Search and filters
Search and filters · 1 active
1,600 dated events and 9 storylines match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1,001–1,200 of 1,609, 200 to a page.Back to highlights
Entries
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
- 1920s
-
Black farmers Joe B. Brooks and John W. Jones organize Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church
African American farmers Joe Bethel Brooks and John William Jones founded the Jones Grove congregation north of Hillsboro. Its members were close to Lea's (now Lee's) Chapel Baptist Church at Cedar Grove, where the Brooks family lived.
-
The Esso company buys the Lockhart house at Churton and Tryon and moves its front half next door
About 1927 the Esso company bought the eighteenth-century Catherine Lockhart house at the northeast corner of Churton and Tryon streets. The front half was moved to the lot next door on East Tryon Street, and the corner became the site of a filling station.
-
Three brick stores are built at 101-107 North Churton Street after a fire
After fire destroyed the Berry Building on North Churton Street, three brick stores went up on the site together. Plaques saved from the old building, crediting Captain John Berry in 1869, were set between the new storefronts with one reading 'Rebuilt 1927.'
-
Joseph H. Jones deeds a quarter acre of his farm to the Jones Grove church trustees
John Jones's father, Joseph H. Jones, gave a quarter-acre of his farm to the trustees of the new Jones Grove congregation: his son John, Joe Brooks and Joe's brother William Brooks. The deed also marks the line of the Ridge Road School lot to the south.
-
Mack and Julie Rigsbee buy lots in the Bankhead Forest development
The Rigsbees bought lots 72 to 75 in Block D of the Bankhead Forest property east of Hillsborough in June 1927 and the adjoining lots 68 to 71 in April 1928. Their stone country house and its outbuildings went up on the combined lots.
-
Fire destroys the Everett building, a meat market on King Street
A fire that started soon after midnight destroyed R. O. Everett's two-story brick building on King Street, which held a meat market with roomers upstairs. A bucket brigade and fire trucks from Durham and Mebane kept it from spreading; the loss was put at about $5,000.
-
Alexander H. Graham inherits Montrose on the death of his father, John W. Graham
When John W. Graham died in 1928, Montrose passed to his son Alexander H. 'Sandy' Graham, later lieutenant governor.
-
H. Scott and Alice Cates build a stone house on South Hillsborough Avenue
A Colonial Revival house faced in rough-coursed stone was built for H. Scott and Alice Cates at South Hillsborough Avenue and West Margaret Lane. It is one of only two stone houses in Hillsborough.
-
Hillsborough's Black Presbyterian church closes
The small congregation had never been strong in numbers or money, and as its older members died there were too few younger ones to carry on. It closed about 1928.
-
Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church dedicates its first sanctuary
Members and neighbors built a front-gable weatherboarded church, finished early in 1928, with Buck Jacobs giving a large cash gift, William Brooks the sand and Aldolphus Hester the logs; John Jones hauled lumber in a white neighbor's truck. Rev. Joe B. Brooks led the dedication.
-
Gilbert W. Ray becomes Orange County's first county accountant
Under the 1927 County Fiscal Control Act the county hired Ray as accountant and purchasing agent, and he set up its first working system of books and central buying. Ray stayed in the job until August 31, 1947.
-
Eno Cotton Mill installs new machinery and switches to combed yarn
New machinery went in at the Eno mill in 1929, and combed yarn replaced coarse carded yarn. Broadcloth shirting and corduroy became its main products.
-
Mack and Julie Rigsbee build a white-quartz country house east of Hillsborough
Around 1929 the Rigsbees built a rambling story-and-a-half house faced with white quartz on two wooded acres east of Hillsborough, with a quartz wall, garage, pump house and swimming pool to match. Local stories say the couple sold whiskey and hid it in the roof.
-
Shepperd Strudwick resigns as president of Bellevue, and L. E. Beard takes over
After twenty-five years as president, Shepperd Strudwick stepped down in 1929, the year its stock value fell from $500,000 to $419,600. L. E. Beard succeeded him and his partner Norfleet Webb as president and treasurer.
- 1930s
-
A brick building that housed the post office goes up at 118 South Churton Street
A one-story beige brick commercial building is put up about 1930 at 118 South Churton Street and is labeled post office on the 1943 Sanborn map. The post office moved to a new building farther down South Churton Street in 1958.
-
Miss Ruffin's will leaves Sans Souci to Samuel T. Latta
Under the will of Miss Ruffin, proved on March 16 of a year in the 1930s, Sans Souci and her other property went to Samuel T. Latta, who was living there in 1971.
-
The Hillsborough Manufacturing Company builds a warehouse and woodworking shop on North Churton Street
Around 1930 the Hillsborough Manufacturing Company puts up a building supply warehouse at 503-505 North Churton Street and a woodworking shop next door at 507-513, both on the 1943 Sanborn map. The warehouse was made into two apartments in the 1950s and the shop into five apartments by the 1960s.
-
The Mercantile Center building on North Churton Street is remodeled in the Spanish Mission style as a dime store
The two-story brick building at 121 North Churton Street, put up soon after 1911, is remodeled in the 1930s with a tiled pent roof on large brackets, apparently when it became the dime store. Its storefront dates from 1988.
-
The county board approves H. F. Pickett as principal of Murphey School
The Orange County board approved H. F. Pickett as principal of Murphey School, which taught grades one through seven with three or four teachers, one of them doubling as principal. He is the first principal the record names.
-
Alexander H. Graham builds a stone law office on Churton Street
Graham, a former speaker of the state House, tore down the small frame building that held his law office and began a one-story building of local stone with a columned front for himself and his new partner Bonner Sawyer. Its cornerstone reads "Graham Building 1930."
-
A bungalow goes up on the old Bivins Basket Factory lot on South Occoneechee Street
By 1931 the Bivins Basket Factory, shown at South Occoneechee Street and West Margaret Lane on the 1924 Sanborn map, had left the site, and a bungalow was built there. The factory's small office may have been moved next door when the house went up.
-
A second storefront is built beside the old general store at 115 West King Street
A new brick store went up on the west side of an 1880s general store building, the two were joined inside, and the older store got a new front. The pair later housed the Dual Supply hardware store.
-
C. B. and Myrtle Ray Stanley's house is built on Allen Ruffin Avenue in West Hillsborough
The house at 406 Allen Ruffin Avenue was built for Charles B. and Myrtle Ray Stanley in the Eno mill neighborhood of West Hillsborough. Charles Stanley died at home there in 1958, and his funeral was held at the nearby Eno Methodist Church.
-
Mack and Julie Rigsbee lose their Rock House after defaulting on the mortgage
About two years after moving into their white flint house, the Rigsbees defaulted on the mortgage in 1931, and the place passed through a series of owners. Court records later tie Mack Rigsbee to whiskey convictions in Durham and Granville counties.
