Chronology

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1. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

2. 1840–2021
   Storyline · 25 events · Rogers Road Historic Rogers Road neighborhood

   The Rogers-Eubanks area grew from Black-owned farms and sawmills after emancipation, and in 1972 the county landfill was placed beside it. Residents organized through RENA and the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition from 2007, the landfill closed in 2013, and the neighborhood won a community center in 2014 and the sewer extension in 2019.

3. Recent decades · 1976–2026

4. 1984
   Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill makes Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a town holiday

   On Council member Bill Thorpe's initiative, Chapel Hill made the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. an official town holiday, the first town in North Carolina and one of the first municipalities in the nation to do so.

5. April 1987
   Property or economic transaction · Hillsborough Orange County Public Library receives a $50,000 bequest from Rebecca B. Wall

   The library received $50,000 from the estate of Rebecca B. Wall, a retired Veterans Administration hospital librarian and former Orange County Board of Education member who died on April 2, 1986. The fund had grown to more than $100,000 by 2010, when the library dedicated its Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection at the new Main Library.

6. 1996
   Founding or opening · Hillsborough RTPnet puts a public Internet computer in the Orange County Public Library

   The community network RTPnet bought a Pentium PC for $1,746.88 in May 1996 as a public access terminal for the Orange County Public Library in Hillsborough, and by July it was installed running Windows 95 in kiosk mode. In October RTPnet reported the library computer on the Internet through a local provider, with classes being taught.

7. 1999–2011
   Appointment, election or service · Carrboro Joal Hall Broun joins the Carrboro Board of Aldermen

   In early 1999 Joal Hall Broun, an assistant public defender, was appointed to fill out the term of the late Alderman Hank Anderson, and she won election to the board that fall. She served on the board until 2011.

8. 1999
   Chapel Hill Paul Jones becomes director of ibiblio.org at UNC

   After directing MetaLab from 1997, Paul Jones became director of ibiblio.org, the university's public digital library, in 1999. The same year he became a clinical associate professor in UNC's schools of journalism and of information and library science.

9. 2001
   Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Doug Marlette teaches at UNC as a Distinguished Visiting Professor of journalism

   Hillsborough cartoonist Doug Marlette served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, teaching courses on the editorial cartoon and on humor writing.

10. 2002
    Award or honor · Chapel Hill Doug Marlette is inducted into the UNC Journalism Hall of Fame

    UNC's journalism school inducted Doug Marlette, then living in Hillsborough, into its Journalism Hall of Fame.

11. 2007
    Protest or organizing · Countywide Rogers–Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism organizes

    Residents of the Rogers Road and Eubanks Road neighborhood formed the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism in 2007. At the September 20, 2007 Assembly of Governments meeting, member Neloa Jones asked officials to drop the neighborhood as a transfer station site, end solid-waste operations there by November 2009, and provide water and sewer service.

12. March 2007
    Law, policy or court · Eubanks Road landfill Orange County commissioners vote to put a waste transfer station at the Eubanks Road landfill

    The board voted unanimously to develop a solid waste transfer station at the landfill site, following its Solid Waste Advisory Board's recommendation, over objections from Rogers Road residents. The landfill was then expected to fill in 2010.

13. August 27, 2007
    Founding or opening · Carrboro Carrboro High School opens

    Carrboro High School on Rock Haven Road was dedicated with a ribbon-cutting on August 23, 2007, and began classes on August 27 with more than 600 students under principal Jeff Thomas. The Carrboro Citizen called it the town's first high school.

14. November 5, 2007
    Law, policy or court · Orange County Commissioners reopen the search for a transfer station site

    After Rogers Road residents and the Coalition to End Environmental Racism pressed the county, the Board of Commissioners announced it would reopen its search for a transfer station site. Eubanks Road stayed on the list while consultant Olver Inc. drew up siting criteria.

15. November 2007
    Law, policy or court · Jones Ferry Road and Davie Road, Carrboro Carrboro adopts an anti-lingering ordinance at the Jones Ferry and Davie roads day-labor corner

    After neighbors complained about conditions at the corner where day laborers, many of them Latino, waited for contractors, the Board of Aldermen approved an ordinance barring waiting at the intersection of Jones Ferry and Davie roads from 11 a.m. to 5 a.m. In September 2007 the board had also approved an action plan and a motion to create a designated space for day laborers.

16. November 2007
    Appointment, election or service · Carrboro Lydia Lavelle is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen

    In her first run for office Lavelle led the field of aldermen candidates with 1,656 votes, about 25 percent, ahead of two-term incumbent Joal Hall Broun and Dan Coleman. She lived in the northern part of town Carrboro had recently annexed, and Mayor Mark Chilton read her first-place finish as a sign that voters were ready to move past the annexation fight.

17. December 10, 2007
    Life event · Chapel Hill Daniel Okun dies in Chapel Hill

    Okun, Kenan Professor of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, died in Chapel Hill of complications of leukemia at age 90.

18. February 2009
    Award or honor · Carrboro Cliff's Meat Market is honored for serving Carrboro's Spanish-speaking customers

    Cliff's Meat Market in Carrboro received Orange County's Pauli Murray Award in the business category; owner Cliff Collins was nominated for reaching out to the Spanish-speaking community. The butcher shop, open since 1973, had hired Latino staff as Spanish-speaking customers began asking for cuts in Spanish.

19. March–June 2009
    Law, policy or court · Carrboro; Cedar Grove Commissioners reject closing the Carrboro and Cedar Grove branch libraries

    Facing recession cuts while opening the new Hillsborough main library, the county manager proposed closing the Carrboro branch at McDougle School and the Cedar Grove branch and moving their staff to the new building. After opposition from Commissioner Mike Nelson, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen and residents, commissioners rejected the closures and used reserve funds to staff the new library in the budget adopted in June 2009.

20. October 2009
    Appointment, election or service · Orange County Commissioner Mike Nelson announces he will not seek re-election

    County Commissioner and former Carrboro mayor Mike Nelson announced that he would not run for re-election to the Orange County board.

21. December 2009
    Law, policy or court · Orange County Commissioners vote to truck county trash to Durham's transfer station

    After OWASA refused to sell or swap land for a transfer station and Chapel Hill withdrew its Millhouse Road property, the Board of Commissioners voted to haul county trash to Durham's transfer station for three to five years while the towns and county weighed a longer-term plan.

22. July 11, 2010
    Closing or ending · Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill Museum closes its physical site

    The Chapel Hill Museum closed to the public on July 11, 2010, after 14 years in the town-owned former library building on East Franklin Street. Its trustees said the Town Council's budget offer of $20,250 fell short of the $49,000 supporters had sought for building upkeep, and staff planned to find new homes for its artifacts.

23. March 6, 2012
    Law, policy or court · Carrboro Carrboro aldermen approve criteria for siting a freestanding library

    The Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to approve criteria, recommended to the Orange County commissioners, for siting a freestanding southwest Orange County library in Carrboro, whose county branch was then housed in McDougle School. Aldermen ranked transit, walking and cycling access first, while Nerys Levy of the Friends of the Carrboro Branch Library asked for ample parking for older patrons and stressed access to computers and information.

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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.