Search and filters
Search and filters · 1 active
293 dated events and 3 storylines match your filters.
The Chapel Hill Weekly: Chapel Hill's weekly paper from 1923, founded by Louis Graves.Open the sourceAll sources
Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–200 of 296, 200 to a page.Back to highlights
Entries
Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
- 1820s
-
Public libraries in Orange County
Orange County’s public libraries grew from the Franklin Library Society of 1822 and the free library counted at Hillsboro in 1910 to the Confederate Memorial Library of 1934, the Hyconeechee Regional Library of 1948, the Negro Public Library’s own building in 1951 and Chapel Hill’s town library in 1958. The county system that followed opened branches at Carrboro and Cedar Grove, a Main Library on Margaret Lane in 2010 and the Drakeford Library Complex in 2025, with the Friends of the library founded in 1981 along the way.
Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
- 1870s
-
Louis H. Hackney becomes pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church
Louis H. Hackney, who had spent six years at Shaw University in the early 1870s and then taught school, became pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church on Franklin Street in January 1877, when he was barely twenty-two. He held the pastorate for sixty years, until his death in 1937. He and his wife had married in 1876.
-
The present Morrow's Mill is built on Cane Creek
The timber-framed mill on a stone foundation known as Morrow's Mill was built in 1878 on Cane Creek in southwestern Orange County, the third mill on a site whose stone dam enslaved laborers had built before the Civil War. It ground grain until 1930, and the 1993 county survey found it the only rural mill building besides Faucett's still standing, with its dam kept up.
- 1890s
-
Fred Smith organizes a Knights of Pythias lodge in Chapel Hill
Captain Fred Smith, the branch-line train conductor, organized a lodge of the Knights of Pythias in Chapel Hill in 1897 while keeping his membership in the Goldsboro lodge he had joined about 1887. The order's rites were read at his grave in 1939.
-
Ralph H. Graves serves as University Librarian
After graduating from the university in 1897, Ralph H. Graves served as University Librarian at Chapel Hill until he left for New York in 1899. He took his master's degree there in 1898.
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
- 1900s
-
The Archer family builds a house on South Columbia Street that becomes a student boarding house
The Archer House went up on South Columbia Street in 1907, and Mrs. Joseph Archer ran it as a boarding house for University students. The University bought the house in the 1920s.
- 1910s
-
Dr. Braxton Bynum Lloyd begins practicing medicine in the Chapel Hill community
A Chapel Hill native with an M.D. from the University of North Carolina (1909) and three years at the Newark Eye and Ear Infirmary, Lloyd began a medical practice in the community that lasted until his death in 1947.
-
Dr. Eric A. Abernethy leaves his Chapel Hill practice for the Army medical corps
Abernethy gave up his medical practice in Chapel Hill in May 1917 to enter the Army medical corps as a first lieutenant. He rose to lieutenant colonel, was wounded in Belgium in July 1918, and then commanded the 78th Division sanitary train in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns.
- 1920s
-
Braxton Bynum Lloyd serves as mayor of Carrboro
Dr. Lloyd, who lived and practised in Carrboro, was elected a town alderman in May 1917, when T. N. Mann won the mayoralty, and served as the town's mayor in 1920 and 1921.
-
Dwight Ray and Seaton Lloyd open the Lloyd-Ray hardware store in Carrboro
Dwight Ray and Seaton Lloyd, both from families of the White Cross and Carrboro communities, opened their hardware and furniture store in April 1922. Over the next 37 years it became the place where Carrboro talked over town and county politics.
-
"Judge" Brockwell's cabin at the edge of Battle Park burns
The cabin known as "Judge" Brockwell's, on the edge of Battle Park, burns down. Early in 1924 coach Bill Fetzer bought the plot in the new Gimghoul development and planned a Colonial house there.
-
William C. Coker gives the Chapel Hill Country Club land for a clubhouse and golf course
By early 1923 Coker had given the new Chapel Hill Country Club its grounds south of the campus. The clubhouse went up that spring and the golf course over the next two years. The land later passed to the university and is used for tennis courts and a greenway park; the Laurel Hill subdivision was laid out along the course.
-
John Sprunt Hill lets the building contract for the Carolina Inn
John Sprunt Hill, for the incorporators of the Carolina Club, let the contract for the Carolina Inn to H. L. Smith of Durham. The old Graves house on the site, at the west gate of the campus, was to be moved south of the inn and joined to it for use as a student boarding house.
-
The Chapel Hill Country Club opens its new clubhouse
Members gathered with basket suppers for the opening of the club's new house, three years after fire destroyed the first one. By late 1924 the club was clearing the fairways of its golf course.
-
Sutton's Drug Store opens on Franklin Street
J. L. Sutton and J. L. Alderman, a UNC pharmacy graduate, opened the Sutton and Alderman drugstore with a soda fountain in the Strowd Building on Franklin Street, in space vacated by Jack Sparrow's shop. As Sutton's Drug Store it marked its centennial in 2023 as a downtown gathering place.
-
Bayard Wootten photographs the Playmakers' outdoor Taming of the Shrew
Bayard Wootten of New Bern came to Chapel Hill to photograph the Carolina Playmakers' outdoor production of The Taming of the Shrew, the start of years of Playmakers work. That month she also urged the University to have aerial photographs made of the growing campus.
-
Julian Carr's Occoneechee Farm is sold at auction in small farms
Occoneechee Farm, divided into small farms along the Durham-Greensboro highway a mile from Hillsboro, was sold at auction with its personal property. Carr had already sold his Holstein herd to Chapel Hill dairyman C. H. Weaver.
-
The Chapel Hill chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy puts up four Jefferson Davis Highway markers
The Chapel Hill UDC chapter, with Mrs. W. S. Bernard in charge, marked the state road from Durham to Pittsboro as the Jefferson Davis Highway. The four signs stood at the one-mile bridge on the Durham road, at Andrews corner, at the new Baptist church and near the west gate of the campus.
-
Cleveland Lindsay puts up a nine-foot-wide brick building on Carrboro's Main Street
Cleveland Lindsay of the Damascus section built a one-story brick building nine feet wide and about 50 feet deep next to J. D. Webb's store, near the depot. He would not say what it was for, and the Chapel Hill Weekly called it Carrboro's "mystery house."
-
Health officer S. A. Nathan leads a campaign against mosquitoes in Chapel Hill
Through the summer of 1924 the Chapel Hill board of health, directed by Nathan, drained standing water and treated breeding places with oil mixed with kerosene. Nathan asked both white and Black residents to report breeding places and said mosquitoes had decreased across town.
-
Orange County Training School opens a Rosenwald campus
The Orange County Training School's new brick building for Black students rose on land given by Henry Strowd at the north end of Church Street in Northside, Chapel Hill. Its cornerstone was laid on Labor Day 1924 and it opened late that year; the Rosenwald Fund gave $1,500 of its $23,112 cost, Black residents $500.
-
Public health in rural Orange County
County nurses, clinics, the district health department and sanitation work reached into rural Orange County from 1924: the campaigns against typhoid, diphtheria, tuberculosis and polio through 1955.
-
Community Club hires a nurse to serve Chapel Hill's Black community
The health department of the Chapel Hill Community Club engaged a Black nurse, known as Nurse Compton and formerly of Lincoln Hospital, who began on January 1, 1924, visiting homes, examining children at the Black schools and organizing clean-up campaigns. By May 1926 the town had taken over part of her salary and she worked under Health Officer Nathan.