-
The Weldon Riley House is built on Eno Street
The one-and-a-half-story bungalow at 811 Eno Street, with a gabled dormer, knee brackets and a wide engaged porch, is judged the best Craftsman house in West Hillsborough.
-
The last known burials are made at Margaret Lane Cemetery
Margaret Lane Cemetery, begun as a burial ground for enslaved people before 1852, was used until 1931, according to the plaques placed in 1987. The oldest legible stone is for George W. Hill (1844-1900).
-
Eagle Lodge gets back its original number, 19
In 1932 the Hillsborough Masonic lodge, chartered as No. 19 in 1791 and revived in 1819 as No. 71, had its original number 19 reinstated. The lodge still owns and meets in its 1823 hall.
-
Richmond Motor Company opens as Hillsboro's Ford dealer
Richmond Motor Company began selling Ford cars in Hillsboro in 1932. It marked its 15th anniversary in July 1947 with a three-day open house, having sold 1,848 new and used cars.
-
Ridge Road School is built for Black children north of Hillsborough
In 1932 the county board had a two-room frame school for Black children built on Walter and Maggie Torian's land off Ridge Road (now Coleman Loop Road), just west of NC 86 north of Hillsborough. R. J. Forrest built it with lumber from the community. It replaced an earlier Ridge Road school and was not a Rosenwald school, though the 1993 survey had taken it for one.
-
Strum's Gas Station, a Spanish Mission-style filling station, is built on South Churton Street
The stuccoed Spanish Mission-style gas station at 200 South Churton Street, with a green tile pent roof, is built in 1932 and appears as a filling station on the 1943 Sanborn map.
-
The state builds a prison camp for road crews near Hillsborough
The state prison camp near Hillsborough, whose inmates worked on road crews, was built in 1932. By 1960 it held about ninety felons and kept a vegetable farm behind its fence.
-
Hattie V. Brown buys the Nash law office
Hattie V. Brown bought the half of lot 10 that held the old Nash law office. The property then changed hands several times before the Hillsborough Historical Society bought it in 1970.
-
Civil Works crews tear down the old stone jail on Hillsborough's courthouse square
As part of a Civil Works Administration project around the courthouse, relief workers demolished the old jail, and flagstones from its walls were used for sidewalks around the square. The work was nearly done in late December and complete by late January.
-
Curry Roberts builds a brick house for the Cates family on West Union Street
A two-story brick Colonial Revival house was built for the Cates family at 112 West Union Street, set far back on a lot running the depth of the block. Curry Roberts built it and the Black brickmason Roosevelt Warner laid the brick; it replaced an earlier house on the lot.
-
Hillsborough builds the Confederate Memorial Library
Federal relief crews began a new library on Churton Street in Hillsborough in December 1933, with local money, including $7,000 from the Hillsborough United Daughters of the Confederacy, paying for materials. The cornerstone of the Confederate Memorial Public Library was laid on July 13, 1934, and the building became the Orange County Historical Museum in 1983.
-
James J. Freeland moves to Hillsborough
Born in Durham in 1918, Freeland came to Hillsborough in 1934. In his early years there he operated the Sunny Side Inn, a barbecue restaurant, worked part time at a sawmill and helped run a dry cleaning plant in West Hillsborough.
-
Mary Strayhorn Berry's recollections of antebellum Hillsborough are typed
A typed transcription of Mary Elizabeth Strayhorn Berry's "Reminiscences of the Old South" records the names, family ties and skills of many people enslaved by the Strayhorn, Nichols and other Hillsborough families, and her father's store and cobbler shop.
-
Murphey School enrolls 182 pupils
In the 1934-35 school year Murphey School had 182 pupils. It was one of nine county schools, with Hillsboro, Orange Grove, St. Mary's, Caldwell, Efland, Aycock, Carrboro and White Cross, apart from the Chapel Hill city schools.
-
Ridge Road School counts 80 pupils enrolled and 51 attending
In the 1934-35 term Ridge Road School, a two-room school for Black children north of Hillsboro, had 80 pupils on its roll, 51 of whom attended regularly.
-
A Church of God congregation is organized in West Hillsborough
Garland Crabtree and T. E. Boman organized the Church of God of West Hillsborough, with Edd Mize as first pastor. It built a 250-seat church in 1945.
-
A Mission Revival Sinclair gas station is built at Churton and Corbin streets
A stuccoed Mission Revival gas station with a tiled porte-cochere is built in the late 1930s at 105 West Corbin Street, set at an angle to face the corner of North Churton and West Corbin. A large two-story addition went up behind it in 2003.
-
A house marked as the PWA's Little River Teacherage stands on Warner Lane
The frame house at 116 Warner Lane carries a Public Works Administration sign naming it the Little River Teacherage, project N.C. 1127-F. Warner Lane and its houses are not on the 1924 Sanborn map; the house is on the 1943 map.
-
Alethea Burt moves to Hillsboro and takes charge of Ridge Road School's upper grades
Alethea Arrington Burt, a Hampton Institute graduate, came from Currituck County to Hillsboro in 1935, the year her husband Moses became the county's Black farm agent. She taught fifth through seventh grades and served as principal of the two-room school until it closed in 1951.
-
Parents turn back a plan to merge the Aycock, Efland and Hillsboro schools
A large crowd of parents appeared before the board to fight a plan that would have folded the Aycock, Efland and Hillsboro schools into one. The opposition was strong enough that the board dropped the plan, which returned in 1963 as Orange High School.
-
A WPA-funded auditorium wing is added to Murphey School
A 30-by-80-foot brick auditorium with a Doric portico was built onto the west end of the school with federal WPA money, together with a water tank, a new sewer and plumbing system, and repairs to the teacherage, for $16,365. George W. Kane was the general contractor, and the county board inspected and accepted the auditorium on June 1, 1936.
-
A federal WPA grant pays for ten Orange County school building projects
A federal grant of $155,454 to the county school board in 1936 paid for new buildings at West Hillsboro School, Hillsboro Negro School and Chapel Hill High School, and for additions and updated equipment at Murphey, Carrboro, Aycock, St. Mary's, Orange Grove, Chapel Hill Negro School and Hillsboro schools.
-
Dr. Bryan Roberts buys the Roulhac-Hamilton House and remakes it as a brick Colonial Revival house
In 1936 the Hamilton heirs sold the old Laburnum Cottage on West Tryon Street to Dr. Bryan Roberts and his wife. About 1940 they covered it in brick veneer and added a new Colonial Revival entrance and a two-story rear wing, leaving little of the 1840s house visible.
-
Hillsboro High School gets an addition built with PWA money
An addition to the Hillsboro high school was under construction in May 1936 as part of the county's $346,000 school building program, paid for partly by a federal Public Works Administration grant.
-
Lebanon Methodist Church loses its old building
The old church of the Lebanon congregation, one of the rural churches tied to the Hillsborough charge, was destroyed in 1936.
