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Theme

Growth, Land & Planning

Farmland becoming subdivisions, the fights over water, roads, and zoning, and how the county decided what it would become.

In briefFarmland became subdivisions after Research Triangle Park opened in 1959, and the county has fought since over water, roads, landfills, zoning and the rural buffer. The storylines follow the Cane Creek Reservoir, the Rogers Road landfill, University Lake and OWASA, campus expansion and the effort to keep housing affordable.

898 indexed works are connected with this theme. 21 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
The 1925 Sanborn fire insurance map of Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

Events and storylines

Named events and episodes the index follows in detail. Each has its own page.

Orange County landfill campaignSiting, expansion and closure of the landfill, and the neighborhood’s demands Cane Creek Reservoir and Bingham TownshipOWASA’s reservoir, the watershed land purchases and the farm families displaced From West End to Carrboro: railroad, mills, and a new town, 1882–1913The 1882 spur line and depot, West End and Lloydville, the Alberta and Durham Hosiery mills and their villages, Venable’s incorporation in 1911, and the renaming for Julian Carr in 1913 Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and CarrboroNorthside, Pine Knolls, Tin Top and Pottersfield in Chapel Hill, the Lloyd–Broad neighborhood in Carrboro, and their churches, schools and businesses Research Triangle Park and the county’s transformationThe park of 1959 and the commuting, housing, and growth pressure that remade rural Orange County into a university region Water for the towns: University Lake, the 1976–77 drought, and OWASAChapel Hill’s reservoir of 1932, the water crisis of 1976–77, the creation of the Orange Water and Sewer Authority in 1977, and the reservoir fight that followed at Cane Creek
Show all 10 events and episodes
Cedar Grove and rural northern OrangeThe crossroads communities north of Hillsborough: Cedar Grove, Efland, Caldwell, their farms, stores, churches, and schools, and the families who held the land Preserving affordable housingPublic housing, the community land trust, and the campaigns to keep long-time residents in place UNC expansion and neighborhood changeThe university’s growth into the streets around it: land taking, campus planning, student housing pressure, and the neighborhoods that changed Durham’s rise while part of Orange, 1850s–1881Durham’s Station on the North Carolina Railroad, the tobacco factories and warehouses that made the town, its incorporation in 1869, and its growth until Durham County was formed from Orange in 1881

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this theme. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.

Material

Histories 159Periodicals 84Maps 73Statistics 25Interviews 21other types 137

Period

18th century 32Revolution (1775–1783) 619th century 63Civil War (1861–1865) 920th century 66World War I era 4World War II era 421st century 7

Place

Chapel Hill 385North Carolina (statewide) 334Orange County 324Research Triangle 138Carrboro 115Hillsborough 90

Widely held

American Indians in North Carolina: Geographic Interpretations

Ross, Thomas E. · 1999 · Karo Hollow Press

Thomas E. Ross's geographic study of American Indians in North Carolina. It examines Native peoples' history, cultural assimilation, and social and economic conditions across the state, with statistics. Published by Karo Hollow Press in 1999, eleven preliminary pages and 242 pages with illustrations and maps.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Indians of North America -- North Carolina -- Economic conditions -- Statistics. -- Indigenous peoples.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 970.004 ROS NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL UNC Library of Congress

Chapel Hill, N.C. History of Town Lots (1790-1930s)

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2014

Deed transcripts for the town lots of Chapel Hill and adjoining land from 1790 to the 1930s, compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway. Each transcript keeps only the working facts: grantor and grantee, price, acreage and the metes and bounds of the parcel. Self-published in 2014 as Issue 1G, 702 pages with maps and facsimiles.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Land Use -- North Carolina -- Chapel Hill -- History.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 333.3 DUNAWAY NC Cardinal UNC Durham CH Historical Society

Hillsborough, North Carolina : history of town lots : the complete reference guide

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2016

Stewart E. Dunaway worked through Hillsborough, N.C., lot by lot, giving each town lot a synopsis of its history, a plat showing where it sits and transcripts of the deeds he could locate for it. The second issue runs to 720 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: City planning.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 333.3 DUNAWAY NC Cardinal UNC Durham

