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Local figure

Edwin Sidney Lanier

Edwin Sidney Lanier (1901–1983) was born near Metter, Georgia, and came to UNC as a student in 1921. He later directed the university's student aid office from 1934 and its records and registration from 1945, both until 1961. In 1949 he unseated Mayor Robert W. Madry and served three terms as mayor of Chapel Hill, leaving in 1954 for the Orange County Board of Commissioners.

Source: NCpedia: Lanier, Edwin Sidney

Orange County Indexed has not yet linked an indexed work directly to Edwin Sidney Lanier. The biography and the dated events on this page provide sources about Edwin Sidney Lanier’s life and work.

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 19 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Edwin S. Lanier unseats Mayor Madry in the Chapel Hill election In a town election that drew 1,442 of 1,726 registered voters, Edwin S. Lanier defeated Mayor Robert W. Madry by 811 votes to 589, ending Madry's seven years as mayor. People: Edwin Sidney LanierSearch the index · Chapel Hill Weekly: "Edwin S. Lanier Elected Mayor" (May 6, 1949), p. 1
  2. Hubert Robinson and Paul Wager are elected to the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen Robinson led the five candidates with 571 votes and Wager followed with 560; Kenneth Putnam took the third seat. The Weekly noted Robinson was the second Black person elected to public office in Chapel Hill, the first since Reconstruction, and it was Wager's first run for office. People: Hubert Robinson, Edwin Sidney LanierSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, May 8, 1953, p. 1 (Robinson Gets Largest Vote; Other Winners: Wager, Putnam)
  3. Chapel Hill aldermen elect Oliver K. Cornwell mayor After Mayor Edwin S. Lanier won the Democratic nomination for county commissioner, the Board of Aldermen chose one of its own members, Oliver K. Cornwell, as mayor and elected Rogers Wade to his seat. People: Edwin Sidney LanierSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 26, 1954, page 1 (Aldermen Elect Oliver Cornwell As Mayor)
  4. The county commissioners name Walter Wren civil defense director The Board of County Commissioners appointed Walter G. Wren civil defense director for Orange County, a post left empty for months after K. L. Mohler left. Commissioners Edwin S. Lanier and Sim Efland said the job should cover all emergencies, not only enemy attack. In early February Wren set up an administrative board of division directors that held its first meeting on February 3. People: Edwin Sidney Lanier, Sim EflandSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), January 6, 1955, p. 1
  5. Commissioner Edwin S. Lanier lays out Orange County's problems and progress Two months after joining the county board, Edwin S. Lanier, a former Chapel Hill mayor, gave the Chapel Hill Kiwanis Club a survey of the county's population, farms, business, schools, roads, budget and welfare costs. He named schools and roads as the two big problems brought by population growth.Search the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), January 27, 1955, p. 2
  6. The Chapel Hill PTA asks for a countywide vote on ABC liquor stores Looking for money for school buildings, the Chapel Hill Parent-Teacher Association voted by about three to two, with more than 100 present, to ask the county commissioners to call a countywide referendum on ABC liquor stores, whose profits would go mostly to schools. The Chapel Hill Jaycees backed the request, while several churches and Commissioner Edwin S. Lanier opposed it. People: James L. Godfrey, Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner), Edwin Sidney LanierSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), February 17, 1955, p. 1
  7. The county commissioners refuse to call a referendum on ABC liquor stores The Orange County commissioners unanimously denied the Chapel Hill PTA's request for a countywide vote on ABC stores, on a motion by Edwin S. Lanier seconded by Dwight Ray and Henry Walker. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Ministers Association, in a statement signed by sixteen members, and several churches had written in opposition. Supporters were left with a petition of 15 per cent of the voters as the only way to force an election. People: Edwin Sidney Lanier, Dwight RaySearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), March 10, 1955, p. 1
  8. County commissioners seek authority to run water and sewer lines to a prospective electronics plant After a meeting at the Chapel Hill town hall with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Merchants Association and the Carrboro industry group, the county commissioners asked Rep. John W. Umstead for legislation letting the county pay for, or issue bonds for, water and sewer lines to a new industry. The groups said one of the largest electronics firms in the world, unnamed, was weighing a $3 to $4 million plant with 700 jobs on optioned sites within two miles of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, held back only by the lack of water and sewer service. On May 2 the commissioners dropped the local bill as likely unconstitutional and said an existing state law let them use non-tax funds instead. People: Edwin Sidney LanierSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 21, 1955, p. 1
  9. County commissioners vote more money for Aid to Dependent Children after weeks of dispute Meeting in Chapel Hill, the county commissioners amended the 1954-55 budget to add $2,106.10 to the welfare department's Aid to Dependent Children program, which drew $14,291.90 more in state and federal money for the rest of the fiscal year. The vote was 3 to 1, with Sim Efland holding to the original budget. Earlier in April the board had clashed with acting welfare superintendent Jane Parker over Venetian blinds and secrecy, and had been told the April checks used up the ADC fund. People: Sim Efland, Edwin Sidney Lanier, Richard Junius Mendenhall HobbsSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 28, 1955, p. 1
  10. The county commissioners create an Orange County Agricultural and Industrial Development Commission On a resolution by Commissioner Edwin S. Lanier, the county board created the Orange County Agricultural and Industrial Development Commission to encourage new farm and industrial enterprises, help those already in the county expand, and build understanding of the need for growth, since the tax base was rising more slowly than the demand for public services. It was to have four representatives from each township, named for two-year terms, and no power to commit the county. People: Edwin Sidney Lanier, Don S. MathesonSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 5, 1955, p. 1