-
Mr. and Mrs. James Webb Cheshire buy Over-the-River
The Norwood house across the Eno, which James Webb Jr. and his wife had bought in 1848, was sold in 1936 to Mr. and Mrs. James Webb Cheshire.
-
Orange County builds a brick school for Black students in Hillsboro
Under a PWA-aided building program the county built an eight-room brick school for Black children in Hillsboro in 1935-36, with an auditorium, steam heat and plumbing. High school grades are first reported there for 1938-39, as the Hillsborough High School for Negroes; it became Central High School.
-
The Berry Brick House leaves the Berry family after 131 years
The Berry family sold the West Queen Street brick house in 1936 to Mr. and Mrs. F. S. McLarty, who added rear dormers and perhaps the front ones. The McLartys sold it in 1943 to Mr. and Mrs. F. Ross Porter.
-
The Durham Bank and Trust Company buys the Bank of Orange
The Bank of Orange stayed independent until 1936, when the Durham Bank and Trust Company bought it. Its assets were about $750,000 at the sale.
-
West End Graded School is built on the old Cadwallader Jones homesite
A larger one-story brick Colonial Revival school for grades one through six, six classrooms and an auditorium, was built in 1936 to replace the two-story frame West End School on Bellevue Avenue, which became a community club building. It stood on the highest ground in West Hillsborough, inside a low stone wall, where the Cadwallader Jones house had stood.
-
The county school board buys land for a new Black school in Hillsboro
The Orange County Board of Education bought the Hillsboro colored school site from Louis Wilson and George Mayo, paying $1,100 to each. The new school for Black students went up there that year.
-
The county board applies for home economics and agriculture teachers at Hillsboro School
The board voted in April 1936 to apply for teachers of agriculture and home economics at the Hillsboro School, while seeking federal funds for new buildings and additions.
-
The school library at Hillsborough High School for Negroes also served as the public library for Black residents
Hillsborough's new school for Black students, a Public Works Administration building of eight classrooms and an auditorium, was put up in 1936 and ready in July on land bought from Louis Wilson and George Mayo, and its library served the local Black community as a public library. Albert L. Stanback became principal in 1942 and had the school renamed Central High School in 1943.
-
District health department holds midwife classes across Orange County
Classes for midwives were held at Efland and Hillsboro and began for those in and near Chapel Hill at the health department offices, with attendance required before a permit to practice would be issued. Health officer W. P. Richardson said 17 percent of births in the county were attended by midwives, against 31 percent statewide.
-
Brickmason Roosevelt Warner builds his own house on West Corbin Street
Roosevelt Warner, a Black brickmason, built himself a two-story brick Colonial Revival house at 117 West Corbin Street, with a garage apartment of brick and glazed tile behind it. He also laid brick for other Hillsborough houses and in 1963 became the first Black town commissioner.
-
G. C. Kennedy and Sons build the Piedmont Packing Company plant north of Hillsborough
The meat packing plant about five miles north of Hillsborough was first built in 1937 and later enlarged. It held state permit No. 18, employed about 40 people and supplied markets from Hillsborough to Raleigh.
-
The Historic American Buildings Survey records the academy barracks
By the Depression the empty Barracks of the old military academy sheltered homeless families. In 1937 the Historic American Buildings Survey measured and photographed it, a year before it was torn down.
-
The Parks family sells the Parks-Richmond House to J. W. and Marguerite Richmond
The house at 175 West King Street, which D. C. Parks had used as the office, reception room and dining room of his hotel, stayed in the Parks family until 1937, when it was sold to J. W. and Marguerite Richmond. It now operates as the Inn at Teardrops.
-
The Parks-Richmond kitchen is moved west to face South Wake Street
The kitchen of the Parks-Richmond House, built about 1870, is moved west around 1937 and becomes a house fronting South Wake Street.
-
Ben Johnson, born enslaved near Hillsborough, recalls the Klan lynching of Cyrus Guy for a WPA interviewer
Interviewed at 85 in Hecktown, Durham, by Federal Writers' Project worker Mary A. Hicks, Johnson said the Ku Klux came for Cy Guy a hundred strong, tried him in the woods and hanged him over the road. He said nobody would touch the body for four days, until the sheriff took it down.
-
The county welfare department is reorganized under Social Security
A new three-member welfare board of O. L. Crabtree, Bruce Strowd and Charlie McDade, a Black member, took charge, and W. T. Mattox became superintendent in July 1937. The office moved to Hillsborough that year and kept a branch in Chapel Hill.
-
Archaeologists excavate the wall site believing it to be Occaneechi Town
Joffre Coe began digging a village site on a bend of the Eno at Hillsborough in 1938 in the belief that it was the town John Lawson visited in 1701, and Robert Wauchope carried the work on in 1940 and 1941 with federal funding. A state highway marker for the Occaneechi village was erected at Hillsborough in 1941. The village Coe had found was in fact an earlier settlement of about 1400 to 1600.
-
Eno Methodist Church is moved back from the road and remodeled
In 1938 the congregation shifted its frame church back from Eno Street and remodeled it.
-
F. Vernon Altvater restores the Faucett House and joins a moved early house to it as a wing
F. Vernon Altvater and his wife, who bought the Faucett House tract in 1937, restored the house between 1938 and 1940 and called it the Coach House. They took down the early 1800s Naile Johnson House from the St. Mary's Road area and rebuilt it as the rear wing.
-
Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation is incorporated and energizes its first lines
Piedmont Electric, a rural electric cooperative formed under the federal Rural Electrification Administration loan program, received its North Carolina incorporation papers in 1938. In 1939 its first substation, in Hillsborough, energized lines to members' homes for the first time.
-
The Dr. Efland Forrest House is built at West King and North Wake streets
A two-story Neoclassical Revival house with a full-height Corinthian portico, one of few in Hillsborough, was built around 1938 at 202 West King Street; a sign in the yard names it the Dr. Efland Forrest House.
-
The Hillsborough Military Academy's brick barracks are torn down
The academy's three-story brick barracks, later used by the Farm Life School, were dismantled in 1938. Only the Commandant's House and a frame dining hall survive, with parts of the barracks foundation in the woods south of the hall.
-
The Walker farm builds cinder-block chicken houses
In the late 1930s the Walker farm moved from dairying to poultry and put up several cinder-block chicken houses in 1938. The farm turned to beef cattle in the 1960s.
-
The county begins small yearly grants to Hillsborough's Confederate Memorial Library
Even before state library grants were available, and at least as early as 1938, Orange County made small annual appropriations to the Confederate Memorial Library in Hillsborough.
-
The Durham Bank and Trust Company takes over the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Hillsborough
The Durham bank acquired Hillsborough's second bank, the Farmers and Merchants Bank, in 1939. From then on it ran a single Hillsborough branch.