Hillsborough, North Carolina History of Town Lots

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2015 · Stewart E. Dunaway

Stewart E. Dunaway's 2015 addendum to his history of Hillsborough's town lots, adding deed records arranged by lot number and further town history, with the expansion of the 1890s covered for the first time. Self-published in North Carolina as version 1.0, 446 pages with illustrations, facsimiles and maps. Topics include deeds, court records, land titles and real property in Hillsborough.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: City planning.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 333.3 DUNAWAY NC Cardinal UNC Durham

Hillsborough District Court Civil Action Concerning Land (1778-1806)

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2011

Stewart E. Dunaway's abstracts of civil suits over land heard in the Hillsborough District Superior Court between 1778 and 1806. The district covered Orange, Wake, Granville, Caswell, Person, Chatham and Randolph counties, and the papers concern boundaries, ownership and disputed tracts. Published through Lulu in 2011, 337 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Land use.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 929.375 HILLSBOR NC Cardinal UNC Durham

The Research Triangle: From Tobacco Road to Global Prominence

Rohe, William M. · 2011 · University of Pennsylvania Press

William M. Rohe's history of Research Triangle Park and the region around it, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2011. Topics include regional planning and the economic and social conditions of the Research Triangle Park region, one corner of which is Chapel Hill and the university. 298 pages with illustrations and maps.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the OCPL record: Research Triangle Park (N.C.) -- History.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.655 ROHE Chapel Hill PL NC Cardinal Library of Congress
Show 2 more

North Carolina Land Grant Entry Book ... Orange County

Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2010

Stewart E. Dunaway's two-volume edition of the Orange County land entry book, the register in which settlers first claimed vacant land from the state before a grant was surveyed and issued. Volume one covers the first thousand entries, all made in 1778; volume two runs from 1779 to 1795. Each entry is reproduced from the original in the State Archives with an abstract of its contents. Self-published through Lulu in a second version dated 2010, two volumes at 28 cm with facsimiles and maps.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Durham record: Land Use -- North Carolina -- Orange County.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 929.375 NORTH NC Cardinal UNC Durham

The school that Jack built : city and regional planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1945-2012

Kaiser, Edward J. (Edward John) · 2013

Edward J. Kaiser's history of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1945 to 2012, published by the department in 2013. The title nods to John A. Parker, 1909 to 2001, who figures in the book. One hundred eighty-six pages with illustrations and portraits at 28 cm.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: City planning.

UNC NC State CH Historical Society

Recently indexed: Against fluoridation of water at the university (1952) · Annual report for (1984) · [Appeal on behalf of project to establish home for aged women] (1875) · Building zone ordinance for the town of Chapel Hill (1928) · The campus as a work of art (1991) · Campus beautiful (1919)

Search all 898 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this theme. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.

  • Foundational · NC 307.1 HIL Hillsborough, North Carolina Subdivision Regulations 1968 1968

    The subdivision regulations adopted by the Town of Hillsborough in 1968, an 18-leaf document setting the rules for dividing land within the town. Subjects include city planning and land subdivision law for Hillsborough. A companion to the general development plan of the same year, and a small source for the town's planning history.

  • Foundational · NC 307.1 HIL Hillsborough, North Carolina General Development Plan 1968-1988 1968

    Hillsborough's general development plan for the twenty years from 1968 to 1988, prepared for the town's planning commission with a federal urban planning grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Issued in Hillsborough in 1968, 110 pages with maps, some in color.

  • Foundational · NC 333.3 DUNAWAY Chapel Hill, N.C. History of Town Lots (1790-1930s) Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2014

    Deed transcripts for the town lots of Chapel Hill and adjoining land from 1790 to the 1930s, compiled by Stewart E. Dunaway. Each transcript keeps only the working facts: grantor and grantee, price, acreage and the metes and bounds of the parcel. Self-published in 2014 as Issue 1G, 702 pages with maps and facsimiles.

Show 6 more
  • Foundational · NC 333.3 DUNAWAY Hillsborough, North Carolina History of Town Lots: The Complete Reference Guide Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2013

    Stewart E. Dunaway worked through Hillsborough, N.C., lot by lot, giving each town lot a synopsis of its history, a plat showing where it sits and transcripts of the deeds he could locate for it. The second issue runs to 720 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.

