Chronology

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1. Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799

2. 1790s
3. about 1796–1798
   Person Hall, Chapel Hill Thomas Person gives $1,050 to complete the university chapel, later named Person Hall

   Trustee Thomas Person gave $1,050 to finish the chapel then under construction at Chapel Hill. The trustees thanked him for his liberality and the building, completed in 1798, was named Person Hall.

4. Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865

5. 1810s
6. 1813–1831 and 1842–1868
   Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Thomas Ruffin serves on the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees

   Ruffin served on the university's Board of Trustees from 1813 to 1831 and again from 1842 to 1868. The residence hall completed in 1922 was named for him and for his son Thomas Ruffin Jr.

7. 1850s
8. 1850 to 1852
   Chapel Hill Smith Hall is built to Alexander Jackson Davis's design as the university library and ballroom

   The New York architect Alexander Jackson Davis designed Smith Hall, built from 1850 to 1852 for just over $10,300 and named for the trustee and former governor Benjamin Smith. It served as library and ballroom and is now the Playmakers Theatre.

9. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

10. 1880s
11. 1883 to 1885
    Construction or physical change · Memorial Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill Memorial Hall rises at UNC under Paul C. Cameron's building committee

    The cornerstone of Swain Memorial Hall was laid on September 25, 1883, and the hall was dedicated on June 3, 1885, honoring President David L. Swain, faculty and the university's Confederate dead. Paul C. Cameron, president of the Alumni Association and chairman of the building committee, raised money for it and gave money himself.

12. 1890s
13. 1893
    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Edwin Alderman leaves Greensboro to teach at the university

    Alderman, an 1882 graduate of the university and a founder of the State Normal in Greensboro, accepted a teaching position at UNC in 1893.

14. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

15. 1900s
16. Late September or early October 1907
    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill UNC's Carnegie Library opens

    UNC's new library, built with a gift from Andrew Carnegie first offered in 1905 as $50,000 and later raised to $55,000, was finished in the summer of 1907 and opened to students that fall once its furniture arrived. It served as the main library until Wilson Library opened in 1929 and was renamed for John Sprunt Hill in 1931.

17. 1910s
18. 1913–1914
    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill, Swain Hall Swain Hall is built as the university dining hall

    The university built Swain Hall in 1913 and 1914 as a dining hall on the site of the first president's house and named it for David L. Swain. It served as the dining hall until 1940 and later became the first home of the communications department.

19. 1920s
20. About 1920
    Life event · UNC campus, Chapel Hill Kennon Cheek joins the janitorial staff of Venable Hall

    Cheek began working for the university as a boy, helping his father Rubin Cheek, a stonemason born in slavery in Warren County, lay the stone walls around the campus. Around 1920 he joined the janitorial staff of Venable Hall.

21. June 13, 1922
    Naming or commemoration · Chapel Hill, Manning Hall University trustees name the new law building for John Manning

    At their June 13, 1922 meeting the university trustees approved naming the new law building for John Manning. The School of Law moved into Manning Hall before the fall 1923 semester.

22. 1924
    Property or economic transaction · Northside, Chapel Hill Kennon Cheek helps negotiate the land swap that brought Hackney's school to Northside

    Cheek's daughter Marian Cheek Jackson said he was instrumental in negotiating the 1924 land swap that moved Hackney's Educational and Industrial School from South Merritt Mill Road into the Northside community.

23. 1924
    Chapel Hill, Aycock Residence Hall UNC opens a residence hall named for Charles B. Aycock

    The university occupied Aycock Residence Hall on the Lower Quad in 1924. The name stood until the trustees removed it in July 2020, citing his racist views and actions.

24. October 19, 1929
    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill The new University Library, later Wilson Library, is dedicated

    UNC dedicated its new University Library, planned by Arthur Cleveland Nash and William Kendall of McKim, Mead and White, on October 19, 1929, weeks after students began using the building that fall. It served as the main campus library for decades, was named for librarian Louis Round Wilson in 1956, and after a 1984 to 1987 renovation became the home of UNC's special collections.

25. 1930s
26. April 14, 1930
    Protest or organizing · Chapel Hill Black janitors organize the UNC Janitors' Association

    Facing a threatened 10 percent pay cut, janitors Kennon Cheek, Frank Hairston, Elliot Washington and Melvin Rich organized the Janitors' Association, with Cheek as its first president. Its early gains included a week's paid vacation and showers in the janitors' bathrooms.