-
The state casts a highway marker for Governor Thomas Burke's capture at Hillsborough
The North Carolina highway marker G-16, cast in 1939, stands on Churton Street in Hillsborough. It records that Governor Burke was captured in the town by David Fanning and his Tories on September 12, 1781, and taken to Charleston.
-
A lent library truck carries books to schools and crossroads stores across Orange County
For May, June and July 1939 a bookmobile with a revolving shelved turret was lent to the county, run by Lucile McDade and her assistant Louise Carroll, who stopped at schools and crossroads stores. The county board of education and the Confederate Memorial Library in Hillsboro paid its operating costs, and the WPA and the Hillsboro library lent the books.
- 1940s
-
Hillsborough Methodist Church builds an educational wing
The congregation added a two-story educational wing behind its 1859 church in the 1940s. Another addition and a covered breezeway followed in 1985.
-
Pastor S. F. Nicks leads a $12,000 addition of rooms to the Hillsborough Methodist Church
Soon after returning to Hillsborough in 1940, Nicks proposed adding rooms to the church. Robert Forrest and A. A. Lloyd raised the money with a match of one dollar from the Duke Endowment for every three raised, and much of the work was volunteer labor, Nicks included.
-
St. Mary's Road is paved and straightened
The old Trading Path route east of Hillsborough, later the Oxford Road, was paved and straightened in sections around 1940, though its side roads stayed dirt.
-
The Agricultural Services Building is built on East King Street in two stages
A thirteen-bay, two-story brick Colonial Revival office building at 110 East King Street, running through to Court Street, was built in two parts: the left side before World War II and the right side after the war.
-
The James Hogg House on the Burnside grounds is torn down
The house associated with James Hogg, the Revolutionary-era merchant, was demolished in the 1940s. The remains of one chimney still stand northeast of Burnside.
-
The William Whitted House becomes Hillsborough's American Legion post
In the 1940s the William Whitted House at 306 North Churton Street becomes the home of the local American Legion post. It has since become a private residence again.
-
Wartime orders push the Eno Cotton Mill to about 600 workers
Military demand for cloth during World War II enlarged the Eno Cotton Mill, which by the 1940s employed as many as 600 workers on three shifts.
-
White Furniture Company of Mebane takes over Orange Furniture Craftsmen in Hillsborough
The Mebane firm bought the Hillsborough plant and turned it to dining room buffets and cabinets, many of them eighteenth-century reproductions. By 1953 it employed 125.
-
Col. John K. Ross-Duggan holds 75th-anniversary exercises at the restored Johnston headquarters house
Col. John K. Ross-Duggan, who with his wife had restored the Dickson house outside Hillsborough, marked the 75th anniversary of the war's end there with afternoon exercises and a special postal cachet showing the house. A. H. Graham and W. B. Umstead of Durham were to speak.
-
Fire destroys the Bivins Basket Factory east of Hillsboro
A fire of unknown cause razed the Bivins Basket Factory on the Durham-Greensboro highway just east of Hillsboro. The plant had been used mostly for storage, and its owners called it a total loss.
-
The livestock auction market at Hillsborough holds its first sale
The county gave the land, the town installed watering, and the Farmers Exchange built the barn for a livestock auction at Hillsborough. Its first sale was held November 6, 1941, and yearly sales grew from $150,000 to $1,100,000 by 1951.
-
A filling station is built at 212 North Churton Street
A parapet-roofed filling station with garage bays goes up at 212 North Churton Street about 1942. Around 1980 it lost its tiled pent roof, was stuccoed and enlarged, and became the John Couch Oil Company.
-
A. L. Stanback succeeds E. C. Hester as principal of Hillsborough's high school for Black students
Albert Leon Stanback, a teacher at the Hillsboro High School for Negroes, replaced its first principal, E. C. Hester, in 1942. The school took the name Central High School the next year, and Stanback later pushed for the Cedar Grove consolidated school to take the lower grades.
-
James Collins buys the closed Black Presbyterian church and its lot
About fourteen years after the congregation disbanded, James Collins bought the church building and land on Orange Street.
-
James J. Freeland builds his first house at US 70 and Faucette Mill Road
Three years after marrying Maxine Hayes, Freeland built the family's first home where Highway 70 crosses Faucette Mill Road, next to land that became the Fairview subdivision the following year.
-
The Paul Riley Store is built on Eno Street
A one-story brick store with a stepped parapet and inset entrance went up at 907 Eno Street, carrying the West End commercial style farther west. A longtime resident recalled it, with the nearby Methodist church, as a center of childhood life in West Hillsborough.
-
A Freewill Baptist church meets in a former store on South Nash Street
A small frame building at 219 South Nash Street, shown as a store on the 1911 and 1924 Sanborn maps and later a hot dog stand and a house, appears as the Freewill Baptist Church on the 1943 map. It keeps a small square steeple in its front gable.
-
Dr. H. W. Moore restores the Hasell-Nash House with architect Archie Royal Davis
Dr. H. W. Moore restored the Federal-style Hasell-Nash House on West Queen Street with the help of architect Archie Royal Davis, who extended the rear of the two side wings around 1943.
-
Fairview is platted as a neighborhood for Black families north of US 70
The first of Hillsborough's mid-century African American subdivisions was laid out in 1943 along roads that were already there, with twenty-five-foot lots meant to be bought in combination. Local builder James J. Freeland, who owned land in Fairview, built many of its houses.
-
St. Mary's School closes as its pupils are merged into the Hillsborough schools
Consolidation with the Hillsborough schools closed St. Mary's School in 1943.
-
The 1844 Orange County Courthouse is rehabilitated
The county rehabilitated its courthouse of about 1844 in 1943 and later added an annex, but the building stayed too small, and a new courthouse was finished just south of it in 1954.
-
The Farmers Mutual Exchange builds a slaughterhouse on Occoneechee Farm
In summer 1943 the Exchange put up an abattoir next to the Hillsborough livestock market on Occoneechee Farm. Farmers could bring cattle and hogs for slaughter at cost and collect the meat the next day.
-
The Hillsborough High School for Negroes takes the name Central High School
Under principal A. L. Stanback, the school for Black students in Hillsborough changed its name to Central High School in 1943.
-
The McLartys sell the Berry Brick House to Mr. and Mrs. F. Ross Porter
In 1943 F. S. McLarty and his wife, who had bought the Berry Brick House in 1936 and added dormers, sold it to Mr. and Mrs. F. Ross Porter.
-
Person and Caswell sign a tri-county library contract with Orange
On March 29, 1943 the Person and Caswell library boards signed a contract forming a tri-county library arrangement with Orange, already in effect, which used state aid to serve all three counties by bookmobile, with its Orange office in the Confederate Memorial Library. Chatham dropped out of the earlier arrangement, which from 1941 had joined Person, Orange and Chatham.
