Search and filters
Search and filters · 1 active
10 dated events match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–10.Back to highlights
- Antebellum and Civil War · 1800–1865
-
Hatter Henry Shutt buys the West King Street lot where the Colonial Inn now stands
In 1803 Henry Shutt bought the vacant lot and built a house there, living in it and running a hatter's shop. The lot was offered at public sale in 1820, and Isaiah Spencer built his inn on it in 1838.
Subject: Colonial Inn
-
Isaiah Spencer builds the Hillsborough inn later called the Colonial Inn
Isaiah Spencer built the two-story inn on West King Street in 1838. Known locally as Spencer's Tavern and advertised as the Orange Hotel, a name it kept for fifty years, it was later the Occoneechee Hotel, the Corbinton Inn and, from 1946, the Colonial Inn. Local lore and a 1953 plate caption put it in the eighteenth century.
Subject: Colonial Inn
- Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899
-
Richison Nichols buys the old Orange Hotel and builds its piazza over the West King Street sidewalk
Richison Nichols bought Isaiah Spencer's inn, apparently in 1888, and built the two-story piazza that reaches the street. The 1888 Sanborn map shows it as the Occoneechee Hotel, the name it kept until 1908.
Subject: Colonial Inn
-
David C. Parks buys the Parks-Richmond lot and joins it to the Colonial Inn lot as one hotel
D. C. Parks bought Town Lot 18 on West King Street and combined it with Lot 15, the site of the present Colonial Inn, to run them as one hotel. The house on Lot 18 held the office, reception rooms and dining room, and the inn building held the sleeping rooms.
People: David C. Parks
Subject: Colonial Inn
-
D. C. Parks has designer Jules Körner remodel his hotel buildings and Twin Chimneys
While he owned the Occoneechee Hotel, David C. Parks hired Jules Körner of Kernersville to update the hotel, the Parks-Richmond House next door and Twin Chimneys across West King Street, giving them new window and door frames with pointed-arch surrounds.
People: David C. Parks
Subject: Colonial Inn
- Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
-
Thomas A. Corbin reopens the old Occoneechee Hotel as the Corbinton Inn
After D. C. Parks sold the Occoneechee Hotel early in 1908, Thomas A. Corbin reopened it on West King Street as the Corbinton Inn. The inn kept that name until 1946, when it became the Colonial Inn.
Subject: Colonial Inn
-
D. C. Parks sells the Occoneechee Hotel and it closes
David C. Parks sold the Occoneechee Hotel in Hillsborough to Thomas A. Corbin of Winston-Salem, and the hotel was closed to the public while the new owner was ill.
People: David C. Parks
Subject: Colonial Inn
- Civil rights era · 1945–1975
-
Paul Henderson reopens the restored Colonial Inn in Hillsborough
Col. Paul Henderson bought the run-down inn on West King Street in 1946 and restored it as a hotel and dining room, managed by Martin Henderson. About 100 people came to the formal opening of the dining hall, a Hillsboro Merchants Association dinner addressed by R. B. House.
Subject: Colonial Inn
-
A Hollywood crew films a racing drama at Orange Speedway and the Colonial Inn
A film company shot scenes for a television drama starring James Whitmore at Orange Speedway and the Colonial Inn in Hillsborough. Speedway co-owner Enoch Staley brought in several well-known drivers, among them Buck Baker, for close-up scenes.
Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events
Subject: Occoneechee Speedway · Colonial Inn
-
James J. Freeland remodels and sells the Colonial Inn
Freeland, who also restored and moved old buildings, owned the Colonial Inn on West King Street for a time and remodeled it before selling it in the 1960s.
People: James John Freeland
Subject: Colonial Inn
Suggest a correction to an entry →
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.
