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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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16 dated events match your filters.

Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–16.Back to highlights

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16 dated events
1901Early twentieth century
  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  2. The Hillsboro school committee buys the town's first public schoolhouse and lot

    Property or economic transaction · Hillsborough

    The committee bought a house on a two-acre lot, known as the Wash Bruce or Gill lot, from E. S. Cooley for $500. Pender says Hillsboro had never before owned a school building; the county board furnished it and paid for repairs.

    Subject: Hillsborough High School

  3. The county board commits $20,000 to a new Hillsboro school as a memorial to the county's war dead

    Construction or physical change · Hillsborough

    The board first offered Hillsboro $5,000 for a new school plant if the town raised $2,500, then settled on $20,000, and asked that the building honor the men of the county killed in the First World War. It offered Carrboro $2,500 on condition that voters there pass a $20,000 bond issue.

    Subject: Hillsborough High School

  4. Hillsboro finishes its new $100,000 school building

    Construction or physical change · 300 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough

    The town's new brick school on West Tryon Street was reported ready within a week in September 1922, though a shortage of desks held up the opening. By early 1923 it housed grades one through eleven for the consolidated Hillsboro schools under principal J. A. Abernethy.

    Subject: Hillsborough High School

  5. Hillsboro's first public schoolhouse is gone and its lot is set aside for an athletic field

    Closing or ending · West Tryon Street, Hillsborough

    Once the new consolidated school opened, the grounds where the old Hillsboro schoolhouse had stood were to become the new school's athletic field, according to a February 1923 report.

    Subject: Hillsborough High School

  6. Parents turn back a plan to merge the Aycock, Efland and Hillsboro schools

    Protest or organizing · Orange County

    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.

    Subject: Orange High School · Aycock School · Efland schools · Hillsborough High School

  7. Hillsboro High School gets an addition built with PWA money

    Construction or physical change · 300 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough

    An addition to the Hillsboro high school was under construction in May 1936 as part of the county's $346,000 school building program, paid for partly by a federal Public Works Administration grant.

    Subject: Hillsborough High School

  8. The county board applies for home economics and agriculture teachers at Hillsboro School

    Law, policy or court · Hillsborough

    The board voted in April 1936 to apply for teachers of agriculture and home economics at the Hillsboro School, while seeking federal funds for new buildings and additions.

    Subject: Hillsborough High School

  9. Civil rights era · 1945–1975
  10. Superintendent Proffit's $1 million school bond pays for a new Efland school for Black children and county lunchrooms

    Construction or physical change · Orange County

    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.

    Subject: Efland schools · Aycock School · Hillsborough High School

  11. Marinda McPherson sponsors the annual kite contest at the Hillsboro school

    Competition or sporting achievement · Hillsborough

    The annual kite contest sponsored by Mrs. M. D. McPherson was held on the school playground in Hillsboro, with prizes for the fastest getaway, the longest distance, dash and altitude, and the most original kite.

    Subject: Hillsborough High School

  12. Cameron Park School opens in Hillsborough with the lower grades from Hillsboro High

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    The new Cameron Park School took all of grades one through four from the Hillsboro High School building, leaving grades five through twelve there, with Fred Rogers, formerly of Efland, as principal. Transfer requests from other districts poured in and drew pupils away from West Hillsborough School.

    Subject: Cameron Park School · Hillsborough High School

  13. Work begins on a two-story gymnasium building for Hillsboro High School

    Construction or physical change · 300 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough

    T. W. Poe and Sons of Durham won the contract on June 10, 1957 and began a $180,000 physical education building with classrooms and locker rooms below and a gymnasium above, due for completion in December.

    Subject: Hillsborough High School

  14. Bill France leases Orange Speedway to the Orange County Board of Education

    Property or economic transaction · Orange Speedway (Occoneechee Speedway), Hillsborough

    Bill France signed a ten-year lease letting Hillsboro High School use the Orange Speedway grounds as its athletic field, for $100 a year, while races continued.

    Part of Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough · 34 events

    People: Enoch Staley

    Subject: Occoneechee Speedway · Hillsborough High School

  15. Aycock and Hillsborough High schools are consolidated into Orange High School

    Closing or ending · Cedar Grove

    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.

    Subject: Orange High School · Hillsborough High School · Aycock School

  16. Orange Junior High School opens in the old Hillsborough High School building

    Founding or opening · Hillsborough

    When the county consolidated its white high schools into Orange High in 1963, it organized Orange Junior High School for grades six through nine in the old Hillsborough High School building, with Ted Shoaf as principal.

    Subject: Hillsborough High School · Orange High School

  17. Recent decades · 1976–2026
  18. The 1922 Hillsborough Township School building closes as a school

    Closing or ending · 300 West Tryon Street, Hillsborough

    After Orange High School took the upper grades, the old school on West Tryon Street ran as an elementary school until 1980. It later housed the public library and then the Richard E. Whitted Human Services Center.

    Subject: Hillsborough High School

  19. Orange County Public Library moves to larger quarters in Hillsborough

    Construction or physical change · Hillsborough

    Volunteers were sought to move the Orange County Public Library's 30,000 books from the 1934 library building on Churton Street to new quarters in the Human Services Complex in Hillsborough, the former Hillsborough High School on West Tryon Street, with the move planned for the end of December 1981. The old building became the Orange County Historical Museum.

    Subject: Orange County Public Library · Orange County Historical Museum · Hillsborough High School

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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 2, 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