-
The rebuilt Pickwick Theatre opens on Franklin Street
S. J. Brockwell's new fireproof Pickwick, built on the site of the burned one, opened with seats for 750, and crowds were turned away from the first show. W. S. Roberson ran it under lease.
-
The Standard, a movie theatre owned by and for Black residents, opens on West Franklin Street
Chapel Hill's new movie house, owned by and run for Black residents, opened with two crowded shows. Its owners were tailor Durward O'Kelly, builder Charlie Brooks and brick mason Jesse Kirkland.
-
Henry and Matilda Guthrie's Franklin Street lot, with its moving-picture house, is advertised for foreclosure
A trustee advertised for public sale on August 16, 1924 the Franklin Street land of Henry and Matilda Guthrie, which held two houses, a building used as a moving-picture house, two stores and a garage. The Guthries had bought it from Mary McCauley Lindsay and D. McCauley and fallen behind on the note.
-
Engineering professor Ralph Trimble and his wife Hazel move into their new Gimghoul house
Ralph M. Trimble, the UNC engineering professor who surveyed the lots of the Gimghoul subdivision, and his wife Hazel move into one of its first houses, built by contractor Charlie Martindale on Glandon Drive.
-
Christmas seal money pays for tuberculosis care and a free clinic in Chapel Hill
The Community Club's seal sale committee reported that seal money had sent an Orange County man to a sanatorium and paid $450 toward the nurse working among Black residents, who inoculated 68 people for typhoid and brought 36 patients to a free tuberculosis clinic.
-
The Gimghouls sell their old lodge lot on Rosemary Lane
W. S. Roberson bought the Gimghouls' lot at Rosemary Lane and Boundary Street, with the old lodge to stand until the order finished its new building at Piney Prospect. The old lodge had been torn down by July 1926, and John Lasley's family had moved into a new house on the lot by that September.
-
Fire on East Main Street in Carrboro leads to brick rebuilding
Early on December 3, 1924, a fire that started in Lueco Lloyd's boarding house burned five frame buildings on East Main Street in Carrboro before it was stopped at Marks's brick store. By late December Lloyd was preparing to put up two brick stores on the site, and the rebuilt block was brick.
-
Charles Martindale builds a bungalow in the Gimghoul colony for attorney L. J. Phipps
Contractor Charles Martindale nears completion of a Craftsman bungalow in the Gimghoul colony for Chapel Hill attorney L. J. Phipps and his wife Vivian. Its floor-length windows and front terrace are noted in later surveys.
-
J. Cheshire Webb takes options on the Hillsborough quarry farm that supplied stone for Duke
Webb showed geologist Jasper L. Stuckey the old quarry near Hillsborough that had supplied flagstones, and at the request of Duke's business manager Frank Brown he took purchase options on the quarry farm, signed January 31, 1925. The land was bought under the option for Duke University on March 31.
-
Bruce Strowd opens his new Ford dealership at Franklin and Columbia streets
Strowd Motor Company formally opened its new Ford sales and service building at 100 West Franklin Street, on the corner of Columbia, with a dance and contests. Chapel Hill's first automobile dealer had outgrown his quarters; the two-story brick building, one of the largest downtown, went up in 1924 on the old Carr place, with the showroom and service area below and a paint and body shop above.
-
E. A. Brown sells his Chapel Hill furniture and hardware business to Pendergraft and McCauley
E. A. Brown sold his furniture and hardware business to Joseph W. Pendergraft, his assistant of seven years, and Thomas H. McCauley, who ran it as Pendergraft & McCauley.
-
Lawyer J. Clyde Ray finishes a two-story office building with a restaurant on Churton Street
J. Clyde Ray built a two-story brick building, about $10,000 with its lot, with his law offices on one side of the ground floor and a restaurant run by Arthur Crabtree on the other. It also held six offices, a lodge room and a rest room for women shopping in town.
-
Patrick L. Clayton sells his farm northwest of Hillsboro to James B. Duke's agents for $4,000
The Chapel Hill Weekly reported that Patrick L. Clayton, who had paid $200 for a 70-acre farm about a mile northwest of Hillsboro twenty years earlier, had sold it to representatives of James B. Duke for $4,000 for its building stone. Architects and builders had judged the stone suitable for the new Duke University.
-
The Farmers and Merchants Bank moves into a new building on North Churton Street
The Farmers and Merchants Bank moved into a new building of granite and brick on the east side of Churton Street, between the old bank building and Mitchell's hardware store. The building cost about $5,000.
-
The University buys the Chapel Hill Telephone Company
The University bought the Chapel Hill Telephone Company, reportedly for $25,000 to $30,000, to keep it from outside buyers. The exchange stayed for the time being on Henderson Street near the post office, with a later move planned to the old Strowd garage.
-
S. J. Brockwell hires Brodie Thompson to build a Dutch Colonial house on Henderson Street
S. J. Brockwell and his wife let Thompson the contract for a two-story Dutch Colonial house on the west side of Henderson Street next to the W. P. Jordan home. The house at 211 Henderson Street was much enlarged in 1968.
-
The university paves Cameron Avenue through the campus
Ziegler Brothers laid Kentucky asphalt on a six-inch concrete base along Cameron Avenue from the west gate to the east gate and up the Raleigh road to Franklin Street, part of a 1925 paving program with the town and the state highway commission.
-
Dewey Merritt opens a filling station at Rosemary Lane and Columbia Street
Dewey Merritt, a mechanic at Strowd Motor Company, went into business for himself at the end of 1925 with a filling station at the corner of Rosemary Lane and Columbia Street, built with a roof extension to shelter cars. He also offered battery, generator and starter service.
-
S. A. Nathan resigns as Chapel Hill health officer and stays after a raise
Nathan handed in his resignation as the town's health officer in early December 1925 because of a better offer elsewhere. The board of health, which regarded his work as highly successful, arranged with the mayor and aldermen to raise his salary, and he stayed.
-
Mount Sinai Baptist Church raises money for the new church it is building
The Black congregation on Mount Sinai Road held a rally for the benefit of its new church, then under construction, asking men for $2.50 and women for $1.50.
-
The old Methodist church on Rosemary Street becomes a garage run by Montrose Tull
The long-closed 1853 Methodist church at Rosemary and Henderson streets was converted into an automobile repair station, the Club Service Motor Co., run by Montrose Tull. A platform was built from the rear door to Henderson Street for cars.
-
Bayard Wootten opens a Chapel Hill studio over Foister's store
Bayard Wootten arranged with R. W. Foister to use the upper floor of his store as a studio, making portraits there every Saturday and taking photographs in homes and outdoors. By 1928 the Wootten-Moulton Studio over Foister's was her Chapel Hill base.
-
Annual benefit football games fund Chapel Hill's Black public health nurse
From 1927 a yearly football game between Black teams, sponsored by the University YMCA, raised money for the public health nurse serving Chapel Hill's Black community, a project run by the Community Club. The 1941 game, played on Fetzer Field, involved the Orange County Training School and raised $275 net.
-
Carrboro organizes a fire department
Carrboro's fire department dates from about 1927, by the Weekly's count in 1954, when it described the department's 27-year history and its fourth fire truck.
