Hillsborough High School

In the chronology

1. January 14, 1901 The Hillsboro school committee buys the town's first public schoolhouse and lot 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.
2. April 7, 1919 The county board commits $20,000 to a new Hillsboro school as a memorial to the county's war dead 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.
3. September 1922 Hillsboro finishes its new $100,000 school building 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.
4. by February 1923 Hillsboro's first public schoolhouse is gone and its lot is set aside for an athletic field 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.
5. February 4, 1935 Parents turn back a plan to merge the Aycock, Efland and Hillsboro schools 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.
6. 1936 Hillsboro High School gets an addition built with PWA money 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.
7. April 6, 1936 The county board applies for home economics and agriculture teachers at Hillsboro School 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.
8. 1949-1951 Superintendent Proffit's $1 million school bond pays for a new Efland school for Black children and county lunchrooms 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.
9. April 1949 Marinda McPherson sponsors the annual kite contest at the Hillsboro school 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.
10. 1956 Cameron Park School opens in Hillsborough with the lower grades from Hillsboro High 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.
11. June 1957 Work begins on a two-story gymnasium building for Hillsboro High School 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.
12. September 16, 1958 Bill France leases Orange Speedway to the Orange County Board of Education 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. People: Enoch Staley
13. 1963 Aycock and Hillsborough High schools are consolidated into Orange High School 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.
14. 1963 Orange Junior High School opens in the old Hillsborough High School building 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.
15. 1980 The 1922 Hillsborough Township School building closes as a school 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.
16. December 1981 Orange County Public Library moves to larger quarters in 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.

Open these in the chronology →