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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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46 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–46.Back to highlights

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  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

  2. 1900s
  3. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove Cedar Grove district finishes a new $279 schoolhouse with county help

    The board paid $150 from the general fund toward the new schoolhouse of Cedar Grove District No. 6, which cost $279.

  4. 1910s
  5. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove The old Cedar Grove one-teacher schoolhouse is moved to serve Black children

    When Cedar Grove's white pupils moved to the new high school, the one-teacher schoolhouse was hauled to Baxter Thompson's land and used as a school for Black children.

  6. Founding or opening · Cedar Grove The county board buys the Annie Hughes Academy to house a Cedar Grove high school

    Answering a petition from Cedar Grove residents, the board offered on May 3, 1915 to buy the old Cedar Grove Academy from Annie Hughes and on May 15 paid her $1,500 for it, deeding her the lot of the one-teacher school it closed. The new Cedar Grove High School took grades one through eleven.

  7. Law, policy or court · Cedar Grove Cedar Grove voters approve a special school tax district

    The board allowed Cedar Grove to call an election on a special school tax in July 1917, and the returns reported in September showed 34 votes for and 16 against. The board then set pay for each Cedar Grove high school teacher at $50 a month.

  8. 1930s
  9. Protest or organizing · Cedar Grove Black families from five northern Orange schools ask for a brick consolidated school

    Parents from five schools for Black children, Cedar Grove, Carr, Harmony, Sartins and White Oak, asked the board for a new brick building to replace them. The board promised to look into it; a site near Vincent's Store for a Cedar Grove school for Black children was bought in 1946.

  10. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

  11. 1940s
  12. Property or economic transaction · Cedar Grove The county buys land from Mary Vincent for a Cedar Grove school for Black children

    In May 1945 board members Charlie Stanford and James Compton were asked to find a site near Vincent's Store crossroads for a Cedar Grove school for Black children. The board bought the land from Mary Vincent for $1,000 in 1946.

  13. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Architect H. Raymond Weeks presents plans for a school for Black children in Cedar Grove Township

    H. Raymond Weeks showed the Orange County Board of Education his design for a consolidated school for Black pupils in Cedar Grove Township. The board sent the plans to the Federal Works Agency, which lent school systems money for architects' fees.

  14. 1950s
  15. Protest or organizing · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Cedar Grove parents ask that Black educators help plan their new school

    A delegation from the Cedar Grove Parent-Teacher Association asked the county board to let Central High principal A. L. Stanback and M. C. Burt, the county's agricultural agent for Black farmers, take part in planning the new Cedar Grove school.

  16. Appointment, election or service · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Archie Royal Davis replaces H. Raymond Weeks as architect of the Cedar Grove school

    When state school planners faulted H. Raymond Weeks's design in April 1950, the board sent him to W. F. Credle and Edward Waugh of the Division of Schoolhouse Planning, but Weeks would not rework it on short notice. By May the job had gone to Archie Royal Davis, who was also designing Lincoln High School in Chapel Hill; the board approved his preliminary plans in June.

  17. Statistic or record · Cedar Grove and Carr, northern Orange County Principal E. M. Stanfield reports on the one-room school for Black children at Cedar Grove

    In her report for 1949-50, E. M. Stanfield told the state she was the only teacher for 36 pupils in seven grades in a single room with no library, gymnasium, fire protection or indoor toilet. The two-room Carr School nearby, under principal Anne May Morrow, had 73 pupils and lacked a drinking fountain and state health approval.

  18. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove The county board accepts Archie Royal Davis's plans for Cedar Grove School

    The Orange County Board of Education approved Davis's final design for the Cedar Grove school for Black children: a low, flat-roofed brick building with long bands of classroom windows.

  19. Property or economic transaction · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Bids for Cedar Grove School run over budget and the board asks the state for $147,000

    None of the construction bids opened on December 6, 1950, came within the budget, so the board rejected them all. On December 28 it voted to ask the state School Plant Construction, Improvement, and Repair Fund for a $147,000 grant to build the school.

  20. 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.

  21. Closing or ending · Orange County Orange County closes thirteen small schools for Black children and consolidates their pupils

    At the start of the 1951-52 school year the county shut thirteen one- and two-teacher schools for Black children, put eleven new buses on the roads and consolidated every Black school except three near Efland. New buildings opened that year at the Cedar Grove school.

  22. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Construction of Cedar Grove School begins

    Work on the new school for Black children on NC 86 north of Hillsborough started in January 1951. By early February a well had been drilled and the footings poured.