-
The General Assembly votes $2,000 for the Efland home for Black girls
The 1927 legislature added $2,000 for the Efland school for delinquent Black girls to its appropriations bill on the House floor. The clubwomen had asked the state to take the home over entirely, which it did not do.
-
Zeta Psi moves into a new brick house on Cameron Avenue
The Zeta Psi chapter left its old hall on Fraternity Row for a new Colonial-style brick house on Cameron Avenue designed by Arthur Nash. Kappa Sigma and Kappa Alpha later built on either side of it to form a court.
-
Fire destroys the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house
A midnight fire destroyed the Phi Delta Theta house at the northwest corner of the campus, behind the library. Students on the upper floor jumped from windows, and firemen kept the flames from the Kappa Sigma and Sigma Delta Phi houses next door.
-
UNC library worker Elizabeth Janet Gray sells her first book
Gray, a member of the University library staff, signed a contract with Doubleday, Page & Co. for Meredith's Ann, a story for girls set in the New Hampshire mountains. She went on to write several more books while living in Chapel Hill.
-
Chapel Hill Community Club women question local legislators on the women's bills
The Community Club's legislative committee asked the state women's lobby how Orange County's legislators had voted on measures backed by women's organizations, including the Australian ballot, child labor and the Efland school for Black girls, and then voted to write each legislator for a statement of his position.
-
W. B. Sorrell begins building a moving-picture theatre on Franklin Street
Contractor Charles Martindale began preparing the ground for the theatre on the north side of Franklin Street next to Berman's store. It was leased to Publix-Saenger Theatres and was expected to open in September 1927, with Sorrell's jewelry and optical shop in one of its two storefronts.
-
Contractor Brodie Thompson is elected to the Chapel Hill board of aldermen
In a light vote Zeb P. Council was elected mayor, and P. L. Burch with 127 votes, R. D. W. Connor with 121 and contractor Brodie Thompson with 117 were chosen councilmen. A petition had put Thompson forward as the only declared candidate for alderman.
-
A temporary radio station, WKBG, begins a week of broadcasts from the Pickwick Theatre
A traveling station set up on a stage in front of the Pickwick screen to broadcast music and talks by students and townspeople for a week, opening with the village ministers on a Sunday evening.
-
Professor Ernest R. Groves buys the Marshall house in the Gimghoul colony
Ernest R. Groves, newly come to UNC's school of public welfare, buys the Marshall house in the Gimghoul colony. He and his wife Gladys Groves, both writers on marriage and the family, lived there into the 1930s and added a small stone library.
-
Kenan Memorial Stadium opens
Kenan Memorial Stadium, the gift of William Rand Kenan Jr., hosted its first event on November 12, 1927, when Carolina beat Davidson 27 to 0. It was formally dedicated before the Thanksgiving Day game against Virginia on November 24, when Governor Angus McLean accepted it for the state and the University.
-
Fire guts the old Zeta Psi house on Fraternity Row
The old Zeta Psi house by the Mary Ann Smith dormitory caught fire from a chimney at about noon on a Sunday. The Phi Delta Thetas, renting it after losing their own house in 1927, were burned out a second time; damage passed $4,000.
-
Chapel Hill adopts its first zoning ordinance
The Board of Aldermen unanimously adopted an ordinance dividing the town into two residence zones and two business zones, with height limits, setbacks, yard rules and a board of adjustment. The published text makes no reference to race.
-
The Southland Motor Company opens a Studebaker and Erskine agency on Rosemary Street
The Southland Motor Company, a Raleigh firm headed by J. F. Cooper, opened for business in the building near the fire station lately used by the Burroughs Motor Company, with Herbert Pendergraft in charge. It sold Studebaker and Erskine cars and ran a service station and repair shop.
-
George Lawrence describes the county home near Efland in the Chapel Hill Weekly
George Lawrence described the county home two and a half miles north of Efland: two narrow brick buildings, probably of 1824, heated by fireplaces and lit by kerosene, with no plumbing. It held 19 residents and two prisoners, and white and Black residents ate in separate rooms.
-
Elizabeth Janet Gray marries Morgan Vining of the University Extension division
Gray married Morgan Fisher Vining, associate director of the University's Extension division, in Chapel Hill. The couple moved to New York in 1932, and he was killed in an automobile accident in 1933.
-
George Livas and James Gust go into partnership at the Carolina Confectionary
George Livas formed a partnership with James Gust in 1929 and began operating the Carolina Confectionary as a restaurant as well; it became the Carolina Coffee Shop.
-
Kappa Alpha begins a new house on Cameron Avenue
Kappa Alpha, whose old hall stood on Fraternity Row, started a pink granite Colonial house on Cameron Avenue designed by Kenneth Ellington. With Kappa Sigma next door it flanked the Zeta Psi house to form a court.
-
The university sets aside land on the Pittsboro highway for fraternity houses
The university set aside a strip on the west side of the Pittsboro highway for a new fraternity colony, taking fraternity lots on old Fraternity Row in exchange. Phi Delta Theta and Pi Kappa Phi began building there first and moved into their brick houses that fall.
-
County welfare superintendent notes Orange has no health officer or public health nurse
In a letter to the Chapel Hill Weekly, county welfare superintendent George H. Lawrence wrote that Orange County had no county health officer, no county health department and no public health nurse, and that little preventive health work was being done. He contrasted Orange with Vance County, which had a health officer, a hospital and a tuberculosis sanatorium.
-
Will W. Alexander delivers the Weil Lectures at the University
Will W. Alexander, then with the Commission on Cooperation between the Races, gave the three Weil Lectures at the University. His announced topics were "Truth and Fiction about the Old South," "The New Rulers" and "The Older Values and the New Life."
- 1930s
-
Howard Mumford Jones leaves Chapel Hill for the University of Michigan
Howard Mumford Jones, a member of the university's English faculty since coming from the University of Texas in 1925, left for the University of Michigan in 1930 and handed his syndicated book-review column, The Literary Lantern, to Paul Green and his wife.
-
The Friendly Cafeteria opens on East Franklin Street in the old University Cafeteria space
The Webber brothers of High Point, who ran Friendly Cafeterias in several North Carolina cities, bought the fixtures of the failed University Cafeteria at auction and reopened the space as a Friendly Cafeteria able to serve about 200 people.
-
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."
-
Chapel Hill charity circle reports taking a patient to Lincoln Hospital in Durham
The Burden Bearers' Circle of the King's Daughters and Sons of Chapel Hill reported that it had taken a man to Lincoln Hospital in Durham for an operation and driven him back weekly for two months of treatment. The circle also made gowns for the hospital.
-
The Commerce Department puts Martindale's Chapel Hill airport on its air maps
C. L. Martindale, owner and manager, reported that the Department of Commerce had placed the independently owned Chapel Hill airport, two miles north of town, on its official air maps. The field measured 2,200 by 2,500 feet, and its hangar held three small planes.
-
Adeline McCall plays piano in a Folk Music Institute laboratory concert
The university's Institute of Folk Music held its second laboratory concert at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, December 9, 1931, in Hill Music Hall, with Lamar Stringfield on flute, Adeline McCall on piano and Thor Johnson on viola. The program included a composition by Herbert Hazelman, an Asheville freshman.
