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Civil rights era · 1945–1975
- 1970s
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Orange County Rape Crisis Center is founded
The organization established local support and advocacy for survivors of sexual violence.
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A gasoline truck fire and explosion damage the Orange County jail
A fuel truck caught fire and exploded while at the county jail on Court Street, causing heavy damage to the building.
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Orange County Schools reorganize into K-5 elementary schools with a middle school and junior high
In 1975-76 the county dropped the two-grade elementary centers of 1969, returning to elementary schools of kindergarten through fifth grade, with grades 6-7 in a middle school and 8-9 in a junior high.
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Orange County and the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro create the Orange Water and Sewer Authority
The Orange County Board of Commissioners and the governing boards of Chapel Hill and Carrboro incorporated OWASA under Chapter 162A of the North Carolina General Statutes. It was created as a public body to acquire, consolidate and operate the three existing water and sewer systems serving the area.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
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Cane Creek is chosen as the site of a new reservoir and area landowners organize against it
A consultant's feasibility study concluded that Cane Creek, west of Carrboro, was the best site for a reservoir to supplement University Lake, and OWASA began assembling land there. Cane Creek residents and farmers formed a conservation group and fought the project in court for years, arguing that it would destroy farms and hasten the decline of agriculture and that expanding University Lake had not been properly considered.
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Richard E. Whitted becomes the first Black chair of the Orange County commissioners
Four years after joining the board, Richard E. Whitted became the first Black chair of the Orange County Board of Commissioners.
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Judge Stanley Peele wins the Democratic primary for his district court seat
Incumbent district judge Stanley Peele of Chapel Hill won the primary with 13,390 votes to 5,445 for Chapel Hill attorney Charles Hodson and 2,171 for Gerid Cumby of Alamance.
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UNC trustees approve a Cane Creek pipeline on OWASA's recommendation
With University Lake 64 inches below capacity, the UNC Board of Trustees approved an $824,450 pipeline and small temporary dam to draw water from Cane Creek, described as a step toward the planned reservoir. OWASA, due to take over the University water system in January 1977, recommended the Cane Creek project over alternatives that included pumping raw water from the Haw River to a treatment plant.
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Orange Grove residents form the Cane Creek Conservation Authority
Farm families around Cane Creek organized the Cane Creek Conservation Authority to stop the dam and elected 23-year-old dairy farmer Bobby Kirk president; the group had about 100 active members and said 12 dairy farms would be affected. It argued that the reservoir would end farming in the area, that owners had not been consulted, and that Jordan Lake and other sources were alternatives.
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Michael Simmons becomes superintendent of the Orange County schools
Dr. Michael Simmons, superintendent in Dillon, South Carolina, since 1974, took charge of the Orange County schools in 1977. He resigned in 1983 to lead the Johnson City, Tennessee, schools.
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The Bingham School site at the Oaks joins the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the site of the Bingham School at the Oaks on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. It went on the list for further study, pending an architectural assessment.
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Court of Appeals lets OWASA survey Cane Creek land over owners' objections
Landowners including the estate of Nancy Armstrong had refused OWASA's surveyors access to the dam site. After a trial court ordered access on April 28, 1977, the N.C. Court of Appeals held that the authority could enter and survey before starting eminent domain proceedings.
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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.
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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.
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The state puts the Occoneechi village site in Orange County on the Study List
At its July 12, 1979 meeting the State Professional Review Committee looked at slides of four archaeological sites, one of them the Occoneechi Village Site in Orange County. It deferred a Mecklenburg cabin site for lack of documentation and placed the other three, the Orange County site among them, on the Study List.
- 1980s
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An office building for the Orange County Board of Education goes up on East King Street
A one-story brick Colonial Revival building with recessed side wings was built around 1980 at 200 East King Street as the Orange County Board of Education office.
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Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in
The 1980 census counted 77,055 people in Orange County, 32,421 in Chapel Hill (32,038 in the Orange County part) and 7,336 in Carrboro.
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Army Corps of Engineers issues the federal permit for the Cane Creek dam
The Corps' district engineer issued OWASA a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit to place fill for the dam on the same day the Court of Appeals voided the state certificate. The permit was set to expire on August 31, 1982 unless construction had begun.
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Friends of the Orange County Public Library is founded
Residents organized the Friends of the Orange County Public Library on November 5, 1981, to raise money and advocate for a county library preparing to move into larger quarters in Hillsborough. The group incorporated on May 3, 1982, and the IRS recognized it as a 501(c)(3) charity in June 1983.
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Gloria Williams leads Joint Orange Chatham Community Action
As director of Joint Orange Chatham Community Action (JOCCA), the county anti-poverty agency, Gloria Williams gave poor families emergency food, spoke for tenants at the 1984 Orange County hearings on a minimum housing code and ran a summer youth work program.
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Yonni Chapman and Fred Battle found the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience
Chapman and Fred Battle co-founded the Orange County Rainbow Coalition of Conscience, which worked on local school politics and on Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns.