  23. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove The board cuts the north wing and kitchen from the Cedar Grove School plans

    To lower costs, the county board struck the six-classroom north wing, the kitchen, floor tile, clocks, bells, sidewalks and other items from Davis's design. The gymnasium was to serve as a multipurpose room partitioned into four classrooms until money for more space could be found.

  24. Protest or organizing · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Cedar Grove parents ask for a say in hiring teachers and get a Black building committee

    Seven Cedar Grove PTA members asked for a local committee with power to hire and dismiss the new school's teachers, and for paint and tile floors. The board named a building committee of Dallas Sheppherd Burnett, Wayne Compton, D. W. Torain, Elijah Poole and Oscar Carver Beasley but gave it no say over staff; it did approve the paint and the floor tile.

  25. Property or economic transaction · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove The county board votes to borrow for a six-classroom wing at Cedar Grove School

    On a motion by board member Kemp S. Cate, the board voted to borrow $30,000 from the state literary fund and add $25,000 from its capital budget to build the north classroom wing cut from the 1951 plans. The county commissioners approved the loan.

  26. Appointment, election or service · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Millard Lee Bess joins the Cedar Grove School staff

    The county board hired Millard Lee Bess, a Gaston County native, Winston-Salem State graduate and World War II veteran, for Cedar Grove School in September 1952.

  27. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Cedar Grove School's six-classroom north wing is finished

    The north wing Archie Royal Davis had drawn in 1951 was finished late in 1953 and closely matches the original classroom wing. With the new rooms the multipurpose room became the gymnasium and auditorium. Davis and board members Harry Breeze and C. W. Stanford inspected the wing in January 1954.

  28. Publication, speech or performance · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove The News of Orange prints the first picture of the Cedar Grove Negro School

    A front-page photograph presented the new school as a major piece of the county's three-year building program. The story listed seven classrooms, a library, an office, a heating plant, two toilets and a multipurpose room used from the start as four classrooms.

  29. Naming or commemoration · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove The name Cedar Grove Negro School gives way to Cedar Grove School

    The county board and local papers had called the school the Cedar Grove Negro School from the 1946 land purchase on. After 1954 they used Cedar Grove School or Cedar Grove Elementary School.

  30. Appointment, election or service · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Harold H. Webb becomes principal of Cedar Grove School

    Harold Hudson Webb, a Greensboro-born veteran of the Tuskegee Airmen with two degrees from North Carolina A&T who had taught at Central High, was hired as Cedar Grove's principal. He led the school until 1962, when he joined the state education department; in 1977 he became North Carolina's first Black state personnel director.

  31. Protest or organizing · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove A Cedar Grove committee asks for classrooms, a lunchroom and playground land

    Wayne Compton, Arthur Wells, Lonnie Thompson, Carter White and Oscar Beasley asked the county board for four more classrooms at Cedar Grove School, a lunchroom large enough to grow, and two more acres for a playground. The board did not act.

  32. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove The county board approves a cafeteria for Cedar Grove School

    After voting in September to study the need, the board approved a cafeteria for 150 pupils at Cedar Grove at no more than $40,000, while again putting off new classrooms. Archie Royal Davis's plans for it were approved and sent to the state in October 1957.

  33. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove A kitchen and cafeteria are added to Cedar Grove School

    A one-story brick kitchen and cafeteria, 78 by 49 feet, was finished behind the gymnasium late in 1958 to Archie Royal Davis's plans. One open dining room filled two-thirds of it, with the kitchen, dishwashing and storage along the north side.

  34. Protest or organizing · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove A Cedar Grove delegation asks for a classroom and playground to win accreditation

    Seeking state accreditation, a delegation from the school asked the board for one more classroom so the library could be used as a library again, land for a playground, paint for the north wing and outdoor floodlights. The board took no action.

  35. Law, policy or court · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove The state declines to accredit Cedar Grove School for lack of space

    Ruth Lawrence Woodson, state supervisor of the Black elementary schools, refused accreditation because the school had too few classrooms and was using its library as a fourth-grade room. Her report counted the parents' involvement, a staff study program, the office, auditorium and clinic room in its favor.

  36. Protest or organizing · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Cedar Grove's advisory committee asks for two more classrooms

    Lonnie Thompson, Arthur Wells, Carter White, Wayne Compton and Oscar Beasley of the school's advisory committee asked the board for a two-classroom addition. The board agreed to consider it and in August approved Archie Royal Davis's plans with a $20,000 limit.

  37. 1960s
  38. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Two classrooms are added to the south wing of Cedar Grove School

    The two classrooms at the south end of the original wing, built to Archie Royal Davis's plans on bids taken in fall 1959, were finished by September 6, 1960, when the board inspected them with Davis and contractor Lindsay Fogelman.