-
S. A. Nathan plans a veterinary hospital on the Durham road
The Chapel Hill Weekly reported in May 1932 that Dr. S. A. Nathan, who was to go on part time as Chapel Hill's municipal health officer on July 1, would open a veterinary hospital and boarding kennels on the Durham road between Chapel Hill and the one-mile bridge. By 1936 the Weekly mentioned a dog boarding at Dr. Nathan's hospital.
-
A five-week county campaign gives children free diphtheria and typhoid shots
Beginning June 8, 1932, a five-week campaign to protect children against diphtheria and typhoid was held at school buildings across Orange County, with the county's physicians giving the inoculations without charge. Chapel Hill health officer S. A. Nathan directed it.
-
Hundreds take typhoid vaccine at Chapel Hill clinic after new cases
After several new typhoid cases were reported in late June 1932, about 600 people received typhoid vaccine at the Chapel Hill public clinic in a single day, and the Infirmary gave the treatment on any day. Town health authorities said the water supply was not the source.
-
A community library begins at the Carrboro school
In 1933 Nellie Roberson gave the Carrboro school 145 books as the nucleus of a library for grown people as well as children. Built up by teachers, pupils and parents, it was formally dedicated in May 1937 and lent adult books to Carrboro residents.
-
Dr. Eric A. Abernethy resigns as university physician
Abernethy, appointed university physician in charge of the infirmary after he came home wounded from the First World War, resigned because of poor health and went into private practice in Chapel Hill with his son. Dr. Foy Roberson of Durham took temporary charge of the infirmary.
-
The Bank of Chapel Hill closes its Bank of Carrboro branch
With the Carrboro mills idle and other business falling off, the Bank of Chapel Hill closed its Carrboro branch and moved its accounts to the parent bank. The branch cashier, W. E. Thompson, went with them.
-
Free health examination clinic for children entering school in Chapel Hill
The Parent Teachers' Association arranged a free clinic at the school building to examine all children due to enter school that fall, with physicians from Duke Hospital and Chapel Hill dentists, and urged vaccination against smallpox, diphtheria and typhoid.
-
A Hillsborough jury acquits the driver who killed William Strayhorn and his daughter of manslaughter
On August 6, 1933, Ernest Glaston of Saxapahaw, driving on the wrong side of the road, struck the car bringing the Strayhorn family home to Carrboro from church in Burlington; Algia McCoy died at once and her father William Strayhorn died later in a Durham hospital. At the superior court in Hillsborough a jury acquitted Glaston of manslaughter but convicted him of hit-and-run, and Judge Devin suspended a six-month road sentence on payment of $350 to the families.
-
Elizabeth Janet Gray publishes Jane Hope, a novel set in Chapel Hill
Viking Press issued Jane Hope, a novel for young readers set in Chapel Hill, whose heroine comes from Philadelphia to live with her grandparents. The Chapel Hill Weekly noted that the author had absorbed the village's history, with a chapter on the Buchanan commencement.
-
George H. Lawrence becomes Orange County's Civil Works administrator
Already county welfare officer and relief director, Lawrence was put in charge of the new Civil Works Administration in Orange, with a quota of 453 jobs and a payroll he guessed at about $7,000 a week. He hired builder J. A. Page to run the construction work.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Federal money keeps relief director George H. Lawrence out of jail in the Guy Snipes fee dispute
Guy Snipes, a Black man paid from relief funds, was killed in a gravel pit at the edge of Chapel Hill in December 1932, and the state relief office awarded his heirs $2,200 with Lawrence as their guardian. Judge Sinclair ordered Lawrence jailed for contempt unless a $200 fee claimed by Durham lawyers was paid, and the federal government sent the money in time.
-
Federal drought cattle arrive at University Station under George H. Lawrence's care
Sixty-nine cows shipped by the government from the drought-stricken Middle West were unloaded at University Station and pastured on part of the old Duke farm, with more bound for pastures near Hillsboro. As county relief administrator, Lawrence had to house and feed Orange County's quota of 669.
-
Mr. Brooks and J. I. Chandler open the NC Cafeteria in the later Porthole building
Mr. Brooks, a former manager of Gooch's cafe and the Carolina Coffee Shop, and J. I. Chandler opened the NC Cafeteria in 1935 in the building later home to the Porthole restaurant. The cafeteria moved to a new location in 1944.
-
The University again makes Archer House a residence for women students
Archer House, the old boardinghouse also called the Battle house or Russell Inn, had housed the University's women students from about 1921 until fire gutted it in January 1925. From 1926 Mrs. Victor Humphreys ran it as lodging and a dining room for men students; in 1935 the University made it a women's residence again, with Mrs. Humphreys in charge until 1937.
-
Paul Green finishes a small writing retreat on his land east of Chapel Hill
Playwright Paul Green finishes a small building for study and writing on the tract he had bought about two years earlier beyond the Strowd farm, between the Durham and Raleigh roads. He meant to build a family house near it later.
-
Dr. Charles Mangum outlines a proposed federally aided health district tied to UNC training
Dr. Charles S. Mangum described a proposed public health district of Orange, Person and Caswell counties, largely paid for by the U.S. Public Health Service. It would also train health officers, sanitary inspectors, public health nurses and secretaries, building on UNC's 1934 to 1935 public health administration courses.
-
Temporary county health unit starts work in Orange during a typhoid outbreak
Because typhoid fever had appeared in the county, a temporary health organization, set up as part of the planned district unit, began operating in Orange County on July 1, 1935. Its staff were acting health officer Dr. G. A. Sumner (lent by the State Board of Health), acting health nurse Marie Strickland, secretary Ida Lloyd and sanitary inspector E. B. Caruthers.
-
Orange-Person District Health Department organized with Dr. Malcolm Rourk as health officer
Full-time public health service began in Orange County on July 1, 1935, when a temporary unit under Dr. G. H. Sumner of the State Board of Health answered a typhoid outbreak. By August the district health department for Orange and Person counties was organized as a model unit linked to UNC's public health teaching, with Dr. Malcolm Henderson Rourk as district health officer, sanitary inspector E. B. Caruthers, and a public health nurse and clerk in each county. The district officer also took over Chapel Hill's municipal health authority.
-
County welfare officer George H. Lawrence calls for more sterilizations in Orange County
The Chapel Hill Weekly reported that ten people judged mentally deficient had been sterilized in Orange County under the 1933 state law. Lawrence said there ought to be many more and that the cost, paid from the county's small relief fund, held them back.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Grace Beatty appointed supervising nurse of the district health unit
Acting district health officer Dr. William P. Richardson appointed Grace Beatty, who held a master's degree in public health nursing from Columbia, as supervising nurse under an enlarged program funded by Social Security money. By July 1936 the Orange-Person staff of 11 included staff nurses Agnes Tolbert in Chapel Hill and Ruth O'Briant and Lieotta Hall in Roxboro.
-
Carolina Coach Company opens a new bus station at Rosemary and Columbia streets
Carolina Coach Company moved Chapel Hill's bus station from East Franklin Street to new quarters at the corner of Rosemary Lane and Columbia Street, opened the week of April 24, 1936. It ran ten round trips a day to Durham and four between Raleigh and Greensboro through Chapel Hill.
