Skip to content

Community centers and organizations

Schley Grange Hall

In Schley. 5 dated events, 1931–2020.

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.

People in its history

Indexed works

Books, articles, records and pictures in the index about Schley Grange Hall, found by its names in titles, catalog subjects and the index’s descriptions, and read one by one. Those held at OCPL come first.

About the site

Grange formula for better living

Bailey, Fred · 1949 · Curtis Pub. Co.

Fred Bailey's magazine piece on the Grange and its program for farm life, detached from Country Gentleman for July 1949. It concerns farms in Schley, Orange County, along with the National Grange and the North Carolina State Grange. A short look at organized farm life in the county after the war.

UNC

Surveys and maps of the area

Not about Schley Grange Hall alone: the architectural surveys that cover its town or the county, and maps drawn while it stood. Several of the surveys can be read free online at NC Digital Collections.

History and Architecture of Orange County, North Carolina

Mattson, Richard L. · 1996 · Unpublished manuscript

Richard L. Mattson's manuscript survey of the history and architecture of Orange County, completed in September 1996. Its 78 pages cover the county's historic buildings and structures and end with a bibliography.

Orange County multiple property documentation form: "Historic resources of Orange County."

1993

National Register multiple property documentation form on the historic resources of Orange County, completed in 1993. Kelly Lally and M. Ruth Little led the first phase of the survey, and Jody Carter and Todd Peck the second. It runs 123 pages with a bibliography.

[Architectural field surveys for Orange County : collected for the Historic and architectural resources of the Tar-Neuse River basin report]

1974 · Survey and Planning Branch, Historic Preservation Section, Division of Archives and History

Historic building survey forms for Orange County gathered in 1974 by the state's Historic Preservation Section for a report on the Tar-Neuse River basin. About 400 pages of forms covering buildings in Chapel Hill, Hillsborough and the countryside; a form can carry a description, historical notes, location, a photograph and a floor plan.

A map of Orange County, N.C.

Noble, M. C. S. (Marcus Cicero Stephens), 1855-1942 · 1915

Marcus Cicero Stephens Noble drew this 1915 map to show how Orange County's original territory was divided, tracing the formation of Caswell, Person, Alamance, Durham, Chatham, Randolph, Guilford and Rockingham counties out of it. Topics include county boundaries and the history of political divisions in the Piedmont. Surviving as a photocopy on a sheet 31 by 23 centimeters.

UNC

Soil map, North Carolina, Orange County sheet

United States · 1918 · United States Government Printing Office

Color soil map of Orange County issued in 1918 by the U.S. Government Printing Office at one inch to the mile, 68 by 46 cm. Besides soil types it marks roads and railroads, the Southern Railway among them, churches, schools, mills, stores, cotton gins, iron mines, cemeteries and the county home, and it names the townships of Bingham, Cedar Grove, Chapel Hill, Cheeks, Eno, Hillsborough and Little River.

Map of Orange County, N.C. : 1939

Stanaland, E. A. · 1939 · E.A. Stanaland

Hand colored map of Orange County drawn by E. A. Stanaland and published at Parrott, Georgia, in 1939. It shows towns and townships, roads and railroads, and marks the schools and churches standing in the county. One sheet, 58 by 36 centimeters.

UNC

Found a book OCPL doesn’t own? You can often borrow it through interlibrary loan at OCPL.

Start at OCPL

    Where to look on the shelf

    These books don’t necessarily mention Schley Grange Hall, but they cover where it stands, its kind of building and the land, family and burial records behind it, and they are where a search for a place like this usually goes next. All are at OCPL, most in the Wall Collection.

    Histories of the town and county

    • Foundational · NC 975.656 ORA Orange County--1752-1952 1953

      Hugh Talmage Lefler and Paul W. Wager's history of Orange County across its first two centuries, 1752 to 1952, prepared for the county's bicentennial. It covers government and politics, biography and the county's families, and doubles as a genealogical reference. Published in Chapel Hill by the Orange Printshop in 1953, 389 pages with illustrations and an index; this copy is a later reprint.

    Buildings and surveys

    • Foundational · NC 720.975 BIS A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina Bishir, Catherine W. · 2003

      Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern's field guide to the historic buildings of the North Carolina Piedmont, arranged county by county from Wake and Franklin in the east to Mecklenburg and Gaston in the west. The Orange County section takes in Hillsborough, Chapel Hill and Carrboro along with the rural county, with entries on individual buildings and maps for finding them. Published 2003, 596 pages with illustrations and maps.

    • Foundational · NC 917.56 ORANGE An Inventory Of Sites Of Cultural, Historic, Recreational, Biological, And Geological Significance In The Unincorporated Portions Of Orange County Orange County (N.C.) · 1986

      County planning department survey of significant sites in the unincorporated parts of Orange County, published in 1988, 95 pages with maps. The survey covers cemeteries, church buildings and archaeological sites on the cultural side, and plants, animals, endangered species, wildlife refuges, geology and recreation areas on the natural side. Useful for local historians, genealogists tracing burial grounds and land planners alike.

    • Foundational · NC 363.69 HIS Historic Preservation Element: Orange County Comprehensive Plan ; Orange County, North Carolina Orange County (N.C.) · 1996

      The historic preservation element of Orange County's comprehensive plan, prepared for the county Historic Preservation Commission and Planning Department by the Jaeger Company of Gainesville, Georgia, and adopted on 1 April 1996. Partly financed by National Park Service funds through the state Division of Archives and History, it sets county policy on historic buildings and sites and their conservation. 59 pages plus 50 unnumbered, with illustrations and maps, some folded and in color.

    In the chronology

    1. Schley Grange No. 710 is chartered Thirty residents of the Schley farming community north of Hillsborough chartered Schley Grange No. 710, one of five Orange County Granges formed in the state Grange revival of 1929 to 1931. The county board had merged Schley School into the Hillsboro school that June, and on November 2 it sold the Schley School building for $122 to Charles Wilson, who bought it for the Grange.
    2. Schley Grange brings telephones to fifty-one families and wins a national community award For a National Grange and Sears-Roebuck Foundation contest, Schley Grange members cleared right-of-way, cut cedar poles and strung three miles of wire so the telephone company could give service to 51 families; they also held a soil conservation workshop with the extension service. Schley won the national prize in November 1948, and the new brick Grange hall it paid for was dedicated on December 6, 1949 before about five hundred people. People: W. Kerr Scott
    3. Schley Grange dedicates the hall it won in a national contest National Grange master Albert S. Goss and Governor W. Kerr Scott were set to take part in the dedication of the new $50,000 Schley Grange Hall. Sears-Roebuck Foundation built and furnished the hall after the Grange won the 1948 national community service contest. People: W. Kerr Scott
    4. Schley Grange Hall near Hurdle Mills joins the Study List Staff proposed the grange hall as eligible for its place in the social history of the area. With no questions from members or the audience, the committee approved it by a 7-0 roll call vote on October 11, 2018.
    5. The Schley Grange Hall is listed in the National Register On April 23, 2020 the National Park Service listed the Schley Grange Hall near Schley in the National Register of Historic Places.

    Open these in the chronology →

    Research sources

    Places to visit 5

    Maps, surveys, and the ground itself

    Ask locally 3

    Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further

    Additional research sources

    Other sources to search and local organizations that can help.

    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