-
The Burke grave plot is given to the State of North Carolina
The university chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution gave the state the small plot holding Governor Thomas Burke's grave. The chapter had cared for the site since students found it in 1923 and was raising money for a monument.
-
A one-story brick store is built at 109 East King Street
A three-bay brick commercial building with a central entrance between large multi-light display windows was put up at 109 East King Street around 1944.
-
W. B. Thompson sells the Chapel Hill News, which becomes the News of Orange County
W. B. Thompson, who had published the Chapel Hill News since its start, sold it in 1944 to J. Roy Parker. The paper was renamed the News of Orange County.
-
Orange County FSA honors 15 Black farm ownership borrowers
The county Farm Security Administration office awarded certificates of merit to 15 Black farm ownership borrowers, former tenants it had helped to buy farms. By March 1944 the county had 22 approved tenant-purchase loans.
-
Hillsborough well-baby clinics are held separately for Black and white babies
The Junior Service League and the district health department held two well-baby clinics each month in Hillsborough, one for Black babies and one for white babies, focused on preventive care.
-
Mrs. E. G. Danziger buys Henrietta Smedes's house on Hillsborough Street
The Danzigers, Austrian refugees whose candy and pastry shop was on Franklin Street, bought the 1919 house at 211 Hillsborough Street from Henrietta Smedes, who had retired from the university staff. That September they advertised their Forest Hills house for sale.
-
Orange County's Black home demonstration clubs hold their first dress contest in Hillsboro
Women from every Black home demonstration club in the county modeled thirty-six dresses, suits and accessories they had made at the Hillsboro high school auditorium. By 1946 the clubs met monthly in rural communities including White Oak Grove, Jordan Grove, Cool Springs, Cedar Grove, Harmony, Ridge Road, St. Mary's, Sartin and Carr.
-
Smith Furniture Company opens on West King Street in Hillsborough
Smith Furniture Company opened in the building formerly occupied by the Scott store, selling furniture, stoves and rugs. R. J. Smith ran it as proprietor, and it was still selling G-E appliances and heaters on West King Street in the 1960s.
-
A granite monument is dedicated at Governor Thomas Burke's grave
The Sons of the American Revolution and the Lloyd Memorial Association dedicated a memorial monolith at Burke's grave on the Latta plantation northeast of Hillsborough and presented it to the state. Governor J. Melville Broughton and Archibald Henderson were among the speakers.
-
James Freeland opens the Fairview Bowling Alley in Hillsborough
James Freeland opened the Fairview Bowling Alley in a building he put up himself, casting the cinder blocks and laying the concrete floor. It opened with three duckpin alleys and room for a tenpin lane.
-
Home demonstration clubs report the year's work at Achievement Day in Hillsboro
At the county home demonstration clubs' Achievement Day at the courthouse, the home agent reported that women had canned an average of 350 quarts and that 94 percent made their own clothes, and that the women's curb market in Chapel Hill had taken in $30,280.68 over the past year. Clubs from Caldwell, Carr, Cedar Grove, Efland, New Hope, Orange Grove, St. Mary's, Schley and Murphy had made 699 garments and 744 other articles for the Red Cross.
-
The county school board sells the closed Harvey's Chapel schoolhouse
The Orange County Board of Education approved the sale of the Harvey's Chapel schoolhouse, a school for Black children about three miles from Hillsboro. It had closed several years before, its pupils sent to the Hillsboro school, and Mary E. Breeze bought the building.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
-
A brick Colonial Revival office building is built at 115 East King Street
A one-story Flemish-bond brick office building with a slate roof and a large central display window was built at 115 East King Street around 1945.
-
Hesslein and Company buys the Belle-Vue mill, ending local ownership
Belle-Vue Manufacturing Company had been run from Hillsborough since 1904, lately under L. E. Beard. In 1945 Hesslein and Company bought it and spent over half a million dollars on new machinery and on baths for the mill village houses.
-
Homemont is platted as a Black neighborhood north of Hillsborough
Laid out in 1945 with gently curving streets and evenly spaced lots on Torain and Lawndale streets, Homemont filled mostly in the 1950s and 1960s with small Minimal Traditional houses, several of exposed concrete block, built by more than one builder for sale or rent. Next to a trash dump, it had no paved streets until the 1970s.
-
Town electricity and water are extended to West Hillsborough
Before the town took over in the late 1940s, the mills supplied power and water to their workers, cutting electricity to the houses during the day so the machinery could run, which left families without refrigeration.
-
Bowling alley owner James Freeland knocks out a Black man who asked to bowl
Lorenzo Thompson, a Black man, came into the Fairview Bowling Alley late at night, said he had bowled up north and would not leave when told he could not bowl. Owner James Freeland knocked him unconscious and dragged him outside, and Thompson needed stitches.
-
James Freeland opens a barbecue pit behind his Fairview Bowling Alley
James Freeland opened a barbecue pit behind the Fairview Bowling Alley and began serving barbecue every day. As with the alley, he built most of it himself.
-
The Latta Cooperative Dairy opens its milk plant in Hillsborough
Organized in 1944, the Latta Cooperative Dairy built a small 500-gallon plant in Hillsborough that began work in June 1945. It bought milk from about thirty nearby farmers and ran routes in Hillsborough, Mebane and Durham.
-
Central High School adds a twelfth grade
Central High School, the county's high school for Black students in Hillsborough, added a twelfth grade for the 1946-47 school year. By 1949-50 it served 443 elementary and 206 high school students.
-
Principal J. M. Harris refits the Murphey School lunchroom
Mrs. J. M. Harris, principal and teacher of the fifth and sixth grades, reported new chairs, tables, curtains and cooking equipment for the lunchroom in 1946. Her teachers were Myrtle Walker, Erna Link, Mrs. Chas F. Hudson and Florence Roat, and the school had a 4-H club, a chorus and a parent-teacher association.
-
Marinda McPherson sings a joint recital at the Orange County school auditorium
Mrs. M. D. McPherson and Galvin Lampley gave a joint recital in the Orange County school auditorium in Hillsboro. She sang The Star by James H. Rogers and Because by Guy d'Hardelot, and Lampley played De Falla and Chopin.
-
C. S. Cates opens a new movie theater in the old Hollywood Theatre building in West Hillsborough
Cates, a World War II veteran, remodeled the building the Hollywood Theatre had used, with new sound and projection equipment and seats, and advertised the opening for Wednesday, May 1, with a contest to name the house.
-
The county board approves twelve classrooms and a gymnasium for Central School
The board approved a building program of twelve classrooms and a gymnasium at Central, the county's school for Black students in Hillsborough.
-
The county board closes Orange Grove School and sends its pupils to Hillsboro
The board discontinued Orange Grove School and first planned to split its children between Hillsboro and White Cross. Parents objected strongly to White Cross, so the board voted to send them all to Hillsboro; the school site went to Cane Creek Baptist Church for $50 in 1947.