-
The University dedicates its new stadium as Fetzer Field
On "Fetzer Day" the University dedicated its new track stadium, named Fetzer Field for its athletic director of fifteen years, with a track meet against the Naval Academy. The Monogram Club ran the celebration and invited every letterman since athletics began at the University.
-
Health officer reports on the preschool clinics in Chapel Hill and Carrboro
The health department finished its round of preschool clinics, with 25 children at the Chapel Hill clinic and 34 at Carrboro. Health officer W. P. Richardson credited a committee of women with much of the success and reported that 56 correctible defects were found among 38 of the 59 children examined.
-
Paul and Elizabeth Green sell their village home and lay out a new house east of town
Paul and Elizabeth Green sell their home in the Glen to Mr. and Mrs. J. Manson Valentine and, with advice from a landscape architect, site a family house, gardens and outbuildings on their tract east of the village, hoping to move in by September.
-
S. A. Nathan wins a place on the Orange County Board of Commissioners ticket
In the Democratic primary Nathan finished second of six candidates for the three county commissioner places, behind Carl T. Durham.
-
First field training course for North Carolina public health workers held in the Orange-Person District
A month-long field training course for 29 new public health workers (14 nurses, 6 sanitary officers, 4 sanitary engineers and 5 health officers), described as the first in North Carolina, ended in Chapel Hill in early July 1936 under Dr. William P. Richardson. The Orange-Person and Durham health departments then ran as a joint field training center, and by July 1937 it had trained 109 workers.
-
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.
-
Harry Stern moves his Carolina Grill into a new building on East Franklin Street
Harry Stern moved his Carolina Grill, a restaurant and delicatessen, into a larger new building that T. C. Atwood put up on the lot next to the Model Market. The Weekly counted it among the year's new business buildings.
-
A new Chapel Hill High School opens on Columbia Street
Chapel Hill's new high school for white students, beside the Pittsboro road on what is now South Columbia Street, opened to classes on October 5, 1936, three weeks late. Built for $106,000 with Public Works Administration aid to plans by Atwood and Weeks, it came in the same federal program that built an addition at the Orange County Training School.
-
Hope Summerell Chamberlain talks about Old Days in Chapel Hill at the Bull's Head Bookshop
The Bull's Head Bookshop on the ground floor of the University Library announced a Tuesday afternoon talk by Chamberlain about her book, with autographed copies on sale for $1.35.
-
A puppet Hansel and Gretel is staged in Adeline McCall's music series for children
The Music Club and the Parent-Teacher Association presented Hansel and Gretel, a puppet show with music, at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, December 9, 1936, in Hill Music Hall. It was the fifth in a series of music events for children under Adeline McCall's direction, and elementary school children sang songs from Humperdinck's opera.
-
George H. Lawrence gives up the county welfare post to stay on the University faculty
When the new state social security law required a full-time welfare superintendent in every county, Lawrence would not leave the University faculty and resigned the county post effective July 1. As director of field work in UNC's division of social work and public welfare, he and his students went on working for the county.
-
The Lost Colony premieres
Paul Green's pageant-drama The Lost Colony opened at the Waterside Theatre on Roanoke Island on Sunday evening, July 4, 1937, and the Chapel Hill Weekly reported that it scored a hit. The production had Chapel Hill roots: Green was a Chapel Hill playwright, Samuel Selden of the Carolina Playmakers directed, and Frederick Koch's Playmakers were in the company.
-
Racial violence erupts in western Chapel Hill and Carrboro
Late on Saturday, August 21, 1937, a white filling-station attendant struck Tom Atwater, a Black man, with a bottle near West Franklin Street. An angry crowd gathered, some throwing stones and firing guns, and armed white men from Carrboro fired on them from a barricaded truck. Four men were shot before Durham police with tear gas restored calm.
-
Farm women open the Orange County curb market in Carrboro
A curb market run by Orange County farm women opened in the former McCauley store in Carrboro, selling vegetables, fruit, chickens, eggs, sausage, preserves and canned goods. It was organized with the county home demonstration agent, with thirteen women signed on as sellers before opening.
-
The first air mail leaves Chapel Hill by plane
Mayor Foushee, Postmaster Robert A. Eubanks, Assistant Postmaster William S. Hogan and other residents went to the airport to see off the first mail to leave Chapel Hill by plane.
-
Louis H. Hackney dies in Chapel Hill
Louis H. Hackney, pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church for sixty years, a teacher who had kept a school on West Franklin Street, and founder in 1912 of the private school on Merritt Mill Road that became Orange County Training School, died at his home in Chapel Hill on December 19, 1937, at 83. He was buried in a Black section of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery.
-
Bruce Strowd is named Chapel Hill's most valuable citizen
The Carolina Theatre's yearly trophy for the town's most valuable citizen went to automobile dealer Bruce Strowd, chosen by Dr. S. A. Nathan, Mrs. Isaac Manning and W. M. Pugh. The committee cited his work for the town's schoolchildren, the free rides he gave rural children coming to school, his help with unemployment and his work on the county welfare board.
-
The Chapel Hill post office opens on Franklin Street
A new federal post office was built in two stages on the site of the old one at Franklin and Henderson streets, begun in July 1937. Postal workers moved into its rear section early in 1938 while the old building was torn down and the front half built, and the finished post office began full operation on July 5, 1938.
-
The Orange County Women's Market moves from Carrboro to Chapel Hill
The farm women's market begun in Carrboro the previous September reopened in the old Methodist church building at Henderson Street and Rosemary Lane, a block from the Chapel Hill post office, open on Saturdays. About twenty women sold regularly, poultry and cakes led its sales of about $120 a week, and it was run with the home demonstration agent, Grace Holcombe.
-
Brodie Thompson rebuilds the burned Odum house in record time
After fire gutted the Odum house on Sunday, February 20, 1938, the insurance was settled in five days and Thompson's crew began clearing the ruins on the sixth. Within 26 days of the fire the new house on the old foundations had its walls, roof and most of its weatherboarding, which the Weekly called the fastest building job Chapel Hill had seen. The paper names only Mr. and Mrs. Odum; the house was probably that of sociologist Howard W. Odum.
-
State offers the three-county district $5,900 for venereal disease control
At a meeting of county commissioners in Chapel Hill, State Board of Health executive officer Dr. Carl V. Reynolds offered the Chatham-Orange-Person district $5,900 from the Smith Reynolds Foundation fund for venereal disease control, if the district matched it. The program called for examinations and clinics to bring every infected person in the district under treatment.
-
Bowling Carolina opens a four-lane alley in the former Lyon Hardware store
John McCauley and J. B. Johns opened four regulation bowling alleys in the old Lyon Hardware store on East Franklin Street, selling sandwiches and soft drinks and inviting women bowlers in particular.
-
The old Pickwick reopens as the Pick, a second movie house under the Carolina's management
After standing empty for several years, the remodeled Pickwick reopened as the Pick under the Carolina Theatre's management, planned for second-run, foreign-language and Western films.
-
A new movie theater for Black audiences, the Hollywood, opens on Main Street in Carrboro
In May 1939 an auction notice pointed buyers to a business lot on Main Street in Carrboro near 'the new colored theatre.' By 1940 the Weekly called it the Hollywood theatre, at the west end of Franklin Street.
