Chronology

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1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

2. 1910–1915
   Construction or physical change · Carrboro Mill houses go up for the Lloyd Manufacturing Company's workers

   One-story frame houses with front porches were built between 1910 and 1915 as worker housing for the Thomas F. Lloyd Manufacturing Company; 25 of them form the Thomas F. Lloyd Historic District on the National Register.

3. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

4. 1966
   Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Integrated Chapel Hill High opens on High School Road

   A new Chapel Hill High School campus opened on High School Road in 1966 as the town's first racially integrated high school, taking in the white student body from the Franklin Street school together with Lincoln High's students. Under freedom of choice the board had planned for white students to occupy the building a year before Black students joined, but Black students applied together for 1966 so that the school would not first be seen as belonging to the white students.

5. Recent decades · 1976–2026

6. January 19, 1976
   Naming or commemoration · Carrboro The Alberta Mill complex is listed on the National Register

   The mill, the railroad depot and the brick grist mill were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places, a year after the 1975 nomination made during the fight over demolishing the mill.

7. 1980s
   Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill Chapel Hill brings public housing under direct town control after a rent strike

   After a rent strike and other problems in the 1980s, the town council took over public housing from a separate housing authority and ran it as a town department. Chapel Hill and Shelby are the only North Carolina municipalities with that structure.

8. 1988
   Founding or opening · 309 East Main Street, Carrboro Barry Keith opens Surplus Sids on Main Street in Carrboro

   Barry Keith, known as Sid, had worked for a surplus dealer called Poor Richard. When Richard retired, Keith bought his warehouse, kept the best stock and started his own military surplus store in 1988.

9. 1993
   Founding or opening · Chapel Hill Chinese School at Chapel Hill is founded

   The Chinese School at Chapel Hill, which teaches Chinese language and culture, was founded in 1993 in a community that had grown around UNC since graduate students from mainland China began arriving in the early 1980s. The IRS recognized it as a tax-exempt organization in December 1999.

10. 2001–2007
    Appointment, election or service · Orange County Penny Rich is appointed to the OWASA board

    Chapel Hill appointed Rich to the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board in 2001, and she served two three-year terms through 2007. She helped write water conservation policy during a severe drought.

11. 2013
    Appointment, election or service · Carrboro Walter Horton becomes Carrboro's first African American police chief

    Town Manager David Andrews named Captain Walter Horton, a Carrboro native who joined the department in 1993, to succeed retiring Chief Carolyn Hutchison. Horton led the department until he retired in early 2021.

12. February 2025
    Founding or opening · Carrboro Drakeford Library Complex opens

    Orange County's Southern Branch Library opened in February 2025 in the $42 million Drakeford Library Complex at 203 South Greensboro Street in Carrboro, replacing the Carrboro Cybrary, which had closed on January 31, 2025. The building, named for Robert Drakeford, Carrboro's first Black mayor, also houses town recreation offices and WCOM Radio.

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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.