  • Foundational · NC 929.375 HILLSBOR Hillsborough District Court Civil Action Concerning Land (1778-1806) 2011

    Stewart E. Dunaway's abstracts of civil suits over land heard in the Hillsborough District Superior Court between 1778 and 1806. The district covered Orange, Wake, Granville, Caswell, Person, Chatham and Randolph counties, and the papers concern boundaries, ownership and disputed tracts. Published through Lulu in 2011, 337 pages with illustrations, maps and facsimiles.

  • Foundational · NC 333.76 FRA The Couch Tract of the Durham Division of the Duke Forest: A History of Agricultural Land-use Patterns 1750-1950 Frankel, Rachel · 1984

    Rachel Frankel's Duke University honors paper of 1984 on the Couch tract in the Durham Division of Duke Forest, a history of agricultural land use from 1750 to 1950. The Couch family, family farms and rural land use in Orange County are its subjects. A photocopied typescript, 97 leaves with maps and a bibliography.

  • 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.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 333.3 DUNAWAY Hillsborough, North Carolina History of Town Lots: Addendum 2015 Dunaway, Stewart E. · 2015

    Stewart E. Dunaway's 2015 addendum to his history of Hillsborough's town lots, adding deed records arranged by lot number and further town history, with the expansion of the 1890s covered for the first time. Self-published in North Carolina as version 1.0, 446 pages with illustrations, facsimiles and maps. Topics include deeds, court records, land titles and real property in Hillsborough.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 929.375 EJECTMEN Orange County N. C. Ejectments 2015

    Ejectment suits were the legal route for disputing who held title to a tract of land, and the case files often include plats and drawings of the property. Stewart E. Dunaway gathered Orange County's ejectment cases from the state archives and reproduced them in facsimile, with maps, in a self-published volume issued through Lulu in 2015 (issue 2).

In the chronology

Other storylines that include this theme, earliest first. Each has its own page.

Historic Rogers Road neighborhood1840–2021 · 25 events · The Rogers-Eubanks area grew from Black-owned farms and sawmills after emancipation, and in 1972 the county landfill was placed beside it. Residents organized through RENA and the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition from 2007, the landfill closed in 2013, and the neighborhood won a community center in 2014 and the sewer extension in 2019. Saving the Eno1966 to present · 14 events · The Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley, formed in 1966 to stop Durham's reservoir plans, won Eno River State Park and has kept adding land to it. Hurricane Fran, September 19961996–1998 · 13 events · Hurricane Fran crossed the county overnight on 5 to 6 September 1996, felling thousands of trees, cutting power to about 29,000 Chapel Hill customers and pushing the Eno at Hillsborough to its highest recorded flow. Chapel Hill declared an emergency, OWASA issued a boil-water advisory, UNC suspended classes for a campus cleanup, and Duke Forest spent two years salvaging timber.