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Opponents sue in federal court, arguing the dam permit has lapsed
The Cane Creek Conservation Authority filed suit in U.S. District Court claiming OWASA's Corps permit expired on August 31, 1982 because no fill had actually been placed at the site. OWASA said its preliminary work before the deadline kept the permit valid.
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Dannie G. Lunsford becomes superintendent of the Orange County schools
Dr. Dannie G. Lunsford, who had come to the county in 1971 as principal at Efland and risen through the instruction office to associate superintendent, succeeded Michael Simmons as superintendent in July 1983.
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OWASA agrees to buy the Stanford dairy farm at the dam site
The same day the commission ruled, OWASA agreed to buy 267 acres of the dam site from dairy farmers William and Joyce Stanford for about $1.28 million, bringing it to 60 percent of the 728 acres it needed. Between 20 and 25 of the 48 affected landowners had sold by then.
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OWASA buys out most of the Cane Creek landowners
By April 1986 OWASA owned 48 of the 50 parcels needed for the reservoir, almost all bought through negotiated sales. Sam Crawford recalled an opening offer of $500 an acre that rose to about $3,500 to $3,600, and that his family lost 50 acres, including their biggest field.
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Habitat for Humanity of Orange County is incorporated
An ecumenical housing effort that began at Binkley Baptist Church in late 1982 became Habitat for Humanity of Orange County, incorporated in April 1984. Its first house was a donated building moved to what became the Chestnut Oaks neighborhood in Chapel Hill.
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Federal court dismisses the opponents' permit suits for lack of standing
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina dismissed the two suits brought by the Cane Creek Conservation Authority and Teer Farms, finding they alleged only a general fear of environmental loss rather than a direct injury. The court noted that OWASA had so far acquired all its land through voluntary purchases.
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OWASA builds a temporary impoundment on Cane Creek
During a water shortage OWASA built a temporary impoundment at the Cane Creek site as an emergency water source, while the permanent dam was still being designed.
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I-40 through Orange County is named the Harriet Morehead Berry Freeway
The Board of Transportation named a section of Interstate 40 through Orange County for Berry, the Hillsborough-born Good Roads campaigner. A state highway marker to her was cast the same year for NC 86 at I-40 north of Chapel Hill.
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OWASA breaks ground for the Cane Creek dam
OWASA held a groundbreaking for the Cane Creek Reservoir, designed by Hazen and Sawyer: a 72-foot-high, 1,350-foot earthen dam on a 760-acre site, with a 480-acre lake holding 3 billion gallons. Completion was scheduled for June 1989.
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Judge Peele rules in the Hanes Hall CIA protest cases
Judge Stanley Peele found anti-CIA protesters Dale McKinley and Graham Entwistle guilty of disorderly conduct for chaining themselves at Hanes Hall during CIA recruiting interviews and entered a prayer for judgment continued; later in 1988 he jailed McKinley for 21 days and gave Entwistle a suspended sentence for violating its terms.
- 1990s
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1990 census counts the Hispanic-origin population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill
The 1990 census counted 1,279 persons of Hispanic origin in Orange County (1.4% of 93,851), 199 in Carrboro (1.7% of 11,553) and 607 in Chapel Hill (1.6% of 38,719). Census Bureau report 1990 CP-1-35, Table 5 (counties) and Table 6 (places).
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Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Orange County begin a countywide search for a new landfill site
The three governing boards started a countywide search for the next sanitary landfill, carried out with a citizens' Landfill Search Committee and an engineering consultant. The Greene Tract, bought in 1984 for landfill use, was screened but not made a finalist.
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Census counts Orange County residents working in Durham County in
Of 49,915 employed Orange County residents in the 1990 census, 12,185 (about 24 percent) worked in Durham County, 31,591 worked in Orange County and 2,085 worked in Wake County.
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Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in
The 1990 census counted 93,851 people in Orange County, 38,719 in Chapel Hill (37,604 in Orange County and 1,115 in Durham County) and 11,553 in Carrboro.
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Latino migration to Carrboro and Chapel Hill
Latin American families began arriving in Carrboro and Chapel Hill in the 1990s: the neighborhoods and workplaces that received them, and the institutions they built.
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Randee Haven-O'Donnell is named Soil and Water Conservation Teacher of the Year
Haven-O'Donnell, who taught in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, was named Orange County and North Carolina Soil and Water Conservation Teacher of the Year.
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Orange County Affordable Housing Task Force creates the Orange Community Housing Corporation
The county's Affordable Housing Task Force created the Orange Community Housing Corporation, the organization that later became the Community Home Trust.
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The Ray-Kenion farms and the Charles Davis Farm join the Study List
The National Register Advisory Committee placed the Ray-Kenion rural historic district and the Charles Davis Farm on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register. Both came to the committee as public requests, two years before the county survey was finished.