-
Sample and Ina Forbus make the old Morrow's Mill on Cane Creek their home
Sample B. Forbus, later director of Watts Hospital, and the writer Ina B. Forbus bought the 1878 grist mill on Cane Creek in 1938 and converted it into their permanent home in 1939, keeping its hand-hewn beams and setting millstones in the garden. The mill had run until 1930.
-
The Hargraves Center and Chapel Hill’s Negro Community Center
Chapel Hill’s Black residents bought land for a Negro Community Center in 1939; the Navy finished the building as quarters for the B-1 Band during the war, and it opened for community use in 1945. It gained the A.D. Clark Pool in 1961, was renamed for William M. Hargraves in 1973 and added the Northside Gymnasium in 1998, and its gym was named for Nate Davis in 2022.
-
Chapel Hill Methodists sell their parsonage and buy the Frink house
The Methodist church sold its parsonage to Marguerite M. Judson, mother of a university student, and bought the Frink house on Pittsboro Street as its new parsonage. By that September Mrs. Judson owned and lived in the old parsonage on Rosemary Lane near the Town Hall.
-
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.
-
William S. Hogan is appointed Chapel Hill postmaster
President Roosevelt appointed Hogan, assistant postmaster, to succeed Robert A. Eubanks on the nomination of Congressman Carl Durham, and the Senate confirmed him. Durham waived an examination because Hogan had served in the office about twenty years.
-
Citizens buy land for a Negro Community Center
Ten Chapel Hill men, among them Louis Graves, R. B. House and Paul Wager, signed a $1,500 note at the Bank of Chapel Hill to buy about five acres of the old Craig place at the west end of Rosemary Lane for a Black community center. The project grew out of concerns raised by the Negro Civic Club.
-
Edward Danziger opens a candy kitchen on Franklin Street
Edward G. Danziger, a candy maker whose family name was well known in Vienna, opened a candy kitchen with a tea-and-coffee room in the Munch building on Franklin Street, where Gooch's restaurant had been. He sold candy and ice cream with fresh fruit and planned to add Viennese and Turkish coffee, tea and pastries. The family business later included Danziger's Old World Gift Shop.
-
William Meade Prince joins the university's art department
The illustrator William Meade Prince, who with his wife, Lillian Hughes Prince, had moved from Westport, Connecticut, to Chapel Hill in the 1930s, joined the university's art department as a lecturer for the 1939-40 year. The Princes still spent summers in Westport.
-
Albert Coates completes the Institute of Government's Franklin Street building
Albert Coates built the Institute's Franklin Street headquarters with private gifts and a Jefferson Standard Life loan, and it opened in November 1939. The University took title only on June 30, 1945, after the legislature paid off the mortgage. The building later carried the Coates name.
-
Ralph H. Graves is buried in Chapel Hill
Ralph H. Graves, a New York editor and newspaper syndicate agent born in Chapel Hill, died at his home in Garden City, Long Island, on December 1, 1939. After a funeral there, a burial service was held at the Chapel Hill cemetery on the afternoon of Tuesday, December 5.
- 1940s
-
UNC Press publishes Charles S. Mangum Jr.'s The Legal Status of the Negro
The University of North Carolina Press in Chapel Hill published The Legal Status of the Negro by Charles S. Mangum Jr.
-
UNC purchases Chapel Hill's airfield
In 1940 the university bought the Chapel Hill airport that Charlie Martindale had opened in 1928 on land bought from Professor Horace Williams. By August the trustees had set aside $15,000 for land, the university had agreed terms with Martindale and neighbor Fred Sparrow, Williams had given over 200 acres, and the field was to bear his name.
-
District health officer reports one of the district's best years for diphtheria
Although diphtheria was widespread in North Carolina in 1939, the Orange-Person-Chatham district recorded only 18 cases. Health officer W. P. Richardson credited immunization of children under six, warned that immunizations had fallen off over the past twelve months, and urged parents to have young children immunized.
-
Illustrator William Meade Prince and his wife Lillian build a house in Greenwood
William Meade Prince, the illustrator who taught art at the university, and his wife Lillian were building a home in the Greenwood neighborhood at the end of 1941. He lived and worked there until his death in 1951.
-
Construction begins on the Negro Community Center
Work on the Negro Community Center began on January 9, 1941, with Clarence Webb directing a crew of 20 and Charles Craig, the Black architect and contractor who drew the plans, helping supervise. A WPA grant paid most of the cost, and Black masons, carpenters and other workers donated their labor.
-
Eben G. Merritt opens a new filling station on the Pittsboro Road
E. G. Merritt opened a new filling station on the Pittsboro Road, just above his old stand, with a tiled roof and a large parking lot. It later ran as Merritt's Service Station and store.
-
Orange County sells the county home and its farm at auction
The county auctioned the old county home, its 241-acre farm, buildings, stock and tools, and a Forrest was the high bidder. Its last residents had been boarded with relatives and friends at county expense, which the welfare superintendent said cost less than half as much.
-
Chapel Hill organizes civilian defense after Pearl Harbor
Within days of Pearl Harbor, Mayor John Foushee called for hundreds of civilian-defense volunteers, and armed sentries guarded the airport, the University Lake dam and the power plant. A control center opened at the Carolina Inn, with a branch volunteer office for Black residents at Perry's barber shop, and UNC students formed a volunteer training corps.
-
German, Italian and Japanese aliens re-register at the Chapel Hill post office
All German, Italian and Japanese aliens over 14 living in Chapel Hill had to re-register, with three photographs, at the post office. Postmaster William S. Hogan and Assistant Postmaster Strowd ran the registration, following the procedure of one held there in 1940.
-
The Orange County Public Library bookmobile makes stops in Chapel Hill
In late February 1942 the Chapel Hill Weekly announced that the county bookmobile, with librarian Ernestine Grafton in charge, would park in front of the Texaco station from noon to 2 p.m. for browsers and borrowers. That spring the bookmobile offered a $5 prize to the school collecting the most waste paper, with the proceeds buying children's books, and a state aid increase let the library order books on readers' requests.
-
Chapel Hill aldermen elect Robert W. Madry mayor
The board of aldermen unanimously elected Robert W. Madry, director of the University news bureau and an alderman, as mayor to succeed John M. Foushee, who had moved out of town after ten years as mayor. The Weekly believed no one in the University's service had headed the town government before.
-
Chapel Hill High School burns
Fire destroyed the Chapel Hill high school building on South Columbia Street, then the Pittsboro highway, early on Saturday, August 8, 1942. The school board arranged to hold grades 10 to 12 in rooms at the Baptist church and the ninth grade at the elementary school, and wartime material shortages delayed a new building for years.
-
A regimental review in Kenan Stadium honors Commander Kessing as he leaves for the Pacific
With Admiral Halsey asking for him in the southwest Pacific, Commander O. O. Kessing was ordered to sea duty, and the Pre-Flight School held a regimental review in his honor in Kenan Stadium. Lieutenant Commander John P. Graff succeeded him in command.
-
Kenneth Tanner lends West House to the Carolina Volunteer Training Corps
Tanner gave the student officer-training corps the use of West House as its headquarters for the rest of the war. The corps then had 125 students in eight companies under Lt. Col. W. A. Raborg.
-
Elizabeth Janet Gray wins the Newbery Medal
Gray received the 1943 John Newbery Medal for Adam of the Road, a story of 13th-century England, a decade after she left Chapel Hill. She was then living in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.
