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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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Marian Cheek Jackson Center.Open the sourceAll sources

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

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9 dated events
1920Early twentieth century
  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  2. Luther R. Hargraves built the tin-roofed houses that gave Tin Top its name

    Construction or physical change · Hargraves Street, Chapel Hill and Carrboro

    Luther R. Hargraves, a carpenter and Chapel Hill's first African American mortician, built a row of houses with tin roofs on Hargraves Street near the railroad tracks behind St. Paul AME, and the cluster became known as Tin Top or Tin Top Alley.

  3. St. Joseph CME built its first church on West Rosemary Street

    Construction or physical change · 510 West Rosemary Street, Chapel Hill

    Henry Baldwin, Margaret Burnette and Kennon Cheek mortgaged their homes for the down payment on the Rosemary Street lot, which Black leaders had judged too small for a new high school. A frame church went up under Rev. Joseph S. Miller and was dedicated as St. Joseph Colored Methodist Episcopal Church.

    People: Kennon Cheek

  4. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  5. Northside and Pine Knolls residents resist federal urban renewal

    Protest or organizing · Northside and Pine Knolls, Chapel Hill

    When Northside and Pine Knolls were targeted for urban renewal, residents confronted HUD and avoided the wholesale clearance seen in Durham's Hayti, winning home improvements and new construction instead.

    Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 78 events

  6. Recent decades · 1976–2026
  7. St. Joseph CME sold Henry W. Baldwin's Broad Street land to Carrboro for a park

    Property or economic transaction · Baldwin Park, Broad Street, Carrboro

    Henry W. Baldwin, a Black landowner in the Lloyd/Broad neighborhood, left his estate to St. Joseph CME Church. During the pastorate of Dr. L. Kenneth Bennett the church sold a tract on Broad Street to the Town of Carrboro for a park, which was named Baldwin Park in his honor.

  8. St. Joseph CME Church and UNC begin the Northside oral history partnership

    Founding or opening · Northside, Chapel Hill

    Rev. Troy Harrison and UNC professor Della Pollock began collecting oral histories in Northside, the project that grew into the Marian Cheek Jackson Center.

    Part of Northside, Pine Knolls, and Tin Top · 56 events

    People: Marian Cheek Jackson

    Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

  9. Marian Cheek Jackson Center opens at St. Joseph CME Church

    Founding or opening · St. Joseph C.M.E. Church, Chapel Hill

    The Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History held its ribbon cutting on the second floor of the H.W. Baldwin Fellowship Hall at St. Joseph C.M.E. Church. It is named for Marian Cheek Jackson, the church historian and lifelong Pine Knolls resident.

    Part of Northside, Pine Knolls, and Tin Top · 56 events

    People: Marian Cheek Jackson

    Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

  10. RENA and the Jackson Center produced the Historic and Vibrant Rogers Road report

    Publication, speech or performance · Rogers Road

    The Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association and the Marian Cheek Jackson Center put together survey analysis and community feedback on the neighborhood's future. Two years later the same partners ran the planning process behind Mapping our Community's Future.

    Subject: Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association · Marian Cheek Jackson Center

  11. A stone gateway honoring Northside's freedom fighters was opened at Rosemary and Roberson streets

    Naming or commemoration · West Rosemary and Roberson Streets, Chapel Hill

    The gateway of Chatham stone carries eight black granite slabs with civil rights images and quotations from oral history interviews. It was opened with a ribbon cutting at the first Northside Festival, as the Jackson Center renamed its annual celebration.

    People: Hilliard Caldwell

    Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

  12. Northside land bank passes 41 properties

    Statistic or record · Northside, Chapel Hill

    By mid-2022 the initiative had bought more than 41 Northside properties with the UNC loan, and 51 families with 50 children had moved into the neighborhood through its housing work.

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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