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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis. Browse all 77 storylines. Every entry names its source. See all 667 sources.

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Rocky Ridge Farm Historic District Boundary Increase and Additional Documentation, National Register nomination (OR1748).Open the sourceAll sources

Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–28.Back to highlights

Entries

  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

  2. 1930s
  3. Construction or physical change · Voitle House, 307 Country Club Road (313 in the 1989 nomination), Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill A Colonial Revival cottage with an attached garage is built on Country Club Road for Robert B. Voitle

    The story-and-a-half weatherboarded cottage has an original garage on one side. The 2008 documentation redates it to about 1935 and makes it contributing; the 1989 district nomination had dated it 1955.

  4. Construction or physical change · Bond House, 101 Pine Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill William Van Sprinkle designs a brick Colonial Revival house on Pine Lane for Richmond and Marjorie Bond

    Contractors Ellington & Sparrow built the five-part brick house, a story-and-a-half main block with lower wings joined by hyphens. It is the oldest house in the Laurel Hill boundary increase, and the nomination ranks it the best of the neighborhood's later Colonial Revival houses.

  5. Construction or physical change · Holmes House, 102 Pine Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Professor Urban T. Holmes builds a painted-brick Colonial Revival house on Pine Lane

    The deck-on-hip house, with a basement garage set into the slope, was one of two Pine Lane houses built before the war. The nomination takes the two late-1930s houses as proof that Pine Lane was part of Coker's original plat.

  6. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

  7. 1940s
  8. Construction or physical change · Harland House, 608 Laurel Hill Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Classics professor J. P. Harland builds the first postwar house in Laurel Hill

    His shingled Colonial Revival cottage on Laurel Hill Road has an attached garage wing turned to face the street. Earlier Laurel Hill houses kept their garages at the far end of the driveway, so the nomination reads the wing as a sign of the car's new place in the suburb.

  9. Construction or physical change · Laurel Hill Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Laurel Hill Road is extended south beyond the 1927 plat

    On the 1927 plat the road stopped at the south edge of 603 Laurel Hill Road. The extension carried it south toward the line later taken by the 15-501 Bypass and opened lots for postwar houses.

  10. Construction or physical change · 102 Laurel Hill Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Commerce dean Dudley D. Carroll builds a small brick house on Laurel Hill Road for an in-law

    The one-story side-gabled house has a traditional form with a large transom and sidelights at the door. English professor Blyden Jackson later owned it.

  11. 1950s
  12. Construction or physical change · Cathy House, 302 Country Club Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill A brick Colonial Revival house is built at the entrance to Laurel Hill for Dean C. O. Cathy

    The story-and-a-half house on Country Club Road has end wings and a recessed columned porch. Historian H. G. Jones, later curator of the North Carolina Collection, owned it for many years.

  13. Construction or physical change · Cameron House, 404 Laurel Hill Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill William Van Sprinkle designs a shingled Colonial Ranch on Laurel Hill Road for math professor Ed Cameron

    T. D. Green built the four-bay house, which has a board-and-batten front wing and an original screen porch. The nomination cites it as Sprinkle dressing the new Ranch form in colonial details.

  14. Construction or physical change · Ellis-Thomas House, 103 Pine Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Gordon Ellis of the UNC education department builds a brick Cape Cod house on Pine Lane

    Chemistry professor Henry Thomas and his wife Mary, a librarian at the UNC medical school, bought the house soon after it was finished.

  15. Construction or physical change · Cadmus House, 7 Iris Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Dr. Robert T. Cadmus, first director of Memorial Hospital, builds a colonial Ranch on Iris Lane

    The five-bay brick Ranch has a large picture window and a sunporch at one end. Cadmus came to run the new North Carolina Memorial Hospital, part of the postwar wave of medical staff who needed houses near campus.

  16. Construction or physical change · Thurstone House, 400 Laurel Hill Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Jim Webb designs a Contemporary house on Laurel Hill Road for psychologists Louis and Thelma Thurstone

    The low L-shaped house has vertical wood siding, a hipped roof with wide eaves and a carport joined by a screen porch; Ellington & Sparrow built it. Webb counted it among his firm's best work.

  17. Construction or physical change · Darden House, 124 Fern Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill A Modernist split-level with a butterfly roof is built on Fern Lane for Thomas H. Darden

    The post-and-beam house has clerestory windows, vertical wood siding and a flat-roofed carport. Oral tradition credits the design to Jim Webb.

  18. Construction or physical change · Rowe-Green House, 100 Fern Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill A weatherboarded Cape Cod house is built on the new Fern Lane for Eleanor R. Rowe and Philip P. Green Jr.

    The five-bay house has a center chimney and a side wing joined by a hyphen, possibly a converted garage. It was one of the first houses on the newly platted street.