-
William Meade Prince becomes head of the university's art department
William Meade Prince took charge of the University of North Carolina's art department during World War II, while also making posters and drawings for wartime causes.
-
Chapel Hill High School moves into the old Hume house on West Franklin Street
After fourteen months of classes in the Baptist church following the 1942 fire, the high school moved into the former Hume house, once the Hogan house and the Zeta Beta Tau house, owned by Caesar Cone. It held the principal's office, the library and four classrooms, with larger classes in the elementary school basement.
-
Charles S. Mangum Jr. sells the old Mangum house on East Rosemary Street to Betty Smith
Charles S. Mangum Jr. inherited the old Mangum house at East Rosemary and Hillsborough streets from his aunt, Mary Elizabeth Mangum Wilson, who died in 1944, and sold it that year to the novelist Betty Smith.
-
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.
-
Wartime day nursery opens for the children of Black working mothers in Chapel Hill and Carrboro
A federally funded day nursery for Black children opened at the Orange County Training School, caring for thirty children aged two to six from 7:15 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. while their mothers worked. Parents paid for food, and by October 1944 two nursery schools were running, one in the Masonic building on the edge of Carrboro and one on Brooks Street.
-
Commissioners' chairman Collier Cobb Jr. lays a county revaluation plan before the Chapel Hill aldermen
Collier Cobb Jr., chairman of the Orange County commissioners, told the Chapel Hill aldermen the county would raise the tax valuation of plainly under-valued property for 1945, naming Franklin Street business property, suburban lots selling far above farm-land values and some northern tobacco land.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
-
George Livas becomes sole owner of the Carolina Coffee Shop
George Livas's partnership with James Gust ended and Livas became sole owner of the Carolina Coffee Shop, which he ran until his death in 1956.
-
The Negro Community Center opens for community use
After the Navy Pre-Flight School wound down, the community center returned to town control on October 24, 1945 and opened to Black residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. By December a nursery school filled the basement, and an all-Black board chaired by Hubert Roberson ran the building under the Town Recreation Commission.
-
Mrs. Collier Cobb sells the Cobb Terrace bungalows to private owners
Collier Cobb had kept the Aladdin kit bungalows at the north end of Henderson Street as rentals for young faculty. After his death in 1934 his widow kept them until April 1946, when she offered them for sale, first to the tenants and then to other faculty; by late June nine of the eleven had been sold.
-
Poe-Mangum Auto Service finishes a showroom and parts wing at its West Franklin Street station
Bill Poe and Marvin Mangum added a DeSoto-Plymouth showroom and a parts department to their Pure Oil service station, stretching the building to a 140-foot front. The Weekly called it one of the biggest building projects in town since the war.
-
Bayard Wootten shows her Mobile photographs at Person Hall
Bayard Wootten gave a talk, A Photographer Discusses Mobile in the Spring, in the small gallery at Person Hall, where a collection of the pictures she had made in Mobile that spring was on exhibit.
-
The first section of the new Chapel Hill High School opens on West Franklin Street
After five years in borrowed rooms, Chapel Hill's white high school moved into a new building on West Franklin Street, whose first section was paid for largely with insurance money from the 1942 fire. That section was nearly ready in late 1946, and the 1947 school year opened with an assembly in front of the new building.
-
A dinner at the Carolina Inn marks Fetzer's twenty-five years as director of athletics
A dinner at the Carolina Inn on June 7, 1947 celebrated twenty-five years of Robert A. Fetzer's work in University athletics; the printed program called them twenty-five years as director of athletics. He had come in 1921 as assistant to his brother Bill, the director, and became director of athletics himself under the five-year contracts announced in January 1923.
-
Mrs. Walter D. Toy sells her West Franklin Street home for business use
Mrs. Walter D. Toy sold the house she and her late husband had owned since the late 1890s to Margaret Davis Haywood of Durham, and the lot was to be used for business. The Weekly tied the sale to the business district's spread west along Franklin Street and noted talk of an A&P store on the site.
-
Dr. S. A. Nathan opens the Curve Inn, a curb-service stand on Strowd Hill
Dr. S. A. Nathan opened the Curve Inn, a curb-service place on the Durham road halfway down Strowd Hill, with his son Marx as co-manager. It sold beer, sandwiches and fried chicken and was known for the pronto pup, a batter-dipped hot dog.
-
Cora Bomar joins the Chapel Hill elementary school faculty
When the Chapel Hill schools opened in September 1947, Miss Cora Bomar was listed among the teachers of the elementary school under principal Mildred Mooneyhan. She had come to North Carolina that year.
-
Ted Danziger names the passage to his Rathskeller Amber Alley
Danziger gave the name Amber Alley to the passageway off East Franklin Street that led down to his new Rathskeller. The Weekly said the name came from the yellow lanterns along its walls, not from the novel Forever Amber.
-
P. L. and Lloyd M. Senter open their new drugstore building next to Lloyd-Ray Hardware
Father and son pharmacists P. L. Senter and Lloyd M. Senter held a formal opening for their new Carrboro drugstore building, with a new soda fountain, on the evening of January 27, 1948. They treated it as the store's fifteenth anniversary.
-
Fowler's Food Store opens its new building on West Franklin Street
Fowler's Food Store, successor to the old Model Market, held a grand opening in a new 80-by-200-foot building on West Franklin Street, with a parking lot reaching through to Rosemary Street. Robert L. Fowler of Chapel Hill and Marvin M. Fowler of Durham owned the store.
-
Chapel Hill's polio quarantine on children is lifted
The month long mandatory quarantine of children sixteen and under, imposed during a polio outbreak in Chapel Hill and the vicinity, was ended, though District Health Officer O. David Garvin asked parents to keep children close to home and discouraged trips to the movies. He and the university physician notified the Veterans' Club and Graham Memorial that they could reopen.
-
Bethel Baptist Church puts up an educational building beside its church
In the spring of 1949 Bethel Baptist Church, six miles west of Chapel Hill on the Greensboro highway, was finishing an educational building on its grounds and invited members to its May homecoming to look over the work.
-
The Carl Smith Building is completed on North Columbia Street
Carl Smith's commercial building on North Columbia Street was completed in 1949; Gooch's Cafe moved in, and the area office of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis took rooms on the second floor.
-
The Town of Chapel Hill buys land for a new cemetery for its Black residents
The town bought about ten acres of the former Roberson property, just beyond the railroad on the Carrboro side of town, for a segregated cemetery for Black residents. It became the West Chapel Hill Cemetery on Village Drive.
-
The county school board puts the Piney Mountain School site up for auction
The Board of Education advertised the two-acre Piney Mountain School site for public auction at the Hillsboro courthouse door, with its two one-room frame buildings to be sold apart from the land.
-
District health department takes UNC public health students for field training
Health officer Dr. O. David Garvin announced that the district health department would serve as a field training center for eight UNC public health students, four in health education and four in public health nursing, working for ten weeks across Orange, Person, Chatham and Lee counties.
-
Orange County Training School is renamed Lincoln High School
In March 1949 the Parent-Teachers Association of the Orange County Training School, Chapel Hill's school for Black students, voted to rename it Lincoln High School and sent the request to the superintendent and school board. By May 13, 1949, the Chapel Hill Weekly reported that the name had been changed.
-
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.
