Skip to content

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.

Search and filters

Search and filters · 1 active

6 dated events match your filters.

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

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

6 dated events
1927Early twentieth century
  1. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944
  2. Mack and Julie Rigsbee buy lots in the Bankhead Forest development

    Property or economic transaction · Rigsbee's Rock House, Lawrence Road at the US 70 bypass, east of Hillsborough

    The Rigsbees bought lots 72 to 75 in Block D of the Bankhead Forest property east of Hillsborough in June 1927 and the adjoining lots 68 to 71 in April 1928. Their stone country house and its outbuildings went up on the combined lots.

    Subject: Rigsbee’s Rock House

  3. Mack and Julie Rigsbee build a white-quartz country house east of Hillsborough

    Construction or physical change · east of Hillsborough

    Around 1929 the Rigsbees built a rambling story-and-a-half house faced with white quartz on two wooded acres east of Hillsborough, with a quartz wall, garage, pump house and swimming pool to match. Local stories say the couple sold whiskey and hid it in the roof.

    Subject: Rigsbee’s Rock House

  4. Mack and Julie Rigsbee lose their Rock House after defaulting on the mortgage

    Property or economic transaction · Rigsbee's Rock House, Lawrence Road at the US 70 bypass, east of Hillsborough

    About two years after moving into their white flint house, the Rigsbees defaulted on the mortgage in 1931, and the place passed through a series of owners. Court records later tie Mack Rigsbee to whiskey convictions in Durham and Granville counties.

    Subject: Rigsbee’s Rock House

  5. Recent decades · 1976–2026
  6. Rigsbee's Rock House joins the Study List

    Naming or commemoration · Rigsbee's Rock House, near Hillsborough

    The National Register Advisory Committee placed Mack and Julie Rigsbee's quartz-faced Rock House east of Hillsborough on North Carolina's Study List, its list of properties likely to qualify for the National Register.

    Subject: Rigsbee’s Rock House

  7. James and Judy Singleton restore Rigsbee's Rock House

    Construction or physical change · Rigsbee's Rock House, Lawrence Road at the US 70 bypass, east of Hillsborough

    New owners who bought the neglected house in June 1986 carried out its one major refurbishing in 1986-87, keeping the original fabric while reworking the kitchen and upstairs baths. The rock garage became a guest apartment in 1986.

    Subject: Rigsbee’s Rock House

  8. Rigsbee's Rock House is listed in the National Register

    Award or honor · east of Hillsborough

    Rigsbee's Rock House was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

    Subject: Rigsbee’s Rock House

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 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