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Orange County Indexed

Chronology

Key events from Orange County history: 100 highlights to start, then the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, each connected to the index. A storyline gathers many dated events into one history, such as the Regulator crisis.

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18 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–18.Back to highlights

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  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

  2. Construction or physical change · Orange County The county board agrees to build a new school at Cedar Grove

    On August 11, 1922, under superintendent Claytor, the county board agreed to build a modern school at Cedar Grove once state building-fund money came. The building was accepted in January 1924 and named Aycock School. Carrboro's new school, planned under the same program, was already going up in 1921.

  3. Cedar Grove Aycock School is built at Cedar Grove and named for the governor

    The county built the original eight-room Aycock School at Cedar Grove on land bought from Carl C. McDade and named it for former governor Charles B. Aycock.

  4. Protest or organizing · Harmony, near Cedar Grove Harmony School patrons protest a merger with Aycock School

    A delegation from Harmony School went before the board to object to consolidating their school with the new Aycock School at Cedar Grove. The board told them no such step was planned, though Harmony was merged into Aycock six years later.

  5. Closing or ending · Orange County The county board merges Chestnut Ridge, Jordan's Grove, Smith Level and Grover into larger schools

    Over objections from families who wanted to keep neighborhood schools, the board sent the pupils of Chestnut Ridge to Gravelly Hill, those of Grover and Jordan's Grove to Aycock, and those of Smith Level to Carrboro. It then adopted a school budget of $180,849.25 for 1930-31.

  6. Closing or ending · near Caldwell Breeze School is merged into Aycock and later becomes a tobacco pack house

    On June 15, 1931 the county Board of Education merged Harmony and Breeze schools near Caldwell into Aycock School. By 1938 the Breeze building was being used to store tobacco.

  7. Closing or ending · Orange County The county board merges nine more rural schools into larger ones

    At a special meeting on reorganizing the schools, the board sent Merritts to Chapel Hill, Damascus to Carrboro, Tom's Creek and Rock Hill to Orange Grove, Union and Rehobeth to Efland, and Harmony with others to Aycock, leaving few one-teacher schools for white children.

  8. Protest or organizing · Orange County Parents turn back a plan to merge the Aycock, Efland and Hillsboro schools

    A large crowd of parents appeared before the board to fight a plan that would have folded the Aycock, Efland and Hillsboro schools into one. The opposition was strong enough that the board dropped the plan, which returned in 1963 as Orange High School.

  9. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove The county board agrees to build an agriculture building at Aycock School

    Aycock principal Mrs. V. L. Warren and the school committee asked the board for a two-room brick building for agriculture classes, and the board agreed to provide it.

  10. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

  11. Closing or ending · Efland The county board ends high school classes at Efland

    The board voted to discontinue Efland High School and send its students to Aycock and Hillsboro, leaving Efland an elementary school.

  12. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove A community cannery is set up at Aycock School

    G. A. Munn and E. F. Cude told the board in July 1947 that the cannery at Aycock School had used $3,500 and needed $1,500 more to finish.

  13. Construction or physical change · Orange County Superintendent Proffit's $1 million school bond pays for a new Efland school for Black children and county lunchrooms

    The $1,000,000 school bond passed under Superintendent Glenn T. Proffit paid for grounds and a building for the Efland school for Black children, an addition to Hillsboro High School, and lunchrooms at Aycock, Efland, West Hillsborough and White Cross. It also bought a cannery and gymnasium at Aycock and a remodeling and auditorium at Caldwell.

  14. Founding or opening · Cedar Grove The Cedar Grove Ruritan Club is organized

    Formed in 1950, the club helped landscape the new Aycock School and equip its gym, fielded a community baseball team and arranged group hospital insurance for members. In 1952 it placed first among 22 rural groups in the community improvement contest.

  15. Closing or ending · Orange County Jordan's Grove School for Black children closes as the Cedar Grove Negro School opens

    Jordan's Grove School for Black children closed in the fall of 1951, when it and six other small Black schools were combined in the new Cedar Grove Negro School, accepted by the county board that November. It is the only surviving rural field school building the 1993 survey could tie to African American pupils, abandoned in a farm field when recorded. A separate white Jordan's Grove school had merged into Aycock in 1930.

  16. Closing or ending · Cedar Grove Aycock and Hillsborough High schools are consolidated into Orange High School

    When Orange High School opened in 1963, the county consolidated the high school grades of Aycock School in Cedar Grove and Hillsborough High School into it, and the older buildings became junior high or elementary schools. Some Aycock seniors went to Eastern Alamance High School in Mebane, but most went to Orange High.

  17. Closing or ending · Caldwell Orange County Board of Education closes Caldwell School

    In 1961 the county board weighed a proposal to close White Cross School at once and Caldwell School later. In March 1963, in the consolidation that came with the new Orange High School, it voted to close the white-only Caldwell School, built in 1925, and from that fall its pupils went to Aycock and Cameron Park. The county could not sell the building until 1973.

  18. Disaster or outbreak · Aycock School, 6116 Efland-Cedar Grove Road, Cedar Grove Fire destroys the home economics building at Aycock School

    The home economics building at Aycock School in Cedar Grove burned, with the loss put at $15,000 to $20,000 and fully insured through the state. The county board had approved the building in 1948.

  19. Law, policy or court · Cedar Grove Three Black students desegregate Aycock School in Cedar Grove

    Under the county's Freedom of Choice plan, three Black families asked for their children to be transferred to the white Aycock School, and on May 20, 1965 the three students were assigned and began attending. United States Marshals escorted at least one of them.

  20. Law, policy or court · Hillsborough Orange County Schools regroup pupils by grade across the Hillsborough schools to complete integration

    For 1969-70 the county put all its pupils outside the Efland area into Hillsborough schools, each serving set grades: kindergarten at Central Elementary, grades 1-2 at Cameron Park, 3-4 at Central, 5-6 at the old Orange Junior High, 7-9 at a new Orange Junior High and 10-12 at Orange High. Efland-Cheeks took kindergarten through third grade and Efland Elementary grades 4-6, and Aycock, Cedar Grove and West Hillsborough dropped out as separate schools.

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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 1, 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