Storyline · 1893–1944
A Chapel Hill weekly founded in 1893 became Hillsborough's countywide paper. Begun as The Chapel Hill News and later renamed The News, it had a larger office and press in Chapel Hill by 1917, and in 1935 the Chapel Hill Weekly reported that it had moved to Hillsboro. In January 1944 W. B. Thompson and his wife sold its name, mailing right and good will to J. Roy Parker, an Ahoskie publisher on the university faculty. Parker renamed it The News of Orange County, remade it as a countywide weekly with journalism students as reporters. In November 1944, after ten months of printing about 150 miles away, it came off its own press in Hillsboro.
The weekly began in Chapel Hill in October 1893 as The Chapel Hill News and was later renamed The News; the paper still dates its founding to 1893. By May 10, 1917 The News had moved its office to the building next to E. A. Brown's furniture store in Chapel Hill and set up a larger press with new type. In October 1935 the Chapel Hill Weekly reported that The News had moved to Hillsboro. On January 10, 1944 W. B. Thompson and his wife, Carrie Hogan Thompson, sold the paper to J. Roy Parker, an Ahoskie publisher on the university faculty, who bought only its name, mailing right and good will. Parker's first issue, on January 20, carried the name The News of Orange County. On Monday, February 21 he moved all business and editorial work into the C. C. Cole building on Churton Street in Hillsborough, the former Gordon's Grocery store across from the courthouse, and began remaking the paper as a countywide weekly with university journalism students as reporters. On November 9, 1944, after ten months of being printed about 150 miles away, The News came off its own press in a newly equipped plant in Hillsboro and grew from five columns to a seven-column, twenty-inch page.
Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.
Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first.
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are the most widely held histories of the theme it is filed under, so they may not discuss it. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Thomas A. Bowers's history of a century of journalism and mass communication teaching at the University of North Carolina, published by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2009. It runs 282 pages with illustrations and portraits.
Robert E. Seymour's columns for the Chapel Hill News, gathered into a 192-page book by Chapel Hill Press in 2003. The short pieces offer anecdotes and reflections on Chapel Hill history, local manners and customs, and North Carolina life. Seymour (1925 to 2020) was the longtime pastor of Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church.
Anniversary booklet for the first twenty-five years of WCHL, the Chapel Hill radio station at 1360 on the AM dial, published in 1978. Topics include radio broadcasting and Chapel Hill history, with advertisements included. 20 unnumbered pages with illustrations and portraits.
Anniversary booklet marking fifty years of WCHL 1360, the Chapel Hill radio station, with profiles of fifty people from Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Published in 2003, 36 pages with portraits. Contributors include Roland Giduz, Jim Heavner, Jonathan Howes, Neil Offen and Rosemary Waldorf.
Thomas A. Bowers gave this talk on the beginnings of journalism teaching at the University of North Carolina on October 15, 2009 in Wilson Library, part of the Gladys Hall Coates university history lecture series. It was printed the same year.
Richard Hunter Simpson filmed this seven minute farewell to Howell Hall in 1999. The film concerns the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication, its buildings and its history, and the teaching of journalism in Chapel Hill. One videocassette, color with black and white sequences.
Centennial edition of the Daily Tar Heel, the University of North Carolina student newspaper, produced at Chapel Hill in 1993 to mark one hundred years of publication. Jen Pilla is named as centennial edition editor. Topics include the paper's history along with college student newspapers and periodicals in Chapel Hill, which makes the issue a source for the paper's own record.
An illustrated volume, with portraits, published by Village Sports in 1993 to mark forty years of WCHL, Chapel Hill's radio station at 1360 on the dial. Its writers were Jim Heavner, Roland Giduz, Jim Shumaker, Zora Rashkis, Dan Dunlop, George McCall, Lee Pace, Beth Tatum and Larry Stone.
A television news report of three minutes and fifty six seconds by Kenley Jones, broadcast on NBC Nightly News in 1975, on the spelling and grammar test journalism students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had to pass for the major. John Adams, a former dean of the journalism school, is interviewed.
Stuart Willis traces the history of the North Carolina University Magazine, the student periodical published at Chapel Hill since 1844. His article was detached from the magazine itself in 1914 and printed by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Literary Societies, which ran it.
Holland Thompson's history of the North Carolina University Magazine at fifty years, written while he was a student of the class of 1895. It ran in the magazine for March and April 1894 and was issued separately at Chapel Hill by the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies.
Leaflet on the southern broadcast media history initiative of the Southern Historical and Folklife Collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, printed in 1995. The project concerned the history of broadcasting in the Southern states and the business records that document it. Five pages on one folded sheet with illustrations.
Each dated event above names its source, the place to start. For finding more on an event across newspapers, records and histories, see the research guide Follow an event across several accounts. Ask at the North Carolina Room of the Orange County Public Library for help with local sources.
Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “The News, Chapel Hill's weekly that became the News of Orange County, 1893–1944.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/the-news-1893-1944-storyline-1893/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