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Forest Hazel publishes his study of the Occaneechi-Saponi Texas community
Southern Indian Studies printed Forest Hazel's account of the Occaneechi from Occaneechi Town on the Eno in 1701 to the Texas community of his own day, tying the excavated village near Hillsborough to living Indian families. Hazel had begun the research in 1984 from land, court, marriage, census and military records and from family oral histories.
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Orange, Person and Caswell make their Hyconeechee libraries county departments
The Hyconeechee Regional Library board and the three county governments made each county library a department of its own county, responsible for procurement, personnel, accounting, travel and facility maintenance. The regional library kept regional policy, collection development, grants and the regional budget under a joint contract with the counties.
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Orange County jury finds three former UNC officials discriminated against police officer Keith Edwards
A jury ruled that former UNC officials John DeVitto, Charles Mauer and Robert Sherman had discriminated by race and gender against Keith Edwards, an 18-year veteran of the UNC police, and ordered them to pay $116,000 in damages. Alan McSurely, her lawyer, won his first jury trial with the case.
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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.
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Brenda Stephens becomes director of the Orange County library system
Brenda W. Stephens, who had started her library career driving the county bookmobile in 1976, became director of the Orange County Library System in 1993. By the end of that year North Carolina Libraries identified her as director of the Hyconeechee Regional Library, and a 2025 profile calls her the first Black director of a regional library system in the state.
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Squirrel Nut Zippers form near Chapel Hill
Jim Mathus and Katharine Whalen, who had moved from Chapel Hill to a farmhouse in Efland, started the band in summer 1993, played their first show that November and signed with Mammoth Records in 1994.
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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.
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John Blackfeather Jeffries serves as chairman of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation
Jeffries chaired the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation from 1995 to 2000 and remained on its tribal council through 2020.
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Orange County ends bookmobile service to fund the Carrboro branch
When the Carrboro branch opened at McDougle in 1995, Orange County moved money to it by cutting the library's bookmobile service to the whole county. The bookmobile had been Carrboro's main public library service since the Civic Club library closed in 1977.
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Ellie Kinnaird is elected to the North Carolina Senate
Kinnaird left the Carrboro mayor's office for the state Senate, where she sat from 1997 until 2013 representing a district that included Orange County. She had earned a law degree from North Carolina Central University while serving as mayor.
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The 1920s Orange County Jail on Court Street is greatly enlarged
The Neoclassical Orange County Jail at 125-131 Court Street, built in 1926 facing the courthouse with the deputy's apartment upstairs, is enlarged in 1996 with a series of flat-roofed wings reaching back to East Margaret Lane.
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Hurricane Fran strikes Orange County
Hurricane Fran came ashore on the night of September 5, 1996 and crossed to the Triangle overnight. In Chapel Hill winds topped 70 mph, falling trees caused about 29,000 power outages and UNC cancelled classes, and the Eno at Hillsborough hit a record flow. No one in Orange County was killed.
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Assembly of Governments agrees compensation items for neighbors of the landfill
Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro met as an Assembly of Governments in 1997 to take up benefits for people living near the Orange Regional Landfill and agreed a set of compensation items. In 2007 Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton wrote that not all of them had been carried out.
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Community Land Trust in Orange County is incorporated
Local activists and governments incorporated the Community Land Trust in Orange County to keep homes permanently affordable through ground leases.
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Commission of Indian Affairs rejects the judge's recommendation and denies Occaneechi recognition
At a June 11, 1999 hearing the Commission of Indian Affairs voted against the administrative law judge's recommendation, and on July 11 it issued a Final Agency Decision denying the petition. The band appealed to Orange County Superior Court on August 16, 1999, which affirmed the denial.
- 2000s
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2000 census counts the Hispanic or Latino population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill
The 2000 census counted 5,273 Hispanic or Latino residents in Orange County (4.5% of 118,227), 2,062 in Carrboro (12.3% of 16,782) and 1,506 in the Orange County part of Chapel Hill (3.2% of 46,798). Census Bureau report PHC-1-35, Table 3.
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Census counts Orange County residents working in Durham County in
Of 60,860 employed Orange County residents in Census 2000, 16,470 (about 27 percent) worked in Durham County, 35,053 worked in Orange County and 4,212 worked in Wake County.
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Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in
Census 2000 counted 118,227 people in Orange County, 46,798 in the Orange County part of Chapel Hill and 16,782 in Carrboro, according to the county's published table.
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County Library Services Task Force recommends expanding library service across Orange County
In June 2000 the Board of Commissioners created a 14-member Library Services Task Force to study county library service. Its 2001 report recommended raising library funding to the state per-capita average, starting library projects in the northern and southern parts of the county together, building an Orange County heritage center, and offering Internet-based library service in the Carrboro Century Center.
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Land trust and housing corporation merge as the Orange Community Housing and Land Trust
The Community Land Trust in Orange County merged with the Orange Community Housing Corporation under the name Orange Community Housing and Land Trust. It reached 100 homes in 2005 and 230 by 2014.
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Penny Rich is appointed to the OWASA board
Chapel Hill appointed Rich to the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board in 2001, and she served two three-year terms through 2007. She helped write water conservation policy during a severe drought.