  11. County commissioners inspect the Chapel Hill schools, including the site for a Lincoln High addition The county commissioners toured the schools of the Chapel Hill district to see their condition before acting on the Chapel Hill school board's budget requests. At Lincoln High School they looked over the site of a proposed addition with principal C. A. McDougle. The board had made a similar tour of the county schools some weeks earlier. People: Charles A. McDougle, Richard Junius Mendenhall Hobbs, Edwin Sidney Lanier, Sim Efland, Dwight RayThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), May 19, 1955, p. 3
  12. County commissioners clash with the Chapel Hill school board over a Lincoln School gymtorium At a budget hearing commissioner Edwin S. Lanier, a former Chapel Hill mayor, opposed the Chapel Hill board's request for $100,000 to build a gymtorium at Lincoln, the town's Black high school, and to raise the district school supplement from 12 to 20 cents, urging a year's delay until the integration question was clearer, while board chairman Carl Smith and Superintendent C. W. Davis insisted the gymtorium came first. In a statement the next day Lanier said he did not favor the Supreme Court's order to combine Black and white schools and would not vote to raise taxes for new school buildings while the system's future was uncertain. People: Edwin Sidney Lanier, Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner), Richard Junius Mendenhall HobbsThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 30, 1955, p. 1
Show all 19 dated events
  1. County commissioners hold the 62-cent tax rate and find money for the Lincoln gymtorium The commissioners tentatively approved a 1955-56 budget of $869,720.50 at an unchanged 62-cent rate, denied all salary raises until a job classification system was adopted, set the Chapel Hill district supplement at 15 cents, and voted $34,000 in bonds, issued without a public vote and split evenly between the county and Chapel Hill school units. The Chapel Hill share brought the long-delayed gymtorium addition at Lincoln within reach of a call for bids, with commissioner Edwin S. Lanier, who days earlier had fought it, leading the fight for Chapel Hill's request. People: Edwin Sidney Lanier, Richard Junius Mendenhall Hobbs, Dwight Ray, Sim Efland, Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner)The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 7, 1955, p. 1
  2. The county has the Institute of Government classify its jobs and holds raises until it is done At a joint session the commissioners refused the welfare board's plea for $1,083.60 in raises and car allowances, even after two caseworkers and a secretary resigned for better-paid Durham County jobs, because they had frozen salaries until a job survey was done. Chairman R. J. M. Hobbs said the Institute of Government would start classifying every county job the next day and finish by September 1, and the board later agreed to make any changes retroactive to August 1. People: Richard Junius Mendenhall Hobbs, Alexander Heard, Edwin Sidney Lanier, Sim EflandSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), July 28, 1955, p. 1
  3. Commissioners name a 28-member county agricultural and industrial development commission The county commissioners appointed four members from each township to the Orange County Agricultural and Industrial Development Commission, created on May 2 at Commissioner Edwin S. Lanier's urging to bring new industry and farm enterprises to the county. On September 19 they asked member Don Matheson to call its organizing meeting. People: Edwin Sidney Lanier, Don S. MathesonSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), September 8, 1955, p. 1
  4. Orange County's new Agricultural and Industrial Development Commission organizes with Don Matheson as chairman Twenty-five of the 28 members named to the county's new Agricultural and Industrial Development Commission, four from each township, met in Hillsboro and elected County Farm Agent Don S. Matheson their first chairman, with Bernice Ward of Chapel Hill as vice-chairman and Robert O. Forrest of Hillsboro as secretary. Commissioner Edwin S. Lanier, who had proposed the body that summer, told them to expect results only over the long pull. People: Don S. Matheson, Edwin Sidney LanierSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), October 13, 1955, p. 1
  5. County commissioners call a March 1956 vote on $2 million in school bonds After the county and Chapel Hill school boards laid out building needs they had never agreed to put into a joint request, the commissioners voted unanimously to let the people decide on March 20, 1956 whether to issue $2 million in school bonds. The money was to be split by tax valuation: $860,730 for the county schools outside Carrboro, $311,202 for Carrboro and $828,068 for the Chapel Hill unit. People: Edwin Sidney Lanier, Dwight Ray, Richard Junius Mendenhall HobbsSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), November 10, 1955, p. 1
  6. County commissioners cut the tax value of White Furniture Company's Hillsboro plant by about a third A majority of the commissioners agreed to lower the real estate valuation of the White Furniture Company's Hillsboro plant by some 32 percent. The company had paid its county taxes under protest for two years and had an appeal before the State Board of Equalization and Review; Vice President Steve White called the valuation an injustice, and Commissioner Edwin S. Lanier asked to be recorded against any cut. People: Edwin Sidney LanierSearch the index · The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), December 8, 1955, p. 1
  7. The General Assembly bans Sunday racing in Orange County After protests by the Rev. C. H. Reckard and other Orange County clergy, the legislature passed Senator Edwin S. Lanier's bill banning racing in the county on Sundays, with Rep. John W. Umstead's amendment barring races after 6 p.m. on other days. The bill passed on May 8, 1957, though Sunday races were being advertised again at Orange Speedway by 1961. People: Edwin Sidney LanierSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: National Register nomination, Occoneechee Speedway (OR1542, 2002), section 8, p. 20; with The Chapel Hill Weekly, May 10, 1957, p. 1 (Legislature Passes Lanier's Bill to Ban Sunday Racing in Orange County)