Dated events connected with this theme, earliest first. See these 288 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Orange County is created The colonial assembly formed Orange County from portions of Bladen, Granville, and Johnston counties. Its original boundaries were far larger than those of present-day Orange County.NCpedia
  2. Hillsborough is laid out William Churton laid out a town and common on a 400-acre tract on the north side of the Eno that was granted to him in 1754, where the trading path crossed the river. Known as Corbinton by 1755, it was incorporated as Childsburg by an act of the 1759–60 session and renamed Hillsborough in 1766. People: William ChurtonColonial and State Records of North Carolina, vol. 25: Acts of the General Assembly, 1759–1760, ch. XIII (town of Childsburg)
  3. Wake and Chatham counties are formed from Orange Acts of the General Assembly session that ended January 26, 1771 created Wake County from parts of Johnston, Cumberland and Orange, effective March 12, 1771, and Chatham County from southern Orange, effective April 1. The same session also formed Guilford from Orange and Rowan, shrinking the original county on three sides.Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, vol. 23: Acts of the General Assembly, December 5, 1770–January 26, 1771, chs. XXII and XXVII
  4. Caswell County is created from northern Orange An act of the General Assembly's spring 1777 session divided Orange County, forming Caswell from its northern part, from a point twelve miles due north of Hillsborough to the Virginia line. The legislature cited the hardship northern residents faced in attending to public duties, and the new county took effect June 1, 1777.Documenting the American South, Colonial and State Records of North Carolina: Acts of the North Carolina General Assembly, April 7 to May 9, 1777 (ch. 17)
  5. The name Franklin Street appears in Chapel Hill documents The village's main road was being called Franklin Street in written records by 1806, about thirteen years after the first lots along it were sold.Search the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 33
  6. General Assembly appoints commissioners for the Town of Chapel Hill The General Assembly named Joseph Caldwell, Pleasant Henderson, Thomas Taylor, Ezekiel Trice and William Barbee commissioners for the town of Chapel Hill, with power to fix its boundaries and make bylaws. Elected commissioners and a corporate charter followed in the 1850-51 session.Search the index · The Laws of North-Carolina, Enacted in the Year 1819, pp. 61-62: An act to appoint commissioners for the town of Chapel Hill, in Orange county
  7. University sells the Franklin and Columbia street oak grove to John W. Carr The trustees conveyed to the merchant John W. Carr, for $300, the oak grove at the northwest corner of Franklin and Columbia streets where villagers gathered to hear candidates speak. It was one of several sales of university land to villagers in the middle 1840s. People: John Wesley CarrSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 611
  8. The North Carolina Railroad is chartered and built The General Assembly chartered the North Carolina Railroad in 1849, after Senate speaker Calvin Graves cast the deciding vote. The state built the 223-mile line from Goldsboro to Charlotte between 1851 and 1856, running it through Hillsborough, and the first train ran its full length in January 1856.In the index: North Carolina Railroad Company · Documenting the American South: Railroads in North Carolina
  9. Cameron Avenue extended west through the university forest The street now called Cameron Avenue was cut westward through the university's forest and named College Avenue by the village commissioners, and lots along it were put up for sale. Professor Fordyce M. Hubbard persuaded the trustees to build him a house at its corner with Pittsboro Street. People: Fordyce M. HubbardSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 626
  10. Hillsborough lays off its common in lots and names Hillsborough Avenue and Calvin Street The Hillsborough commissioners ordered the town common south of King Street laid off in lots, Margaret Lane extended to the western town line and a 99-foot street run from King Street to the railroad. They named the wide street Hillsborough Avenue and the street parallel with the depot Calvin Street, for Calvin Graves, whose casting vote as Speaker of the Senate had carried the North Carolina Railroad bill. People: Calvin Graves, Thomas Webb, William Nelson, George LawsSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, June 21, 1854, p. 3
  11. Hillsborough sells town lots beside the railroad station The town of Hillsborough sold at auction the lots its commissioners had laid off near the coming North Carolina Railroad station. Ten lots of less than an acre each by the station brought $3,819 in all, and five one-acre lots in the northwest part of town sold for much less; the buyers were townspeople.Search the index · Hillsborough Recorder, October 11, 1854, p. 2
  12. John A. McMannen pays $4,000 for land at Durham's Depot Mr. McMannen bought property at Durham's Depot (now Durham County) for $4,000, land that had sold a few years before for $225, put his son in charge of the place and planned a storehouse for the neighborhood trade. In late May he advertised to lay off a town there in half-acre lots, giving away every other lot to anyone who would bond to build within a year and barring the sale of liquor.Search the index · Hillsborough Recorder, March 7, 1855, p. 2