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NC Court of Appeals rules the Occaneechi recognition recommendation stands
The Court of Appeals reversed the Orange County Superior Court and held that because the Commission of Indian Affairs missed its statutory deadline, the administrative law judge's recommendation for recognition became the final agency decision by operation of law. It remanded the case for an order consistent with that holding.
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Holden-Roberts Farm is listed in the National Register
The National Park Service listed the Holden-Roberts Farm near Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places on May 2, 2002, for architecture and agriculture. The district centers on a Reconstruction-era farmhouse of about 1873, and in 2020 a conservation easement protected 57 acres of the farm on St. Mary's Road.
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Orange County commissioners take up a request to name the Morgan Creek bridge for James Taylor
The Orange County Board of Commissioners was set to vote on a resolution asking the state Board of Transportation to name the U.S. 15-501 bridge over Morgan Creek in Chapel Hill after James Taylor. Alan E. Rimer made the request for the Chapel Hill Museum board, which was planning an exhibition on Taylor.
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Orange County Public Library moves its catalog to the Polaris system
The library replaced its Galaxy automation system with Polaris. County budgets later list remote access to the online catalog and to patrons' own library accounts through Polaris.
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Orange County votes to extend health benefits to domestic partners
At a November 20, 2003, work session, the Orange County commissioners voted unanimously to extend employee health benefits to domestic partners. The county's insurance trust could not add them for January 2004, so the county budgeted the cost in 2004 and coverage for partners of county employees began January 1, 2005.
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Valerie Foushee is elected to the Orange County Board of Commissioners
Foushee served on the Orange County Board of Commissioners from 2004 to 2012. Her official House biography says she was the first African American woman to chair the county commission.
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Burmese and Karen refugee communities
Refugee families from Burma began resettling in Chapel Hill and Carrboro in 2005: the schools, gardens and congregations that grew with them.
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Refugees from Burma are among the first recorded direct arrivals in Orange County
Orange County Health Department figures record 19 refugee direct arrivals in fiscal year 2005-2006, from Burma, Cuba and Iran. At the time one resettlement agency, Lutheran Family Services, served the Triangle.
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Mike Nelson serves on the Orange County Board of Commissioners
Nelson placed third of seven candidates in the May 2, 2006 primary for three county commissioner seats and went on the November ballot; his papers date his service as a commissioner to 2006 through 2009.
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OWASA gives Daniel Okun a lifetime achievement award
The Orange Water and Sewer Authority gave Okun a lifetime achievement award in 2006; the school credits him with leading the campaign to build the Cane Creek Dam and Reservoir in the 1980s.
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Refugees from Burma begin arriving in Orange County in larger numbers
All 55 refugee direct arrivals recorded in Orange County in fiscal year 2006-2007 came from Burma. A second resettlement agency, the Triangle office of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, opened.
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The 1953 Orange County Courthouse in Hillsborough joins the Study List
The committee's list of properties approved for the Study List on October 12, 2006 includes the Orange County Courthouse in Hillsborough. The survey layer identifies it as the 1953 Colonial Revival courthouse on Margaret Lane, not the older courthouse listed in the National Register in 1971.
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Arrivals from Burma to Orange County increase sharply
Orange County recorded 255 refugee direct arrivals in fiscal year 2007-2008, from Burma, Iran and Colombia, the highest annual figure in the 2005-2017 series. A third resettlement agency, the Triangle office of World Relief, opened.
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Orange County Health Department starts an Immigrant and Refugee Health Program
During the sharp rise in arrivals from Burma, the Orange County Health Department initiated an Immigrant and Refugee Health Program. The 2018 report found Karen and Burmese were the two refugee languages most requested by the department's patients.
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Rogers–Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism organizes
Residents of the Rogers Road and Eubanks Road neighborhood formed the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism in 2007. At the September 20, 2007 Assembly of Governments meeting, member Neloa Jones asked officials to drop the neighborhood as a transfer station site, end solid-waste operations there by November 2009, and provide water and sewer service.
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County library begins offering downloadable videos
The FY 2007-08 county budget added funds for MyLibraryDV, letting regional library patrons download videos in the library or on their own computers.
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Commissioners reopen the search for a transfer station site
After Rogers Road residents and the Coalition to End Environmental Racism pressed the county, the Board of Commissioners announced it would reopen its search for a transfer station site. Eubanks Road stayed on the list while consultant Olver Inc. drew up siting criteria.
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A fourth resettlement agency opens as Orange County arrivals stay high
Orange County recorded 194 refugee direct arrivals in fiscal year 2008-2009, from Burma, Bhutan, Iran and Iraq. The Triangle office of Church World Service opened as a fourth resettlement agency.
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David Caldwell retires as a sheriff's lieutenant to organize in Rogers Road full time
Caldwell joined the sheriff's department in 1985 after returning to the area and retired as a lieutenant in 2008 to work full time on community and social justice work. He became project director and community organizer for the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association.