Places in this person’s story

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 3 with a known location.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

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Named with them in the chronology

People named in the same dated entries as Edwin Sidney Lanier, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

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Background on Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough

These works give background on Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough, the wider story this person is part of. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Occoneechee-Orange Speedway

Sanseverino, Edward P. · 1995

Edward P. Sanseverino's 1995 account of the Occoneechee-Orange Speedway, the stock car track outside Hillsborough that ran in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Topics include automobile racing and racetracks in North Carolina and Hillsborough in the twentieth century.

Jock Lauterer photographic collection, circa 1964-1968.

Lauterer, Jock · 1964

Photographs made by Jock Lauterer in and around Chapel Hill from about 1964 to 1968, some 3,522 items in the North Carolina Collection at UNC. Subjects include the Speaker Ban Law, Ku Klux Klan activity in North Carolina, Tar Heel basketball and football, the Jubilee festival, the Old Well, and visitors including Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Bob Hope and Jayne Mansfield.

UNC

Occoneechee Speedway/Orange Speedway (Chapel Hill Historical Society vertical file)

Clippings and promotional materials on the Occoneechee Speedway near Hillsborough, the dirt racetrack later renamed Orange Speedway. An undated folder from box 31 of the Chapel Hill Historical Society's Vertical File Collection, Carrboro and Orange County series.

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  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Edwin Sidney Lanier Library card An advanced search of the state’s shared databases already scoped to Orange County’s places and this subject; edit it freely, and sign in through your North Carolina library to read
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