Show all 288 dated events
  1. The North Carolina Railroad reaches Hillsborough The Hillsborough Recorder of Wednesday, April 4, 1855, announced that the North Carolina Railroad was finished to the Chapel Hill Road, a few hundred yards south of town, and that passenger cars would begin running there that day. The editor cheered the end of two-day trips over muddy roads to Raleigh and costly wagoning of farm produce.In the index: North Carolina Railroad Company · Hillsborough Recorder, April 4, 1855, p. 2 (DigitalNC): Hurra for the North Carolina Railroad!
  2. Freedpeople build a church and school at Chapel Hill's West End After emancipation, Black families kept homes and small farms on Chapel Hill's west end. St. Paul's congregation, first gathered under an arbor in December 1864, built a log church on Merritt Mill Road and bought land in 1878, and in 1866 Benjamin Craig and Green Cordal bought an acre nearby for a freedmen's school.Chapel Hill Historical Society, From the Rock Wall: St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church
  3. Pine Street is cut through Lot 16 from Franklin Street to Rosemary A new street, Pine Street, was opened through the old Lot 16, running from Franklin Street to Rosemary Street.Search the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 135
  4. Chapel Hill's commissioners accept a new Caldwell Street A short street named Caldwell was laid off along the east side of the old president's-house square and accepted by the town commissioners. Until then the square had been undivided.Search the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 345
  5. Railroad service reaches West End The first passenger train on the University Railroad left Chapel Hill on Monday, February 6, 1882, and ran through University Station to Raleigh. The line ended about a mile west of the village at West End, where a boxcar served as the depot, and the settlement that became Carrboro grew up around it.The News and Observer (Raleigh), February 8, 1882, p. 2: The University Railroad Completed (DigitalNC)
  6. Thomas Lloyd and William Pritchard build a grist mill and cotton gin at the West End depot Thomas F. Lloyd, a Confederate veteran, and his partner William Pritchard built a steam-powered grist mill and cotton gin in a two-story frame building just north of the railroad depot at West End in 1883. Farmers from southern Orange County brought grain and cotton there, and Lloyd bought out Pritchard's share in 1886. People: Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)NC State Historic Preservation Office: Alberta Mill Complex, National Register nomination (OR0001), p. 6
  7. The university begins leasing its Franklin Street land to faculty for houses Because a federal court had ruled about 600 acres around the campus inalienable, the trustees leased a Franklin Street parcel to James Lee Love for fifty years, followed by leases to Charles Baskerville and Francis K. Ball. Later, on legal advice, such lots were sold outright to faculty members. People: Charles Baskerville, James Lee LoveDocumenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 366
  8. Battle Lane is cut along the edge of the president's house lot After the president's house burned, the eastern edge of its lot on East Franklin Street was opened as Battle Lane, and the rest of the eastern part was leased to Professor James Lee Love for fifty years at $15 a year. People: James Lee LoveSearch the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 151
  9. Barbee Drive is cut beside Algernon Barbee's house lot A road was opened along the eastern edge of Algernon S. Barbee's residential lot on Franklin Street and named Barbee Drive.Search the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 159
  10. Hillsborough's town board puts about forty Town Commons building lots up for bids The town commissioners named James A. Cheek, S. J. Lynch and D. Y. Mebane to take bids on some forty or more building lots in the Town Commons, with every sale to be confirmed by the board. People: Joseph A. HarrisSearch the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), January 4, 1890, p. 2
  11. Collier Cobb joins the UNC faculty to teach geology Cobb returned to Chapel Hill as assistant professor of geology and later headed the geology department. He taught at the university for forty years.In the index: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · NCpedia (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography): Cobb, Collier
  12. Hillsborough has its town pump water analyzed and the well cleaned Chemist H. B. Battle tested the water of Hillsborough's town pump on Churton Street and found too much mineral matter. The well was then cleaned out and the trough, the likely cause of excess chlorine, taken away.DigitalNC: Orange County Observer, September 3, 1896, p. 3
  13. Hillsborough's town board orders the Town Commons lots sold By order of the town board, its committee (including D. M. Laws and H. Winder Webb) advertised about forty numbered lots in the Town Commons for sale at auction at the court house on March 8, 1897, on credit, with the town guaranteeing title. The town also gave notice that it would ask the legislature to amend its charter.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), December 10, 1896, p. 3
