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Murphey School, National Register nomination (OR0467).Open the sourceAll sources
Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–17.Back to highlights
- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Murphey School is built in brick on the Durham-Hillsboro road
Murphey School, a hip-roofed brick consolidated school for white children named for Archibald D. Murphey, was built in 1923 on the Durham-Hillsboro road (Old NC 10). H. C. Linthicum drew the plans and W. H. Woods of Durham built it for $8,995. The school closed in 1959; the road nearby is spelled Murphy School Road.
Part of Consolidation and desegregation in the Orange County Schools · 120 events
Subject: Murphey School
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The county school board builds a teachers' home at Murphey School from the unfinished Mount Hope School
Instead of finishing a new Mount Hope School that was to be merged into Murphey, the county board had the partly built schoolhouse taken apart and its materials carried to the Murphey site for a seven-room teachers' home. W. H. Woods built it for $800 in labor, paid with money from the sale of the old University School; the frame bungalow is the only teacherage left standing in Orange County.
Part of Consolidation and desegregation in the Orange County Schools · 120 events
Subject: Murphey School
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A UNC study counts forty-seven rural schools and ninety teachers in Orange County
Nita Andrews's 1925 master's study of the county schools found forty-seven rural schools with ninety teachers, about half of them holding only elementary certificates, and five school trucks that cost $1,680.70 a year to run plus $783 for drivers.
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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.
Subject: Murphey School
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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.
Subject: Murphey School
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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.
Subject: Murphey School
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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.
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St. Mary's School gets a WPA brick auditorium
St. Mary's School, a Colonial Revival brick school built in 1931 near Murphey School to replace a log schoolhouse, received a Neoclassical brick auditorium in 1936 through the same WPA program, plainer than the one at Murphey.
Subject: St. Mary's School
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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.
Subject: St. Mary's School
- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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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.
Subject: Murphey School
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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.
Subject: Murphey School
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Mount Herman Baptist Church leases the closed Murphey School
Once the school closed, the county board leased the empty building to Mt. Herman Baptist Church for one year at $25 a month.
Part of Consolidation and desegregation in the Orange County Schools · 120 events
Subject: Murphey School
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Murphey School closes and its pupils go to Hillsborough
After years of falling attendance the county closed Murphey School in 1959 and moved its pupils to the elementary schools in Hillsborough.
Subject: Murphey School
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The Underwood family buys Murphey School at public auction
The school property was sold at public auction in 1963 to the Underwood family.
Part of Consolidation and desegregation in the Orange County Schools · 120 events
Subject: Murphey School
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The former Murphey School becomes a nightclub
From some time in the early 1970s until the mid-1980s the old school was run as a nightclub. It stood empty from 1986.
Subject: Murphey School
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The old St. Mary's School reopens as a private college preparatory school
The St. Mary's School building, closed since 1943, reopened in 1970 as a private college preparatory school.
Subject: St. Mary's School
- Recent decades · 1976–2026
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Jay Miller buys the empty Murphey School and begins restoring it
Jay Miller bought the school, vacant since 1986, in March 2008 and began restoring it with the State Historic Preservation Office for use as a retreat center for nonprofit groups and a rental site for events.
Subject: Murphey School
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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 4, 2026.
