Search and filters
Search and filters · 1 active
12 dated events match your filters.
Searched the full chronology of 6,171 dated events and 63 storylines, not only the highlights. Showing 1–12.Back to highlights
Entries
Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
-
Ridge Road School is built for Black children north of Hillsborough
In 1932 the county board had a two-room frame school for Black children built on Walter and Maggie Torian's land off Ridge Road (now Coleman Loop Road), just west of NC 86 north of Hillsborough. R. J. Forrest built it with lumber from the community. It replaced an earlier Ridge Road school and was not a Rosenwald school, though the 1993 survey had taken it for one.
-
The county board agrees to pay for five new or enlarged schools for Black children
Despite the Depression, the Orange County board agreed to fund buildings or additions at Merritts, Ridge Road, Sunnyside, White Oak Grove and Sartin, schools of one to three rooms for Black children. Each community had to supply its own lumber; Ridge Road was first allotted $500.
-
Ridge Road School counts 80 pupils enrolled and 51 attending
In the 1934-35 term Ridge Road School, a two-room school for Black children north of Hillsboro, had 80 pupils on its roll, 51 of whom attended regularly.
-
Alethea Burt moves to Hillsboro and takes charge of Ridge Road School's upper grades
Alethea Arrington Burt, a Hampton Institute graduate, came from Currituck County to Hillsboro in 1935, the year her husband Moses became the county's Black farm agent. She taught fifth through seventh grades and served as principal of the two-room school until it closed in 1951.
Civil rights era · 1945–1975
-
Ridge Road School reports 75 pupils and a 149-book library
The principal's report for 1948-49 counted 75 children enrolled, 57 in average attendance, with the sixth and seventh grades the largest group at 40. The school's equipment was a globe, a flag, word cards, art supplies and a library of 149 books.
-
The county board approves electric wiring for five rural schools for Black children
The Orange County board voted to electrify five rural schools for Black children, asking each community to pay half the cost. Ridge Road School had two electric lights in each room by the late 1940s, but when it was wired is not known.
-
Alethea Burt starts a junior 4-H club at Ridge Road School
Principal Alethea Burt organized a junior 4-H club at Ridge Road School in the 1949-50 term, when 64 children were enrolled. She and her husband, farm agent Moses Burt, helped form 4-H clubs among Black youth in the county.
-
The county board names A. J. Breeze, James Clark and Otho Thompson to the Ridge Road school committee
The Orange County board appointed three local men as the Ridge Road district's advisory committee; they served until April 1951, the school's last spring.
-
The News of Orange prints a photograph of a Ridge Road School classroom
An article on newer classroom methods in the county's Black schools ran a picture of Ridge Road pupils adding to a bulletin board, a few months before the school closed. It is the only historic photograph of the interior that has been found.
-
The Torian family deeds a lot beside Ridge Road School to Emma Torian Jones and Rev. Walter Jones
Maggie Torian and her children conveyed 0.79 acre west of the school, on Coleman Loop Road, to her daughter Emma and Emma's husband, Rev. Walter Warren Jones, who built a frame house there. Walter and Maggie Torian, Black farmers, had owned the land the school stood on and supplied its water.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
-
Emma Torian Jones gives her home lot beside Ridge Road School to Jones Grove Church
Emma Torian Jones donated the lot west of the school, where she and her husband had lived since the 1960s, to Jones Grove Missionary Baptist Church; the house was later torn down, returning the ground to woods. The Torian heirs had also deeded the school parcel to the church.
-
Ridge Road School is listed in the National Register
On December 12, 2023 the National Park Service listed Ridge Road School near Hillsborough in the National Register of Historic Places.
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.