  14. Thomas F. Lloyd builds the Alberta Cotton Mill Lloyd built the Alberta Cotton Mill beside the railroad in West End in 1898 and 1899, the brick mill that later became Durham Hosiery Mill No. 4 and then Carr Mill Mall. People: Julian S. Carr, Thomas F. Lloyd (Carrboro mill builder)Town of Carrboro: Carrboro Walking Tour
  15. The legislature funds university waterworks on Bowlin's Creek The General Assembly of 1899 gave $7,500 for university waterworks, with steam pumps on Bowlin's Creek about a mile and a half from the campus filling a tall tank that fed the buildings by gravity. The supply still fell short.Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. II (1912), p. 571
  16. The 1900 census counts 14,690 people in Orange County, 707 in Hillsborough and 1,099 in Chapel Hill Figures from the 1900 census put Orange County's population at 14,690, a fall of 258 in ten years, while Hillsborough grew by 45 to 707 and Chapel Hill by 82 to 1,099. Chapel Hill and Hillsborough were the county's only towns.Search the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), February 14, 1901, p. 2
  17. Fire destroys the Chapel Hill waterworks station The pumping station that supplied water to the university and the town of Chapel Hill burned early on November 20, cause unknown, with a loss of $700 to $1,000 and no insurance. The water supply was cut off until a temporary pump was put in.Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), November 24, 1904, p. 3
  18. T. Felix Hickerson returns to Chapel Hill as an instructor in mathematics A year after taking his Ph.B. at the university, Thomas Felix Hickerson came back to Chapel Hill in 1905 for graduate work in mathematics and engineering and taught as an instructor in mathematics. He stayed on the faculty until 1952.Search the index · NCpedia: Hickerson, Thomas Felix (Martha B. Caldwell, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 1988)
  19. Julian Carr's Durham Hosiery Mills buys the Alberta Mill In early February 1909 Julian S. Carr and his sons closed a deal for both the Alberta Cotton Mill that Thomas F. Lloyd had built at West End and the Blanche Hosiery Mill, to change hands on April 1 and run together as Durham Hosiery Mills' Mill No. 4. The deeds were recorded in March. People: Julian S. CarrDigitalNC: The Durham Recorder, February 12, 1909, p. 3
  20. The 1910 census counts 15,064 people in Orange County The census found 10,138 white and 4,926 Black residents, 38.6 people to the square mile against 45.3 for the state, and only seven foreign-born white residents. Chapel Hill had 1,149 people and Hillsborough 857.Search the index · M. C. S. Noble (University of North Carolina Bureau of Extension), The Teaching of County Geography (1915), scan p. 26
  21. Venable is incorporated The General Assembly incorporated the mill settlement west of Chapel Hill as the Town of Venable in an act ratified March 3, 1911, naming William H. Parker mayor and T. N. Mann, J. F. Ragan, T. A. Ray and J. F. Partin commissioners until the first election. The town, named for UNC president Francis P. Venable, became Carrboro in 1913.Private Laws of the State of North Carolina, Session of 1911, chapter 315, pp. 788-791 (Internet Archive)
  22. The Ruffin-Hill tract on St. Mary's Road is sold to A. S. Mitchell, who divides it In 1914 the 47 1/2-acre Ruffin-Hill tract, long the home of Mary Ruffin Hill and her husband Thomas Hill, was conveyed to A. S. Mitchell, who subdivided the land.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), 311 St. Mary's Road, Ruffin-Hill House
  23. Collier Cobb develops Cobb Terrace, Chapel Hill's earliest planned development On uneven land at the north end of Henderson Street, geology professor Collier Cobb brought in earth to partly level the site, designed a terraced development and built eleven houses, several of them Aladdin kit houses, as affordable rental housing for young professors. The houses went up between 1915 and 1927 and stayed rentals until Cobb's death in 1934.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Chapel Hill Historic District Boundary Increase and Additional Documentation, National Register nomination (OR1750, 2015), p. 173
  24. President Edward K. Graham engages planner John Nolen to study the campus Urged by a faculty grounds committee of W. C. Coker, George Howe and Collier Cobb, formed in 1913, and after the trustees endorsed a full campus plan in spring 1916, Graham brought in the national planner John Nolen. Between 1917 and 1919 Nolen studied the campus and recommended building out the land south of South Building, the direction the 1920s expansion took. People: Collier Cobb, William Chambers Coker, George HoweSearch the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 50
  25. Luther Hodges leads the UNC student council and his senior class Hodges worked his way through the University of North Carolina, where he was president of the student council and of his senior class. He graduated in 1919.Search the index · NCpedia: Hodges, Luther Hartwell (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography)
  26. Sallie Hemphill, later Sallie Markham Michie, buys the house at 121 South Columbia Street Sallie Michie bought the two-story house next to what became the Ackland Art Museum in 1919 and kept it for 73 years, refusing for decades to sell it to the University.DigitalNC: Daily Tar Heel, October 27, 1992, p. 1