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Orange County's 2030 Comprehensive Plan places county growth within the Triangle economy
The Land Use Element of Orange County's 2030 Comprehensive Plan says the county, as an integral part of the Triangle, grew nearly 50 percent from 1980 to an estimated 121,991 in 2005, and names the Research Triangle Park as part of its region, calling jobs and economic conditions a frequent catalyst for changes in population and land use. It also records the 1984 Joint Planning Agreement with Chapel Hill, extended to Carrboro in 1987, and the 1986 rural buffer plan.
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Reviewers reject the Reverend Archibald Currie House
Staff recommended against the Orange County house because of alterations and a lack of architectural significance, and on October 16, 2008 the committee voted unanimously to follow staff on the central and southeastern requests.
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Commissioners drop Eubanks Road and choose two other transfer station candidates
Conceding that the 2007 choice had not adequately weighed its effect on Rogers Road, the commissioners voted 5 to 1 to pursue two other sites, the 143-acre Howell property and an OWASA tract in Bingham Township.
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Orange County builds a three-story office building on West Margaret Lane
The three-story brick Orange County Government Offices building at 131 West Margaret Lane, fifteen bays wide, went up behind the site of the new main library; it was under construction in 2008 aerial photographs and is dated 2009.
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Sheriff Pendergrass defends Orange County's enrollment in Secure Communities
At a county commissioners' meeting, Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass explained his decision to enroll the Orange County jail in the federal Secure Communities pilot, which checks the fingerprints of people booked into jail against federal databases including immigration records. Commissioners, who had resolved in 2007 not to join the 287(g) program, raised concerns but took no action.
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Commissioner Mike Nelson announces he will not seek re-election
County Commissioner and former Carrboro mayor Mike Nelson announced that he would not run for re-election to the Orange County board.
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Commissioners vote to truck county trash to Durham's transfer station
After OWASA refused to sell or swap land for a transfer station and Chapel Hill withdrew its Millhouse Road property, the Board of Commissioners voted to haul county trash to Durham's transfer station for three to five years while the towns and county weighed a longer-term plan.
- 2010s
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2010 census counts the Hispanic or Latino population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill
The 2010 census counted 11,017 Hispanic or Latino residents in Orange County, 2,603 in Chapel Hill and 1,921 in Carrboro, as compiled in the NC Office of State Budget and Management's LINC Census Population dataset.
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Local schools and health providers report Burmese, Karen and Chin families moving to Orange County from elsewhere
Although direct refugee arrivals fell to 86 in fiscal year 2010-2011, local schools and health care agencies reported significant in-migration of Burmese, Karen and Chin residents from other counties and states.
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Transplanting Traditions Community Farm begins with refugee farmers from Burma
Kelly Owensby started Transplanting Traditions in 2010 with three years of federal Office of Refugee Resettlement funding, after meeting Karen families at a community garden run by the Orange County Partnership for Young Children. In the first year 44 people from Burma turned a pasture into a farm.
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Orange County Public Library begins lending eBooks and Kindles
In the 2010-11 budget year the library added an eBook collection and Kindle readers, provided through donations from the Friends of the Orange County Public Library. The next year it added an OverDrive eBook collection for download to patrons' own devices.
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Transplanting Traditions begins farming at the Irvin Nature Preserve
After Triangle Land Conservancy began working with the farm in 2010 to find more land, Transplanting Traditions held its first growing season at the conservancy's J. Logan and Elinor Moore Irvin Nature Preserve, off Jones Ferry Road, in 2011.
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Orange County commissioners raised the landfill tipping fee to pay for Rogers Road remediation
Commissioners raised the tipping fee from $52 to $57 a ton to create a remediation fund of about $50,000 to $60,000 a year for water and sewer connections, cleanup of illegal dumping and a community center in Rogers Road. The county also moved $750,000 out of its solid waste reserve for the same purpose. Chapel Hill and Carrboro objected to the timing of the fee.
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Penny Rich is elected to the Orange County Board of Commissioners
Rich was elected a county commissioner in 2012 and served two terms, to 2020, working on economic development, job creation, affordable housing, transportation and social justice.
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Commissioners set the landfill's closing date and created the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood Task Force
On the night the Orange County commissioners voted to close the landfill on June 30, 2013, they also authorized an eight-member task force, with two members each from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, the county and RENA, to recommend how to deliver sewer service and a community center and how to guard against displacement. An interim report was due that August and a final report to the Assembly of Governments on December 6, 2012.
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Hyconeechee Regional Library is dissolved
The regional library Orange County had shared with Person and Caswell counties closed on July 1, 2012, ending the county's annual matching contribution and leaving the Orange County Public Library to operate as a county system on its own. In the following budget year the county moved library software costs into its IT department, absorbed a lower state aid estimate, and replaced the Polaris catalog system with Sierra.