-
Fire destroys the barbecue pit at Dud's Tavern near Hillsborough
A Monday afternoon fire destroyed the barbecue pit building and its contents at Dud's Tavern, with damage put at $1,800. The fire had gained too much headway by the time the Hillsborough fire department reached it.
-
A wartime Army garage from Camp Butner is moved to North Churton Street
A one-story garage of concrete block and weatherboard, built at Camp Butner in 1942, was moved to 132 North Churton Street in Hillsborough in 1947. It still has five of its original wooden overhead doors.
-
Dickerson Chapel's old courthouse frame is encased in brick
In 1947 the frame building that began as the third Orange County courthouse was covered in brick, giving Dickerson Chapel A.M.E. Church its present look with pointed-arch stained-glass windows and an entrance tower and steeple.
-
Mr. and Mrs. W. V. Fryer give a Baldwin organ to the Hillsborough Presbyterian Church
During Irving Birdseye's pastorate the Fryers gave a new Baldwin organ in memory of R. H. Claytor Sr., and also carpeted the sanctuary's pulpit and aisles.
-
The William Edward McPherson House is built on Nash Street in West Hillsborough
The 2017 Hillsborough architectural survey records the William Edward McPherson House at 303 Nash Street and dates it to 1947. The McPherson family, whose Edward (Pete) McPherson managed Hillsboro's Black All-Stars baseball team in these years, owned several lots along the west side of Nash Street.
-
Cates's Esso station in Hillsborough is named the cleanest Esso station in North Carolina
A statewide survey by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey picked C. H. Cates's Esso station in Hillsborough as the cleanest Esso station in North Carolina, ahead of stations in Elizabeth City and Durham. The company arranged to name him on its Esso Reporter broadcast over WPTF.
-
The Hickory House restaurant opens in downtown Hillsborough
E. W. Godfrey's Hickory House opened to the public at noon on a Saturday after an informal inspection the night before, and became a regular meeting place for town merchants and clubs. In May 1948 it installed air conditioning, which the paper called a first for a Hillsboro business.
-
Hillsboro's Black baseball team opens its season at McPherson's Baseball Park before a record crowd
The News of Orange County's column for the Black community reported that the baseball season opened at McPherson's Baseball Park on Sunday, April 6, before a record crowd; the home team lost to the Roxboro Stars and on Easter Monday to the Graham Stars.
-
Paul Henderson reopens the restored Colonial Inn in Hillsborough
Col. Paul Henderson bought the run-down inn on West King Street in 1946 and restored it as a hotel and dining room, managed by Martin Henderson. About 100 people came to the formal opening of the dining hall, a Hillsboro Merchants Association dinner addressed by R. B. House.
-
Morris Telephone Company switches Hillsborough to dial telephones in a new exchange building
The Morris Telephone Company of Roxboro replaced Hillsborough's hand-crank telephones with a dial system housed in a new brick exchange on East King Street, begun in March 1947 at an estimated cost of $40,000 with equipment. The cutover was set for 4 p.m. on Monday, September 1.
-
Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough
Bill France and four partners chartered a company in September 1947 to build a one-mile dirt oval by the old Occoneechee Farm, and it opened in June 1948. The track held a race in NASCAR's first Strictly Stock season in 1949, was renamed Orange Speedway in 1954, and closed after Richard Petty won its last race on September 15, 1968.
-
Fire destroys the Farmers Exchange livestock market near Hillsborough
A fire of unknown origin leveled the Farmers Exchange livestock pens and office on the old Durham road near Hillsborough. The loss was put at $15,000; the workers escaped, but 13 to 20 cattle and 18 hogs died.
-
A bus route begins running through West Hillsborough
Until 1948, when a bus line started running through its streets, mill families without cars had no easy way to reach downtown Hillsborough, nearly a mile away, or the rest of the county.
-
Hyconeechee Regional Library is established
The three county library systems incorporated as one region to enlarge book collections, run a shared bookmobile and provide trained supervision. The regional board held its second meeting on September 13, 1948 at the Confederate Memorial Library in Hillsboro, with Sydney Green of Orange County as president and Mrs. Douglas Davis as regional librarian.
-
Lt. Gov. Alexander Graham has Watts Carr remodel Montrose as a Colonial Revival house
In 1948 Lt. Gov. Alexander Graham and his wife hired Durham architect Watts Carr to turn the Victorian house at Montrose into a Colonial Revival one, with a high hipped roof, side wings and a Georgian Revival entrance. Carr helped work in mantels, doors and trim from old Orange County houses, including double doors from the Burwell School.
-
Ridge Road School reports 75 pupils and a 149-book library
The principal's report for 1948-49 counted 75 children enrolled, 57 in average attendance, with the sixth and seventh grades the largest group at 40. The school's equipment was a globe, a flag, word cards, art supplies and a library of 149 books.
-
The News of Orange County is sold to E. J. Hamlin
In 1948 the News of Orange County changed hands again, passing to E. J. Hamlin.
-
The county board moves Murphey School's seventh grade to Hillsboro
Many Murphey-district families had been sending children to Hillsboro, some riding the bus against the rules, and in 1947 the board agreed to keep the seventh grade at Murphey only until numbers justified a move. In 1948, with about seventy pupils left, it sent the seventh grade to the Hillsboro school.
-
Fire guts Pete McPherson's cafe and pool hall in West Hillsborough
A fire that started in a defective flue gutted the frame and brick building near the Black school in West Hillsboro where Pete McPherson ran a cafe with a pool and beer hall. Most of the stock was saved, but all the pool tables were lost.
-
Hillsboro Speedway, Inc. buys the Occoneechee Farm racetrack tract
W. S. Murchison and J. R. Rogers sold two hundred acres of the old Occoneechee Farm, including its horse track, to Hillsboro Speedway, Inc., the company Bill France and four partners had chartered to build a stock car track. France had spotted the track while flying over Orange County.
-
An Orange County Superior Court jury convicts Felmet and the other three Chapel Hill bus defendants
A jury found Andrew S. Johnson, Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko and Joseph Felmet guilty of breaking the bus seating law, and Judge Chester Morris sentenced each to 30 days. The men, defended by C. J. Gates, Herman L. Taylor and E. R. Avent, appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court and posted bond.
-
The Farmers Mutual livestock market near Hillsborough reopens in a new auction building
A new auction building with a sale ring, loading ramps, automatic scales and offices replaced the one lost to fire in December, and regular Monday sales were set to resume on March 15.
-
Hillsborough Presbyterian Church begins its educational building
After gifts starting in 1943 and a December 1947 drive that reached half the cost, the church started work on its educational wing in May 1948 and finished it that November.