  19. Construction or physical change · Boyd House, 313 Country Club Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill George Watts Carr designs a Cape Cod house on Country Club Road for religion professor Bernard Boyd

    The large story-and-a-half house for Bernard and Thelma Boyd has shake siding and three gabled dormers. Carr, a lifelong advocate of the Colonial Revival, had designed Laurel Hill houses since the late 1920s.

  20. Founding or opening · Iris Lane and Fern Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Iris Lane and Fern Lane are platted, extending Laurel Hill onto the Coker estate

    After William C. Coker died in 1953, Laurel Hill spread into adjoining land of his estate. The new plat laid out two streets at the south end of the neighborhood, and most of their houses went up before 1960.

  21. Construction or physical change · Taylor House, 106 Fern Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill James A. Taylor builds a shingled Colonial Ranch on Fern Lane from magazine blueprints

    The plans were American Home magazine's House No. 33, published in 1954, and the original blueprints still stay with the house. It has a small-paned bay window and an attached garage entered from the side.

  22. Construction or physical change · Galloway House, 105 Pine Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Joe and Peggy Galloway build a Contemporary brick Ranch on Pine Lane

    The house sits on a daylight basement with bands of casement windows. Joe Galloway ran placement for the UNC School of Business; Peggy Galloway taught in the public schools.

  23. Construction or physical change · Tatum House, 308 Laurel Hill Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Football coach Jim Tatum and his wife Edna build a house on Laurel Hill Road

    The house pairs a two-story colonial block with a split-level stone living-room wing and a bowed window, probably from mail-order plans. Tatum had come back to coach UNC the year before.

  24. Construction or physical change · Weedon House, 100 Pine Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Jim Webb designs a Contemporary Ranch on Pine Lane as a retirement home for Fred and Josephine Weedon

    Ellington & Sparrow built the open-plan house on a slope with an exposed basement at the back. The Weedons' daughter Josie and her husband, preservationist Bob Stipe, later lived there for many years.

  25. Construction or physical change · Branch House, 503 Laurel Hill Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Waverly Branch and his wife build a Williamsburg-style house on Laurel Hill Road

    The story-and-a-half house has beaded siding, a slate roof, end chimneys and a pedimented entrance porch in imitation of colonial Williamsburg. Branch was active in UNC affairs, and his wife was for many years the chancellor's secretary.

  26. 1960s
  27. Construction or physical change · Cleveland House, 107 Pine Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Political scientist Gordon Cleveland designs his own Colonial Revival house on Pine Lane

    Ellington & Sparrow built the side-hall house for Gordon and Martha Cleveland on a sloping lot with a full basement.

  28. Construction or physical change · Hickey House, 3 Iris Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill UNC football coach Jim Hickey builds a two-story Colonial Revival house on Iris Lane

    The weatherboarded house has a pedimented entrance porch and a garage wing topped by a small cupola. Hickey lived there until 1977.

  29. Construction or physical change · Bream House, 3 Buttons Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill William Van Sprinkle designs a long Contemporary Ranch on Buttons Road for Charles and Kay Bream

    The six-bay house for the radiology professor mixes vertical wood and brick, with sliding windows and a carport set on the diagonal. Sprinkle, known for Colonial Revival work, here turned to a modern design.

  30. Construction or physical change · Voitle House, 307 Country Club Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Architect Arthur Cogswell adds a flat-roofed art studio to the Voitle house on Country Club Road

    The low modern studio at the rear has vertical wood siding and large fixed windows, a sharp contrast to the 1930s cottage in front of it.

  31. Property or economic transaction · Wood House, 110 Fern Lane, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill UNC head football coach Bill Dooley buys the Wood house on Fern Lane

    Dooley bought the 1957 Ranch built for radiologist Ernest Wood and lived there until 1994.

  32. Recent decades · 1976–2026

  33. 1990s
  34. Construction or physical change · Cornelia Spencer Love House, 116 Laurel Hill Road, Laurel Hill, Chapel Hill Cornelia Spencer Love's Laurel Hill cottage is remodeled and enlarged with a modern two-story wing

    The work replaced the shingles with wood siding and added a large glassy wing with a metal balcony. So little original fabric survives that the 2008 documentation reclassified the house as noncontributing.

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A dated event is a fact, filed on the page of the subject it belongs to: a person, a place, a theme, or a named event or history. Pages are subjects, with their own works and sources; the Place, community, or institution filter also gathers the institutions that recur in the entries without a page of their own. The page opens on the highlights; a search or any filter looks through every dated event and storyline, and each filter’s counts say how many entries choosing it would show alongside the others. A storyline is a longer history that gathers related dated events, and each storyline’s page lists its own. Counts give dated events and storylines separately. Dates come from the sources named on the cards and from the index’s event pages; where sources disagree, the card follows the county records. Entries marked approximate or needing research say so on the card; the rest were checked against the source named on it. The correction link under the entries opens the contact form; name the entry and its date and the Friends will check the source. Suggest an event →

Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 4, 2026.

Two mice reading back to back against a leaf, with the hand-lettered words Friends of the Orange County Public Library
Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026