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Orange County Public Library adopts its first strategic plan
The FY 2013–14 county budget reported that the library was creating a strategic plan, and county capital documents later refer to the approved Library Strategic Plan 2013–16, which charged the library with serving rural residents. The county called the 2017–2020 plan the library's second.
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EPA accepted RENA's civil rights complaint over water and sewer service for investigation
The EPA Office of Civil Rights took up the question whether the Orange County Planning and Inspections Department had intentionally discriminated on the basis of race by denying water and sewer service to the African American residents of Rogers Road. RENA had filed the complaint with the U.S. Justice Department, which referred it to several federal agencies, and it was joined to an earlier complaint against OWASA accepted on November 23, 2009.
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Ellie Kinnaird resigns her state senate seat
Kinnaird announced her resignation after nine terms, saying she could not get anything done in the short session as one of seventeen Democrats in a fifty-member chamber. She said she would instead work with churches and community groups to help voters obtain the photo identification the state had just begun to require. Democrats from the counties she represented were to choose her successor.
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Mark Chilton compiles a land grant atlas of old Orange County
Chilton wrote The Land Grant Atlas of Old Orange County, Volume 2: The Saxapahaw Old Fields, tracing title to about a thousand parcels between 1728 and 1818 in western Orange and eastern Alamance counties. He found that roughly 95 percent of the county's deed records for 1752 to 1781 were lost after a Tory official buried the deed books and they rotted.
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Orange County Health Department reports serving clients in almost 20 languages
The county's 2014 State of the County Health Report said the Health Department served clients in almost 20 languages through bilingual staff and interpreters and bought translation memory software. It also described the Orange County Latino Health and Refugee Health Coalitions working on access to care.
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Mark Chilton wins the register of deeds primary on a same-sex marriage pledge
Chilton took just over 42 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, beating the incumbent register of deeds, Deborah Brooks, and a second challenger. He had campaigned on a promise to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite the state ban, and because no Republican filed, the primary settled the office.
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Same-sex couples begin receiving marriage licenses in Orange County
A federal judge struck down North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage late on Friday, October 10, 2014, by which time the Orange County Register of Deeds office in Hillsborough had closed for the day. The office issued its first licences to same-sex couples when it reopened on Monday, October 13, with Carrboro mayor Lydia Lavelle and Alicia Stemper first in line; the two married at the Carrboro Town Commons on October 25, 2014.
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Orange County commissioners approve a letter of intent toward a Southern Branch Library in Carrboro
The Board of County Commissioners approved a letter of intent setting the terms for negotiating the development and construction of a Southern Branch Library in downtown Carrboro. The new branch, then hoped for around 2017, was to replace both the Carrboro Branch in McDougle Middle School and the Cybrary in the Century Center.
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UNC Refugee Wellness begins providing mental health care under a state refugee contract
In 2015 the UNC School of Social Work's Refugee Mental Health and Wellness Initiative began contracting with the Refugee Office of the state Department of Health and Human Services to provide mental health services directly to refugees in Wake, Durham and Orange counties.
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Orange County Public Library begins lending Wi-Fi hotspots
In the 2015–16 fiscal year the library and county IT staff piloted lending Wi-Fi hotspots to residents of southern Orange County and added hotspots to the lending collection at its libraries. Federal CARES Act money later doubled the hotspot inventory to meet pandemic demand.
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State highway marker honoring Carl T. Durham is dedicated at N.C. 54 and Carl Durham Road
Durham's daughters Anne Novak and Peggy Wall, other relatives and county officials gathered for the dedication of the marker. The ceremony recalled his 22 years in Congress and the 1951 amendments, written with Senator Hubert Humphrey, that created the prescription and over-the-counter drug classes.
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Orange County voters approve a $5 million affordable housing bond
More than 65 percent of voters approved $5 million in bonds for affordable housing, alongside a $120 million school bond that passed with 75.5 percent.
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Orange County's library branches are merged into one catalog
Preparing for the Southern Branch, the library merged the holdings of the Main Library, the Carrboro branch at McDougle School and the Cybrary into a single catalog during the 2017–18 fiscal year and added the Cedar Grove kiosk's items. Staff reported an immediate rise in circulation at all three branches and in items sent between locations by courier.
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Quintana Stewart becomes Orange County's health director
After a nationwide search, the Orange County Board of Health chose Stewart, then assistant health director at the Forsyth County Department of Public Health. She started on December 18, 2017, succeeding Colleen Bridger, who had left in February 2017 for a post in San Antonio.
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Penny Rich chairs the Orange County Board of Commissioners
Rich was vice chair of the county commissioners from 2016 to 2018 and chair from 2018 to 2020, and she led the board through the start of the county's COVID-19 response.
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New Hope Elementary starts a Spanish dual-language program in Orange County Schools
After a year and a half of planning, New Hope Elementary opened a 50-50 Spanish-English dual-language program for 48 kindergarten students at the start of the 2018-19 school year, taught on alternating days in English and Spanish. The principal described it as a way for Latino students to take pride in their heritage and keep the Spanish they use with their families.