-
Railway Express agent Lonas Williams starts Chapel Hill's first Lustron house, on Stephens Street
Lonas Williams and his wife began putting up a factory-made Lustron house of porcelain-enameled steel off Airport Road, the first of its kind in or near Chapel Hill. Mrs. Williams had read about the houses in Life, and the parts came by trailer from the Columbus, Ohio, plant through Taylor-Made Homes of Greensboro.
-
Edwin S. Lanier unseats Mayor Madry in the Chapel Hill election
In a town election that drew 1,442 of 1,726 registered voters, Edwin S. Lanier defeated Mayor Robert W. Madry by 811 votes to 589, ending Madry's seven years as mayor.
-
The Chapel Hill Jaycees open the Williams Lustron house for public inspection
For a week the Junior Chamber of Commerce showed Lonas Williams's new all-steel Lustron house, furnished by local stores, at 25 cents a visitor, expecting guests from Raleigh, Durham, Pittsboro and Hillsborough. The showing cleared $240 for the club's community projects.
-
Phillip Andrews opens a Gulf service station at 214 West Franklin Street
Phillip Andrews opened a Gulf service station in a new Colonial-style building at 214 West Franklin Street, next to Fowler's Food Store, with three opening days starting Thursday, July 7.
-
Political scientist Federico Gil moves into Chapel Hill's second Lustron house, on Mount Bolus
Federico G. Gil, an assistant professor of political science, moved into a factory-made, all-steel Lustron house in the new Mount Bolus colony north of town, the second in Chapel Hill. By March 1950 it was one of three houses built on the tract.
-
Principal C. A. McDougle opens Lincoln High School's year under its new name
The Chapel Hill Weekly reported that Lincoln High School, the town's school for Black students, would open at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, September 12, 1949, as announced by Principal C. A. McDougle. The faculty list printed with the notice includes elementary teacher Mrs. Lucille R. McDougle and high school teacher Reginald D. Smith.
-
William Muirhead opens the rental office of Glen Lennox
Muirhead named his apartment colony on the Raleigh highway Glen Lennox, after his wife's family, and opened its rental office in one of the apartments. It was to have 314 apartments in 48 one-story buildings; by March 1950, 66 families had moved in.
-
Will W. Alexander speaks to the Chapel Hill AAUW on the Julius Rosenwald Fund
Alexander, retired and living in the country near Chapel Hill, was scheduled to address the Chapel Hill branch of the American Association of University Women in the Morehead building on his years as director of the Julius Rosenwald Fund.
- 1950s
-
Paul Smith becomes owner of the Intimate Bookshop
Paul Smith took over the Intimate Bookshop on East Franklin Street, formerly Abernethy's, and fitted it with display fixtures designed for his earlier shop in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
-
Andrews and Riggsbee sell their Carrboro grocery to two other men named Andrews and Riggsbee
The partners Andrews and Riggsbee sold their Carrboro grocery to two men also named Andrews and Riggsbee, who kept the store's name. The sellers kept the tractor business they had bought from Bruce Strowd, which was moving into a new building on Greensboro Street.
-
W. N. Tyler's Esso Servicenter holds its formal opening at West Franklin and Church streets
W. N. Tyler, a former Standard Oil sales supervisor, opened a new Colonial-style Esso station on the site of the old Ralph Weaver home at West Franklin and Church streets, with free movies and prizes on opening day.
-
Carrboro Civic Club opens a public library
The Carrboro Public Library, a project of the Carrboro Civic Club, opened on March 22, 1950, with an open house at the club's building near the Carrboro school. Mrs. Jack Shields was librarian, and books were lent free each Wednesday afternoon, with loans from the bookmobile and the county library in Hillsborough adding to the collection.
-
The pre-Civil War Hume house is moved across the Chapel Hill High School grounds
To clear ground for a new high school building, the pre-Civil War house known in turn as the Hume, Hogan and Cone house was put on rollers and moved to the west edge of the school lot, still facing Franklin Street, for use as offices and classrooms.
-
Health officer closes the University pool as polio cases rise in Chapel Hill
After an emergency conference with six Chapel Hill physicians, District Health Officer O. David Garvin ordered the University swimming pool and all recreational facilities closed, with six polio cases in Chapel Hill and three more in the county. He asked parents to keep children at home or on their own block but did not recommend cancelling University classes or closing nursery schools.
-
The Parkvue Drive-In Theatre opens west of Carrboro
The Parkvue, a drive-in theater for 280 cars on the Greensboro highway (N.C. 54) west of Carrboro, opened with two evening showings of Three Little Girls in Blue. J. W. Thompson and C. M. Rumley owned and ran it.
-
The Terrace View Supper Club is advertised for foreclosure sale
After Efthimios and Virginia Mariakakis defaulted on a deed of trust, a trustee advertised the 32.5-acre tract "commonly known as the Terrace View Supper Club" for auction on the premises on December 9, 1950. A second trustee advertised a sale for December 30 under another deed of trust.
-
The Village Theatre becomes the Varsity under new owners
Varsity Theatres, Inc., of High Point, headed by Hugh J. Smart, took over Chapel Hill's Village Theatre, renamed it the Varsity and made it a first-run house. The Village was the old Carolina Theatre, renamed in 1942 when the new Carolina opened.
-
UNC Law School begins desegregation
About a week after the Supreme Court refused on June 4, 1951, to review McKissick v. Carmichael, Black students registered for summer session at UNC's law school, the first African Americans to enroll at the university. UNC Law names them as Harvey E. Beech, James L. Lassiter, J. Kenneth Lee, Floyd B. McKissick and James R. Walker.
-
Bethel Baptist Church marks its hundredth anniversary
Bethel Baptist Church celebrated its centennial with an all-day program and picnic on the grounds. UNC Chancellor Robert B. House gave the morning address and Annie Strowd read notes on the church's history.
-
The main building of Chapel Hill High School opens on West Franklin Street
The new main building of the high school on West Franklin Street opened in part on September 10, 1951, with five classrooms and the science department ready and the rest due about two months later. It joined the first section, later called the old wing, in use since 1947.
-
William Meade Prince dies at his home in Greenwood
William Meade Prince, illustrator, former head of the university's art department and author of The Southern Part of Heaven, died by suicide in the studio of his Greenwood home. The Weekly wrote that the village felt the loss deeply.
-
Eben Merritt stops highway crews with an injunction over land taken for the new bypass
Filling station owner Eben G. Merritt got an injunction that briefly halted State Highway Commission work near Morgan Creek, arguing that the new bypass and the rerouted Pittsboro road would cut through his pasture, isolate his new house and pull his station off the main highway for far less than they were worth. A court-appointed commission set his damages at $6,000 in March 1953, and he appealed.
-
Fetzer retires as director of athletics and becomes executive director of the Morehead Foundation
The trustees' executive committee approved Robert A. Fetzer's retirement as the University's director of athletics, and he took up the post of executive director of the Morehead Foundation, which he held until his death.
-
Assistant track coach Joe Hilton designs and builds his own house on Oakwood Drive
Joe Hilton, UNC's assistant track coach, cleared the lot by axe, drew the plans with his wife, and with their son and Victory Village neighbors built a $22,000 ranch house, starting in June 1952. Carrboro contractor Herman Lloyd advised him; the family hoped to move in by September 1953.
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 4, 2026.