27. November 14, 1930
    Construction or physical change · Hill Hall, UNC campus The old Carnegie Library is dedicated as the music building

    After the library moved to its new building, the Carnegie Library was remodeled for the music department with an auditorium and a Reuter organ, most of the cost given by the Hill family. It was dedicated on November 14, 1930, and named Hill Music Hall by trustee resolution in the summer of 1931.

28. 1931
    Construction or physical change · Chapel Hill Graham Memorial is completed as the university's student union

    The building named for Edward Kidder Graham was completed in 1931 and served as the student union, holding the Horace Williams Library, a barber shop, a bowling alley, a game room and offices for student publications.

29. 1932
    Property or economic transaction · UNC campus, Chapel Hill Kennon Cheek moves that the Janitors' Association give to the student loan fund

    Frank Porter Graham came to an association meeting to tell the janitors that the Depression would cut their wages but that everyone would come through together. Cheek then moved that the Janitors' Association give five dollars to the fund set up to keep students in school, the first campus organization to contribute to it.

30. 1932
    Life event · Chapel Hill Rebecca Clark moves to Chapel Hill and goes to work in a faculty home

    Clark, born around 1915 in Chatham County, moved to Chapel Hill in 1932 to live with a relative on Church Street. She went to work in the home of professor Vernon Howell while enrolled at the Orange County Training School.

31. June 4, 1935
    Property or economic transaction · Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill The Hill family gives the Carolina Inn to the university

    John Sprunt Hill and his family gave the Carolina Inn, which he had built in 1924, to the university on the condition that its income support the North Carolina Collection.

32. March 1938
    Chapel Hill The Bowman Gray Memorial Pool opens in the new Woollen Gymnasium

    The pool, named for the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company president Bowman Gray Sr., opened with Woollen Gymnasium. His widow and his sons Bowman Gray Jr. and Gordon Gray gave much of the university's share of the cost; a Public Works Administration grant paid the rest.

33. 1940s
34. 1940
    Life event · Northside, Chapel Hill Kennon Cheek dies at his home in Northside

    Cheek, born in Chapel Hill about 1890, lived out his life in the house he built on land in Northside bought from the university's holdings, and died there in 1940 after diabetes and overwork wore him down in the late 1930s.

35. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

36. 1950s
37. 1953
    Life event · N.C. Memorial Hospital, Chapel Hill Rebecca Clark moves from the University Laundry to nursing at Memorial Hospital

    In 1953 Clark left the University Laundry for the newly built university hospital, where she spent the rest of her working years as a nurse. UNC's Employee Forum says she was the first licensed practical nurse in the campus infirmary and retired in 1979.

38. 1956
    Property or economic transaction · Chapel Hill, Morehead Planetarium Morehead gives the sundial in front of the planetarium

    In 1956 Morehead funded the sundial set in front of the planetarium building in Chapel Hill.

39. 1960s
40. 1968
    Founding or opening · Chapel Hill The undergraduate library named for R. B. House opens

    The building put up in 1964 was occupied by the university in 1968 as the Robert B. House Undergraduate Library, named for the former chancellor.

41. Recent decades · 1976–2026

42. 1980s
43. November 7, 1987
    Naming or commemoration · UNC campus, Chapel Hill Carmichael Residence Hall is dedicated

    The university dedicated a new six-storey residence hall for 486 students, completed in 1986 and named for Katherine Kennedy Carmichael, at the close of a three-day celebration of women at the university.

44. 1989
    Founding or opening · Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill The North Carolina Collection Gallery opens in Wilson Library

    A gallery conceived by North Carolina Collection curator H. G. Jones opened in the east wing of Wilson Library, with R. Neil Fulghum as its first keeper, to exhibit items the library had collected.

45. 1990s
46. January 28 – September 17, 1998
    Naming or commemoration · Cheek-Clark Building, UNC The University Laundry is renamed for housekeeping leaders Kennon Cheek and Rebecca Clark

    On January 28, 1998 the trustees voted to rename the 1920s University Laundry for Kennon Cheek and Rebecca Clark, who led campus housekeepers in the 1930s and 1940s. The building was rededicated on September 17, 1998.

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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.