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Durham–Orange light rail project ends
On March 27, 2019, the GoTriangle board voted unanimously to stop planning the 18-mile Durham-Orange light rail line between Chapel Hill and Durham after Duke University declined to sign needed agreements. Orange County commissioners voted unanimously on April 2 to end the county's work on it.
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EPA closed the Rogers Road civil rights complaint as moot
The EPA External Civil Rights Compliance Office told the Orange County attorney that Complaint No. 13R-07-R4 was closed because interlocal agreements to which the county was a party had produced a completed water and sewer extension, and because OWASA is bound by those agreements to serve Rogers Road residents who connect. The letter found no systemic issues left to investigate and made no finding of discrimination.
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The UNC System gives Silent Sam to the Sons of Confederate Veterans with a $2.5 million trust in a same-day consent judgment
The North Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans sued the UNC System and Board of Governors over the monument and a consent judgment was entered the same day in Orange County Superior Court. The System handed over the statue, to be kept outside the fourteen counties with a System campus, and endowed a $2.5 million charitable trust from non-state funds for its care and display. Board chair Randy Ramsey said the deal let the University 'move forward'.
- 2020s
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2020 census counts the Hispanic or Latino population of Orange County, Carrboro and Chapel Hill
The 2020 census counted 15,812 Hispanic or Latino residents in Orange County, 4,734 in Chapel Hill and 2,723 in Carrboro, from the 2020 redistricting data as compiled in the NC Office of State Budget and Management's LINC database.
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Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro declare a COVID-19 state of emergency
Orange County government and the Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro declared states of emergency to prepare for COVID-19, allowing emergency procedures and funding. The county declaration, extended more than a dozen times, stayed in force until May 1, 2022.
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Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools close under a statewide order
Governor Roy Cooper closed all North Carolina public schools for at least two weeks from Monday, March 16, 2020, shutting both Orange County districts. CHCCS then began online classes for grades 6-12 and sent learning packets home for grades K-5 at the end of March while serving meals to students.
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Orange County Public Library closes its buildings and sets out a free book shelf
With its buildings closed, the library kept the Hillsborough and Carrboro book drops and phone reference running, stopped charging late fees, and from March 18 set out a free book and DVD shelf outside the Main Library in Hillsborough.
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Orange County Health Department identifies the county's first COVID-19 cases
The health department announced that Orange County residents had tested positive for COVID-19 at the State Laboratory of Public Health and were isolating at home. Health Director Quintana Stewart said the response was shifting from containment to mitigation.
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Orange County and its three towns issue a joint stay-at-home order
Orange County, with Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough, ordered residents to stay home except for essential needs from 6 p.m. on March 27, 2020, three days before the statewide order took effect. Set to run until April 30, it was extended to May 8 to match the state order.
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Governor Cooper's statewide stay-at-home order takes effect
Executive Order 121, signed March 27, 2020, took effect at 5 p.m. on March 30 and ordered North Carolinians to stay home except for essential work and activities, capping gatherings at 10 people. Orange County's joint order had begun three days earlier.
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COVID-19 in Orange County
From the first cases in March 2020 to the last emergency measures in 2022: closures, remote school, the health department's response, mutual aid, and the pandemic's unequal weight.
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Orange County reports its first COVID-19 death
The health department reported that a resident in their 70s under hospice care at PruittHealth-Carolina Point, one of two long-term care facilities with outbreaks, had died of COVID-19 complications. The county then had 104 confirmed cases, and PruittHealth had at least 86 positive cases among residents and staff.
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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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Orange County requires face coverings
Orange County and its towns extended the local state of emergency through August 31, 2020 and required face coverings from 5 p.m. on June 12 when people could not keep six feet apart.
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Orange County Commissioners adopt a countywide Language Access policy
The Board of County Commissioners approved a policy requiring free interpretation and translation for residents with limited English across all county services, and directing each county department to keep a language access plan and train its staff.
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Orange County Schools votes to open the school year online
The Orange County Schools board voted unanimously to begin the 2020-21 year with remote-only classes for at least the first four weeks, on the recommendation of Superintendent Monique Felder.
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Sartin School, a 1930s school for Black children, is taken apart and removed
The frame Sartin School, built as a one-room school by R. J. Forrest in 1932 and given a second room in 1935, was dismantled and carried off its site in 2021, leaving Ridge Road among the very few such schools still standing in the county.
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Orange County commissioners proclaim Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett Day
The Board of County Commissioners unanimously proclaimed Wednesday, January 20, 2021 Dr. Kizzmekia S. Corbett Day, honoring the county native who grew up in Cedar Grove and attended Orange County Schools; she accepted by Zoom.
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Orange County Schools students return to classrooms
Kindergarten and first-grade students returned for hybrid in-person classes on January 25, 2021. Students in grades 2-12 followed in two rotating cohorts on March 8 and March 15, a month earlier than planned, after Senate Bill 37 required districts to offer in-person instruction.
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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.