  27. Drought shrinks the University's water supply and delays the fall opening After four hot, dry months Strowd's Creek, the main water source, had dwindled, and plants in the arboretum died. On local health officials' advice Chase asked students not to arrive before October 4, when a temporary six-inch line to Morgan's Creek was due to be ready. People: Harry Woodburn ChaseHoward E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), p. 243
  28. John M. Booker outlines sixteen more buildings for the growing campus With enrollment rising past 1,600, English professor John M. Booker, a member of the faculty building committee, presented a plan with sites for sixteen buildings beyond the seven already funded, which he said would be needed within a few years to serve 3,000 students. He had also urged grouping buildings by purpose in the new campus plan. People: Harry Woodburn Chase, William Chambers CokerSearch the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase (2018), pp. 242, 244
  29. Chapel Hill builds sidewalks, extends its sewers and plants street trees In E. M. Knox's first year as town business manager the town laid about 1,500 feet of sidewalk, extended its sewer lines by about 2,000 feet and planted more than a hundred trees along its streets.Search the index · E. M. Knox, Report of the Town Business Manager to the Board of Aldermen, Chapel Hill, for the Fiscal Year 1922-1923 (1923), scan p. 11
  30. About 40 percent of Chapel Hill's homes lack water and sewer connections The business manager's 1923 report found about four homes in ten still without water and sewer connections and said the town was working to let every householder connect.Search the index · E. M. Knox, Report of the Town Business Manager to the Board of Aldermen, Chapel Hill, for the Fiscal Year 1922-1923 (1923), scan p. 19
  31. 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.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Schley Grange Hall National Register nomination (OR3148)
  32. University Lake begins supplying Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina dammed Morgan Creek west of Carrboro to form University Lake, which began supplying water to the university and to Chapel Hill. The lake and about 500 acres of surrounding land remain in university ownership, with OWASA entitled to use the lake under contract.Orange Water and Sewer Authority: Capital Improvements Program Book FY24-28
  33. T. Felix Hickerson stays in Chapel Hill when the School of Engineering is dissolved When the university's School of Engineering was dissolved in 1936, Hickerson chose to stay in Chapel Hill in the mathematics department rather than move to Raleigh. He received a Kenan professorship in 1945 and retired in 1952.Search the index · NCpedia: Hickerson, Thomas Felix (Martha B. Caldwell, Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 1988)
  34. Piedmont Electric Membership Corporation is incorporated and energizes its first lines Piedmont Electric, a rural electric cooperative formed under the federal Rural Electrification Administration loan program, received its North Carolina incorporation papers in 1938. In 1939 its first substation, in Hillsborough, energized lines to members' homes for the first time.Search the index · Piedmont Electric: Our History
  35. John M. Booker offers to buy a Franklin Street lot for the new town hall In a letter to the Chapel Hill Weekly, professor John M. Booker objected to the hurried choice of the old site and offered to buy and give a lot on Franklin Street, hoping it would start a civic center. Editor Louis Graves backed the idea and called for town planning. People: Louis Graves, John M. BookerSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Chapel Hill Town Hall, National Register nomination (OR0327), p. 8
  36. John M. Booker calls for town-sponsored planning in Chapel Hill After voters approved financing for the new town hall 211 to 27, John M. Booker wrote a longer letter to the Chapel Hill Weekly faulting the rush with which it was planned and proposing planning as a town function, with public planning meetings citizens could attend. Editor Louis Graves took up the call. People: Louis GravesSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Chapel Hill Town Hall, National Register nomination (OR0327), p. 8
  37. Census finds nearly half of Orange County's Black-owned farms in Cedar Grove Township The 1940 census counted 1,753 Black and 1,671 white residents in Cedar Grove Township, the county's only township with a near-even racial balance, and about three-fourths of the township lived on farms. Nearly half of Orange County's 503 Black-owned farms were in the township, which also had the county's highest share of Black tenant farmers.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Cedar Grove Rural Crossroads Historic District National Register nomination (OR1424)
  38. Louis Graves starts a newspaper campaign to give Franklin Street a Williamsburg look Feeling the business district looked shabby beside the new campus, Chapel Hill Weekly editor Louis Graves began praising Colonial Williamsburg's shops in editorials. Joseph Hyde Pratt, John M. Booker, W. D. Carmichael Jr., Collier Cobb and George Watts Hill backed the plan, and architect Archie Davis gave the planning commission watercolors showing owners how to remodel. People: Joseph Hyde Pratt, William D. Carmichael Jr., George Watts Hill, Archie Royal Davis, John M. Booker, Collier Cobb Jr.Search the index · NC Digital Collections: M. Ruth Little, The Town and Gown Architecture of Chapel Hill, 1795-1975 (2004), p. 68