  39. Appointment, election or service · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Belton Edwards becomes principal of Cedar Grove School

    Belton Edwards, a South Carolina native and North Carolina A&T graduate, followed Harold Webb as principal in 1962 and stayed until 1968, when he became the first Black member of the Orange County Board of Education. George Pierce succeeded him at the school.

  40. Appointment, election or service · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Teacher Hassie Vanhook Gattis retires after 34 years

    Hassie Vanhook Brooks Gattis retired in 1963 after 34 years of teaching Black children in northern Orange County, at the Sartin, Grover, Poplar Grove and Carr schools and, from about 1955, at Cedar Grove. The News of Orange County marked her retirement in June.

  41. Statistic or record · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Cedar Grove families answer the county's freedom-of-choice forms

    The county sent 401 school-choice forms to Cedar Grove School families at the end of the 1964-65 year. Fifty-two made no choice, three asked for all-white Aycock Elementary and four for Orange Junior High.

  42. Protest or organizing · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Cedar Grove's advisory council asks for a painted lunchroom and a paved playground

    Oscar Beasley and Arthur Wells of the Cedar Grove Advisory Council asked the board to paint the lunchroom, hang doors on the girls' restroom and give the school a hard-surfaced playground. The board granted part of the request.

  43. Protest or organizing · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Principal George Pierce and Arthur Wells ask for basketball goals and better lighting

    Cedar Grove principal George Pierce and advisory council chairman Arthur Wells asked the board for basketball goals, better lighting, doors for the boys' restrooms and supplies for the lunchroom.

  44. 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.

  45. Protest or organizing · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Cedar Grove's advisory council petitions to keep the school open

    As the county prepared to integrate its schools, the Cedar Grove Advisory Council brought the board a petition asking that Cedar Grove School run fully through 1969-70 and that the integration plan be reconsidered. The council said the community did not intend to give up its school.

  46. Closing or ending · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Cedar Grove School closes under the county's integration plan

    The county board announced in May 1969 that Cedar Grove School would not operate in 1969-70. The school closed at the end of the 1968-69 year despite the community's appeals, and its pupils moved to schools in Efland and Hillsborough.

  47. Recent decades · 1976–2026

  48. 1970s
  49. Property or economic transaction · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove The school board sells the empty Cedar Grove School to Orange County for ten dollars

    After the building had stood vacant for nearly a decade, the Orange County Board of Education conveyed the former school and its eight acres to the county for $10.

  50. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove School, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Efland-Cheeks pupils use the old Cedar Grove School while their school is enlarged

    Under county ownership the former Cedar Grove School served several purposes, among them holding Efland-Cheeks School students until an addition to their own building was finished in 1978.

  51. 1980s
  52. Founding or opening · Cedar Grove Park, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Orange County gets a grant to build a park behind the old Cedar Grove School

    A $30,000 grant let the county develop recreation land behind the school, where it built a baseball field and a children's play area.

  53. 1990s
  54. Property or economic transaction · Cedar Grove Park, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove Orange County buys 39 acres to expand the park at Cedar Grove

    The county bought thirty-nine acres behind the old Cedar Grove School to enlarge its recreation park.

  55. 2000s
  56. Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove Park, 5800 NC 86 North, Cedar Grove A state trust fund grant pays for a larger Cedar Grove Park

    Beginning in 2007, with a $500,000 grant from the North Carolina Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, the county greatly enlarged the park around the old school. It now has three ball fields, two basketball courts, a playground and parking.

  57. 2010s
  58. Founding or opening · Cedar Grove Cedar Grove Community Center opens with a self-service library station

    Orange County dedicated the renovated Cedar Grove Community Center, once home to the Cedar Grove Negro School, in June 2016, with a self-serve library station beside the building. The $180,000 kiosk offered automated borrowing in northern Orange County without a staffed branch; the county's FY 2021–22 budget ended support for it, citing poor performance and low patron use.

  59. Naming or commemoration · The Rocks, Chapel Hill; Cedar Grove School, Hillsborough vicinity The Rocks in Chapel Hill and Cedar Grove School join the Study List

    Among nine central and southeastern public requests approved on October 12, 2017 were William C. Coker's house, The Rocks, in Chapel Hill and the Cedar Grove School north of Hillsborough. The same meeting placed the Hillsborough survey's Ja-Max Motor Lodge and Military Academy dining hall site on the list.

  60. 2020s
  61. Naming or commemoration · Cedar Grove School, Cedar Grove vicinity Cedar Grove School is listed in the National Register

    On April 23, 2020 the National Park Service listed Cedar Grove School near Cedar Grove in the National Register of Historic Places.

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