events
Subject: Crook’s Corner
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Orange County Public Library reopens its Main Library building
After more than a year of closure and appointment-only curbside pickup, the Main Library reopened with distancing measures under the county's plan to reopen facilities through July 2021. In Carrboro the branch at McDougle School closed on June 13 and the Cybrary opened for browsing on August 6.
Subject: Orange County Public Library · McDougle School
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Orange County reinstates an indoor mask mandate
As the delta variant spread, Orange County and the Towns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough required masks inside buildings and businesses from 5 p.m. on August 11, 2021.
People: Lydia Lavelle · Quintana Stewart
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The News of Orange merges with the Mebane Enterprise
Womack Publishing announced on January 3, 2024, that its weeklies The News of Orange County and the Mebane Enterprise would merge at the end of January. The combined paper, with a section for Mebane, covers Mebane, Hillsborough and Efland from the News of Orange office in Hillsborough, and the Mebane office closed.
Subject: The News of Orange County
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Tropical Storm Chantal floods Orange County
Chantal dropped up to 10 inches of rain on Orange County on the night of July 6, 2025. Chapel Hill crews made more than 50 water rescues around Camelot Village and Eastgate Crossing, Carrboro's Weatherhill Pointe flooded, and the Eno at Hillsborough set a record crest on July 7. The county declared an emergency that day.
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Dual Supply puts up a going-out-of-business sign
Dual Supply, the downtown hardware store at 115 West King Street, began a closing sale set to run until the shop closed at the end of September 2026.
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A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →
Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.
