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14 dated events match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–14.Back to highlights
Entries
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
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Murphey School is built in brick on the Durham-Hillsboro road
Murphey School, a hip-roofed brick consolidated school for white children named for Archibald D. Murphey, was built in 1923 on the Durham-Hillsboro road (Old NC 10). H. C. Linthicum drew the plans and W. H. Woods of Durham built it for $8,995. The school closed in 1959; the road nearby is spelled Murphy School Road.
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The county school board builds a teachers' home at Murphey School from the unfinished Mount Hope School
Instead of finishing a new Mount Hope School that was to be merged into Murphey, the county board had the partly built schoolhouse taken apart and its materials carried to the Murphey site for a seven-room teachers' home. W. H. Woods built it for $800 in labor, paid with money from the sale of the old University School; the frame bungalow is the only teacherage left standing in Orange County.
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The county board approves H. F. Pickett as principal of Murphey School
The Orange County board approved H. F. Pickett as principal of Murphey School, which taught grades one through seven with three or four teachers, one of them doubling as principal. He is the first principal the record names.
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Murphey School enrolls 182 pupils
In the 1934-35 school year Murphey School had 182 pupils. It was one of nine county schools, with Hillsboro, Orange Grove, St. Mary's, Caldwell, Efland, Aycock, Carrboro and White Cross, apart from the Chapel Hill city schools.
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A WPA-funded auditorium wing is added to Murphey School
A 30-by-80-foot brick auditorium with a Doric portico was built onto the west end of the school with federal WPA money, together with a water tank, a new sewer and plumbing system, and repairs to the teacherage, for $16,365. George W. Kane was the general contractor, and the county board inspected and accepted the auditorium on June 1, 1936.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
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Principal J. M. Harris refits the Murphey School lunchroom
Mrs. J. M. Harris, principal and teacher of the fifth and sixth grades, reported new chairs, tables, curtains and cooking equipment for the lunchroom in 1946. Her teachers were Myrtle Walker, Erna Link, Mrs. Chas F. Hudson and Florence Roat, and the school had a 4-H club, a chorus and a parent-teacher association.
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The county board moves Murphey School's seventh grade to Hillsboro
Many Murphey-district families had been sending children to Hillsboro, some riding the bus against the rules, and in 1947 the board agreed to keep the seventh grade at Murphey only until numbers justified a move. In 1948, with about seventy pupils left, it sent the seventh grade to the Hillsboro school.
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Mount Herman Baptist Church leases the closed Murphey School
Once the school closed, the county board leased the empty building to Mt. Herman Baptist Church for one year at $25 a month.
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Murphey School closes and its pupils go to Hillsborough
After years of falling attendance the county closed Murphey School in 1959 and moved its pupils to the elementary schools in Hillsborough.
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The Underwood family buys Murphey School at public auction
The school property was sold at public auction in 1963 to the Underwood family.
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The former Murphey School becomes a nightclub
From some time in the early 1970s until the mid-1980s the old school was run as a nightclub. It stood empty from 1986.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
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The state adds ten Chapel Hill Township farms and buildings to the Study List
Ruth Little, co-principal investigator for the first phase of the Orange County survey, presented ten properties from Chapel Hill Township on July 8, 1992, and the National Register Advisory Committee approved all of them. They ran from the Smith-Cole House and the two Couch farms to Bethel Baptist Church and Murphy School.
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Jay Miller buys the empty Murphey School and begins restoring it
Jay Miller bought the school, vacant since 1986, in March 2008 and began restoring it with the State Historic Preservation Office for use as a retreat center for nonprofit groups and a rental site for events.
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Murphey School is listed in the National Register
On August 20, 2009 the National Park Service listed Murphey School near Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
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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 2, 2026.