-
Occoneechee Speedway opens
Occoneechee Speedway, a one-mile dirt oval that Bill France and four North Carolina partners built on the old Occoneechee Farm horse track outside Hillsborough, opened with a 100-mile NASCAR stock car race won by Fonty Flock.
-
Health officer urges typhoid shots after a case in Hillsboro
District Health Officer O. David Garvin urged Orange County residents to take the health department's typhoid vaccinations after a case of typhoid fever occurred in Hillsboro. Clinics were held at the Chapel Hill and Hillsboro health departments on Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings, and he advised sound privies and tested water.
-
Farmers Mutual opens its new farm supply warehouse on Margaret Lane
The farmers' cooperative Farmers Mutual, Inc. opened its new Hillsborough warehouse with a ribbon-cutting by manager J. H. McAdams before a large crowd of county farmers. The building replaced a machinery shed the co-op had used for eight years to buy supplies and market grain, poultry and eggs.
-
Hillsboro's Black All-Stars beat the town's white All-Stars at McPherson's Park
In a Sunday game at McPherson's Park billed as the Stars against the Stars, Hillsboro's Black All-Stars defeated the town's white All-Stars 13 to 10.
-
Fonty Flock wins both races of the Occoneechee double-header
Fonty Flock, who had won the speedway's opening race in June, won both feature events of the double-header at Occoneechee Speedway, the track's second and third races.
-
Alethea Burt starts a junior 4-H club at Ridge Road School
Principal Alethea Burt organized a junior 4-H club at Ridge Road School in the 1949-50 term, when 64 children were enrolled. She and her husband, farm agent Moses Burt, helped form 4-H clubs among Black youth in the county.
-
Central High's 1949-50 reports show 649 pupils and crowded classrooms
Central High School served 443 elementary and 206 high school students with twelve and eight teachers. Its library of 1,120 books also served the Black community, but nine of its eleven elementary classrooms were too small.
-
Edward T. Draper-Savage buys Moorefields and begins restoring it
Edward T. Draper-Savage, related to the Moore family by marriage, acquired Moorefields and began its restoration. The 1972 nomination found the house in excellent condition.
-
Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation builds its headquarters in Hillsborough
The rural electric cooperative serving Orange and five nearby counties put up a new headquarters building in Hillsborough in 1949. By 1953 it ran about 1,100 miles of line to more than 4,000 customers.
-
Superintendent Proffit's $1 million school bond pays for a new Efland school for Black children and county lunchrooms
The $1,000,000 school bond passed under Superintendent Glenn T. Proffit paid for grounds and a building for the Efland school for Black children, an addition to Hillsboro High School, and lunchrooms at Aycock, Efland, West Hillsborough and White Cross. It also bought a cannery and gymnasium at Aycock and a remodeling and auditorium at Caldwell.
-
The two Orange County dairy cooperatives merge and take the Long Meadow name
In 1949 the Latta and Farmers cooperatives merged and bought the Long Meadow Dairies plant in Durham County, taking its name. Processing stopped in Hillsborough and went on in Chapel Hill.
-
Writer Peter Taylor buys the old Laws house on East King Street
Short story writer Peter Taylor, then teaching English at the Woman's College in Greensboro, bought the Ed Laws house on East King Street. The paper reported the purchase when he won a Guggenheim Fellowship in April 1950.
-
The Pilgrim Holiness Church in West Hillsborough holds its first service in a new building
The Pilgrim Holiness congregation met for the first time in its new church, under construction since August 1948 near the site of its old building. District superintendent William S. Deal preached, and the Rev. J. F. Kernodle was pastor.
-
Hillsborough holds a combined flower show and garden pilgrimage
The Hillsborough Garden Club held its flower show together with the state garden pilgrimage, opening historic homes and gardens on a "Colonial Hillsboro" theme. Addie Williams Totten of Chapel Hill, state flower show chairman, planned it with the club; it was the first time the two events had been combined.
-
Marinda McPherson sponsors the annual kite contest at the Hillsboro school
The annual kite contest sponsored by Mrs. M. D. McPherson was held on the school playground in Hillsboro, with prizes for the fastest getaway, the longest distance, dash and altitude, and the most original kite.
-
The Orange County Negro Public Library held its grand opening at the community center in Hillsboro
The library opened on a Sunday afternoon from 3 to 5 p.m. with Mrs. M. D. McPherson as directress and Miss Victoria Craig as librarian. Mrs. Douglas Davis, the tri-county regional librarian, sponsored the event and spoke, and Mrs. Eliza Webb attended for the Confederate Memorial Library.
-
The county board names A. J. Breeze, James Clark and Otho Thompson to the Ridge Road school committee
The Orange County board appointed three local men as the Ridge Road district's advisory committee; they served until April 1951, the school's last spring.
-
Orange County sets up a county recorder's court
Under a 1949 act, the commissioners created a recorder's court for the six townships outside Chapel Hill, sitting every Monday, with the clerk of superior court as its clerk.
-
Owner W. M. Chance puts a neon marquee on the Osbunn Theater
W. M. Chance, owner of the Osbunn Theater on West King Street, had a steel marquee 32 feet long and 8 feet wide built across its front, lit by 300 feet of neon tubing. New aluminum display cases went in across the front as well.
-
NASCAR comes to Occoneechee Speedway
Occoneechee Speedway near Hillsborough hosted the third race of NASCAR's first Strictly Stock season, a 200-lap event won by Bob Flock. It is the only dirt track from that inaugural season that still survives.
-
D. E. and Marie Hollandsworth buy Maple Hill and begin restoring it
D. E. and Marie B. Hollandsworth bought the Jacob Jackson farmhouse on St. Mary's Road and restored its Federal block and Greek Revival wing, adding bathrooms and heat. Mrs. Hollandsworth and her daughter still owned it when it was listed in the National Register in 1994.
-
Dr. D. Efland Forrest opens the Forrest Clinic, Hillsborough's first private hospital
The Forrest Clinic, a colonial-style brick hospital on North Churton Street, held a public open house on a Sunday afternoon and began taking patients the next morning. Dr. Forrest served as his own contractor, with Hillsborough native William S. Arrasmith as architectural adviser.
-
Hillsborough Presbyterian Church dedicates its debt-free educational building
Once the debt on the 1948 educational wing was paid, the church dedicated it in October 1949, under pastor Irving E. Birdseye.
-
Orange County voters approve $1.25 million in bonds for schools and a courthouse
Following a county-wide school study begun in October 1948, voters approved bonds of up to $1,250,000 for new and enlarged schools and a new courthouse. Voters had turned down similar bonds in 1947.
- 1950s
-
An office building for the Orange County Sheriff's Department goes up on East Margaret Lane
A one-story Flemish-bond brick Colonial Revival office building, built to look like a house with a pedimented Corinthian portico, went up at 144 East Margaret Lane in the 1950s for the Orange County Sheriff's Department. It now holds the Orange County District Attorney's offices.