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Orange County Health Department launches a health equity website
The health department launched a health equity webpage to stay accountable to residents on racial equity, citing the county commissioners' June 16, 2020 declaration of structural racism as a public health crisis.
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Gaps in vaccination among Black and Hispanic residents reported
Chapelboro reported that Black residents were 12.4 percent of Orange County's population but 9 percent of those vaccinated, and Hispanic residents 8.6 percent and 5.5 percent. The county was working with church leaders and advocates in a Human Services Consulting Group and had held clinics at the Hargraves Community Center and in Cedar Grove.
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Governor Cooper appoints Joal Broun a district court judge for Orange and Chatham counties
Broun was appointed to the District 15B seat vacated by Judge Beverly Scarlett. She was then director of the lobbying compliance division at the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State.
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Joal Broun is sworn in as a district court judge
Secretary of State Elaine Marshall administered the oath to Broun, who left her post as the department's lobbying compliance division director and gave up her school board seat to take the judgeship.
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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.
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Orange County Public Library ends overdue fines
Orange County commissioners approved a fine-free model for the county library, and overdue fines ended the next day. Library staff had found that fines fell hardest on residents facing economic hardship; charges for lost or damaged items continued.
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Census counts 36 migrant workers on Orange County farms
The 2022 Census of Agriculture found 174 Orange County farms employing 597 hired workers, including 36 migrant workers on seven farms. Between 2017 and 2022 the number of tobacco farms in the county fell by 60 percent.
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Orange County lifts its indoor mask mandate
Orange County and its three towns ended the indoor mask requirement on March 7, 2022. UNC-Chapel Hill lifted its campus mandate the same day, and Orange County Schools planned to make masks optional on March 10.
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Orange County's COVID-19 state of emergency expires
The county's COVID-19 emergency declaration, in force since March 13, 2020 and extended more than a dozen times, expired at 5 p.m. on May 1, 2022, making it the longest-running state of emergency in county history.
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Journey of Reconciliation convictions are vacated
On June 17, 2022, Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour vacated the disorderly conduct convictions of Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko, Andrew Johnson and Joseph Felmet. The four Journey of Reconciliation riders had been arrested in Chapel Hill in April 1947 for refusing to leave the front of an interstate bus.
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Erin Sapienza is named director of the Orange County Public Library
County Manager Bonnie Hammersley named Erin Sapienza library director after she had served as interim director since October 2021, when director Lucinda Munger resigned. Sapienza joined the library in June 2013 as a branch manager, became community services librarian in October 2015 and assistant director in March 2020.
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Lee Smith launches her novel Silver Alert at the Main Library in Hillsborough
The Orange County Public Library held a reading and signing at its Main Library on West Margaret Lane to launch Lee Smith's novel Silver Alert.
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Soil collection ceremony at the Orange County courthouse honors Cyrus Guy and four other 1869 lynching victims
The Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition held a soil collection ceremony for Washington Morrow, Wright Malone, Daniel Morrow, Thomas Jefferson Morrow and Cyrus Guy, all lynched in 1869. One jar for each man was to go to the Equal Justice Initiative's memorial collection in Montgomery, Alabama, and a second jar was to stay in Orange County.
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Orange County Public Library starts DELIVEReads home delivery
The library and Orange County Transportation Services began delivering library materials to residents unable to visit because of illness, disability, physical limitations or transportation problems, with up to ten items a month and staff selections on request. The service made 180 deliveries in its first fiscal year and later extended to caregivers.
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El Futuro launches Mentes Fuertes, a Spanish-language mental health program in Orange County
Four Spanish-speaking community health workers began leading free ten-session psychoeducation groups at the Orange County Rape Crisis Center, St. Thomas More and Holy Family Catholic Church. By March 2024, 48 participants had enrolled.
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Buckhorn Flea Market closes on Buckhorn Road
The Buckhorn Flea Market on Buckhorn Road in western Orange County, known to many Spanish speakers as La Pulga de Mebane, closed after about four decades when a trucking company bought the land. Its 300 to 500 weekend vendors were largely Latino immigrants, and the Mebane City Council voted on July 1 to annex and rezone the property for a truck terminal.
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Interlibrary loan returns through UNC-Chapel Hill
Working with UNC-Chapel Hill, the Orange County Public Library restored interlibrary loan during the 2024–25 fiscal year at no cost to patrons. The county had charged $1 plus library costs, raised the fee to $3 in October 2013 and cut it from $4 back to $3 in 2018 before the service lapsed.
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Penny Rich runs for Orange County register of deeds
Rich, by then an assistant clerk of superior court, entered the 2026 Democratic primary for Orange County register of deeds. She campaigned on modernizing the office's technology and public website and on heir property issues affecting African American families.
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Orange County's clerk of superior court is honored for work in guardianship law
Kleinschmidt received the Isabella Award at the National Probate Judges Conference for his contributions to guardianship and probate law. The award is named for judge Isabella Horton Grant and goes to people whose leadership improves guardianship laws, court administration and practice.
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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.
