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Searched the full chronology of 9,006 dated events and 77 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–26.Back to highlights
- Revolution and early republic · 1775–1799
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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.
Subject: Person Hall
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
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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.
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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.
People: Benjamin Smith
Subject: UNC Libraries · Smith Hall (Playmakers Theatre)
- Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
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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.
People: Kemp Plummer Battle · David L. Swain · Thomas Jordan Jarvis
Subject: Memorial Hall
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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.
- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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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.
People: Andrew Carnegie
Subject: UNC Libraries · Hill Hall
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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.
Subject: Swain Hall
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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.
Part of Black workers and campus labor · 56 events
Subject: Venable Hall
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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.
Subject: UNC School of Law
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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.
Part of Northside, Pine Knolls, and Tin Top · 56 events
People: Marian Cheek Jackson
Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School
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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.
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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.
People: Arthur Cleveland Nash
Subject: UNC Libraries
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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.
People: Kennon Cheek
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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.
Subject: UNC Libraries · Hill Hall
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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.
Subject: Graham Memorial
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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.
Part of Black workers and campus labor · 56 events
People: Frank Porter Graham
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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.
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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.
Subject: The Carolina Inn · UNC Libraries
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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.
People: Gordon Gray
Subject: Woollen Gymnasium
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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.
- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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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.
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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.
Subject: Morehead Planetarium
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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.
Subject: UNC Libraries
- Recent decades · 1976–2026
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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.
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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.
Subject: UNC Libraries
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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.
People: Rebecca Clark · Kennon Cheek
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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.