-
Cole Motor Company builds a streamlined garage on US 70
The dealership's building on Cornelius Street (US 70), streamlined with rounded brick corners and glass block, is one of the most modern commercial designs of its time on Hillsborough's outskirts.
-
James J. Freeland develops Mountain View and Colonial Hills east of Hillsborough
Freeland laid out two small subdivisions of Minimal Traditional and Ranch houses on curving streets: Mountain View, beside the Eno on its north side at Highway 70 Business, where the family built its second house, and Colonial Hills, off Lawrence Road close to Highway 70A.
-
James J. Freeland develops a small group of houses on Daye Street
Moving beyond single houses, Freeland laid out a small development along Daye Street northwest of Fairview, where tax records show he owned the land. He was known for selling homes to families who could not otherwise buy, with no down payment and a second mortgage instead.
-
Postwar houses begin to go up on Tuscarora Drive
A Cape Cod at 110 Tuscarora Drive, built about 1950 south of the Eno, was among the first postwar houses on the street. The oldest house left there, at 418, dates to about 1941.
-
The Harmony Primitive Baptist congregation disbands
The Harmony Primitive Baptist congregation northwest of Hillsborough breaks up in the 1950s, leaving its 1880 frame church empty. The building still had its original siding when surveyed.
-
The Payne rental houses are built on South Nash Street
A group of compact rental houses and duplexes at 205-209 South Nash Street used the Minimal Traditional form with deep eaves, concrete block and metal windows, a pattern also seen in the Freeland houses on Daye Street.
-
West Hillsborough outnumbers Hillsborough
In 1950 the mill villages of West Hillsborough held 1,456 people, more than the 1,329 in the town itself, whose population barely moved from 1,311 in 1940 to 1,349 in 1960.
-
B. S. Carr Grocery reopens as Carr's Super Market, Hillsboro's first supermarket
After a full renovation, the B. S. Carr Grocery reopened as a self-service supermarket with an open meat counter, refrigerated produce cases and parking for 50 cars. The paper called Carr the owner of the first supermarket in the Hillsboro area.
-
Black residents opened a fund drive to build the Orange County Negro Public Library a building of its own
The library then held 2,254 books in a single room with shelves full and volumes stacked on the floor, and had circulated 2,015 books in the year. A committee including Mrs. Marinda D. McPherson, A. L. Stanback and Mrs. M. C. Burt asked for donations, naming $100 for outside sheeting and $70 for a roof.
-
Fireball Roberts wins his first NASCAR Grand National race at Occoneechee
Twenty-one-year-old Fireball Roberts of Daytona Beach won the 100-lap Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway, his first victory in NASCAR's top series, in only his third start. Curtis Turner led the first 45 laps before a flat tire and finished second; Louise Smith drove a new Nash Ambassador in the field.
-
The Hillsboro Building and Loan Association opens its first office building on Calvin Street
After 37 years of meeting in stores and a depot office, the association held an open house for its own one-story Colonial-style brick office on Calvin Street in West Hillsboro, built with a fireproof vault.
-
Lee Petty wins the 1950 season finale as Bill Rexford clinches the title
Lee Petty of Greensboro won the 200-mile race that closed NASCAR's 1950 Grand National season at Occoneechee Speedway, his first win at the track. Bill Rexford dropped out with engine trouble but took the championship when Fireball Roberts also failed to finish.
-
Charles E. Maddry returns to First Baptist Church, Hillsborough, for his last pastorate
After his years with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, Charles Edward Maddry served his final pastorate at the First Baptist Church in Hillsborough.
-
Every Orange County high school, white and Black, takes part in a grassland speaking contest
As part of the pasture campaign, each high school in the county entered a grassland oratorical contest in 1951. The Hillsboro branch of the Durham Bank and Trust Company gave $75 in prizes and winners went on to a district contest.
-
Orange Fire Protective Association buys Orange County's first rural fire truck
Because Hillsboro's town fire truck was restricted to calls within about a mile and a half of town, rural residents formed the Orange Fire Protective Association and raised money through one-time memberships of $10 for a house and more for farm buildings. By March 15, 1951, 260 members had given $4,500 and a Ford fire truck for the countryside had arrived, crewed by the town's volunteer firemen.
-
Annie Strowd becomes superintendent of public welfare
Strowd succeeded Mrs. Jean Heer, who had followed W. T. Mattox after his death in 1947, and still held the post when the book was written.
-
The News of Orange prints a photograph of a Ridge Road School classroom
An article on newer classroom methods in the county's Black schools ran a picture of Ridge Road pupils adding to a bulletin board, a few months before the school closed. It is the only historic photograph of the interior that has been found.
-
Fonty Flock wins the spring race at Occoneechee
Fonty Flock won the spring NASCAR Grand National race at Occoneechee Speedway, with Frank Mundy second and Bill Blair third.
-
Orange County Negro Public Library dedicates its own building
About 150 people attended an open house on May 27, 1951 dedicating the Orange County Negro Public Library's own building in Hillsborough, a structure bought from Camp Butner and put up with volunteer labor. Begun in 1942 by Marinda McPherson, the library had opened to the public in 1949 and now held more than 3,000 books.
-
Lochiel, the Fagan family home outside Hillsborough, burns to the ground
Fire destroyed the Fagan home, the three-story frame house known as Lochiel, on a Saturday afternoon while no one was home. Only a few pieces of furniture were saved, and onlookers following the fire truck blocked it on the way back from refilling.
-
Bill Chance opens the Hillsboro Lunch on West King Street
Bill Chance opened the Hillsboro Lunch, a sandwich bar and short-order eatery next to Wynne's Beauty Salon, serving Cotton Nichols' barbecue, Brunswick stew and milkshakes from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Margaret Riley, formerly of the Hickory House, ran the service.
-
The register of deeds begins photographing and microfilming deeds
New deeds were photographed, with the film kept by Hall and McChesney of Syracuse and a print returned for the county's books, and the older deed books were filmed as well. Deeds had been typed rather than handwritten since January 1, 1930.
-
Cole's Store opens beside its owner's house on West Hill Avenue
The small concrete-block store and gas station on North West Hill Avenue, built on the same lot as the owner's home, follows the pattern of rural crossroads stores of the 1940s and 1950s.
-
Eno Mill becomes part of Cone Mills
The subsidiary joined the Greensboro textile corporation.
-
James and Maxine Freeland open the Ja-Max Motor Lodge on US 70
Named for its owners, the long one-story motel northwest of town on the main Greensboro-Durham road let guests park at their own doors, and its hipped roof, stone veneer and horizontal-pane windows borrow from the Ranch house. It was probably the first of Freeland's motels, a string that later ran to Durham, Mebane and Roxboro and included Chapel Hill's Tar Heel Motel.
Suggest a correction to an entry →
A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →
Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.