  39. UNC purchases Chapel Hill's airfield In 1940 the university bought the Chapel Hill airport that Charlie Martindale had opened in 1928 on land bought from Professor Horace Williams. By August the trustees had set aside $15,000 for land, the university had agreed terms with Martindale and neighbor Fred Sparrow, Williams had given over 200 acres, and the field was to bear his name. People: Henry Horace WilliamsIn the index: Horace Williams Airport (Chapel Hill, N.C.) · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 9, 1940, page 1 (Horace Williams Airport; Clearing Starts at Airport)
  40. UNC receives the Horace Williams tract by bequest The core of what became the Carolina North tract, north of Estes Drive and west of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, came to the university as a bequest from Professor Horace Williams. The university later bought adjoining land, and parts of the site were used as an airport, landfill, town operations center and animal shelter. People: Henry Horace WilliamsUNC Board of Trustees: Development Agreement between UNC-Chapel Hill and the Town of Chapel Hill (Carolina North), June 2009
  41. Chapel Hill appoints its first town planning commission After more than a year of urging by the Chapel Hill Weekly, the town named a five-member planning commission to review the design of new and remodeled buildings. It set the Colonial Revival look of downtown for the next decade. People: William D. Carmichael Jr., Herman G. Baity, Joseph Hyde Pratt, Clyde Eubanks, John M. BookerSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Chapel Hill Town Hall, National Register nomination (OR0327), p. 10
  42. Geologist Joseph Hyde Pratt, first chairman of the Chapel Hill Planning Board, is buried in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery Joseph Hyde Pratt (1870-1942), professor of geology and the first chairman of the Chapel Hill Planning Board, was buried in the cemetery.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, National Register nomination (OR0496), p. 22
  43. UNC's General Faculty names John M. Booker to chair a committee on University government The General Faculty authorized a committee, chaired by English professor John M. Booker, to study faculty government and write a uniform set of principles for the powers and duties of the University's divisions. Reporting in sections over eight years, its work became the 1950 Faculty Legislation on University Government.Search the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 154
  44. Commissioners' chairman Collier Cobb Jr. lays a county revaluation plan before the Chapel Hill aldermen Collier Cobb Jr., chairman of the Orange County commissioners, told the Chapel Hill aldermen the county would raise the tax valuation of plainly under-valued property for 1945, naming Franklin Street business property, suburban lots selling far above farm-land values and some northern tobacco land.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, December 15, 1944, page 1
  45. John A. Parker arrives and UNC's planning program begins classes John A. Parker, hired in 1945 to found a Department of City and Regional Planning, arrived in Chapel Hill in September 1946, and classes began that fall with four students. The department's first office was in the Alumni Building, shared with the Institute for Research in Social Science.Search the index · UNC Department of City and Regional Planning: Edward J. Kaiser and Karla Rosenberg, The School That Jack Built (2013), pp. 19-20
  46. Jim Webb designs a house on Dogwood Drive for Thomas and Margaret Stanback NCModernist lists the Thomas M. and Margaret Lide Stanback House at 531 Dogwood Drive, dated 1948, as Jim Webb's design in collaboration with Larry Enersen, citing Dail Dixon. Webb had come to UNC's planning school the year before.Search the index · NCModernist: Jim and John Webb
  47. The census counts 1,432 people in Carrboro The league's census found 1,432 people in 373 families inside Carrboro's limits, against 1,455 in the 1940 federal census. Of the 1,334 people in non-student families, 1,017 were white and 317 Black.Search the index · Junior Service League of Chapel Hill, Population Survey and School Census of the Chapel Hill School Attendance District (1948), scan p. 5
  48. The census counts 17,472 people in the Chapel Hill school attendance district Across Chapel Hill, Carrboro, the Chapel Hill suburbs and the county areas that send children to its high school, the census counted 17,472 people in 3,645 families, 7,800 of them in student households. It found 3,458 people under 18 and 3,219 motor vehicles.Search the index · Junior Service League of Chapel Hill, Population Survey and School Census of the Chapel Hill School Attendance District (1948), scan p. 9
  49. The league's census puts Chapel Hill's population at 4,453 Leaving out students and their households, the census counted 3,598 people in Chapel Hill. Adding the 855 people in graduate-student households, whom the 1940 federal census had counted, gave 4,453, up 799 from 3,654 in 1940; with all students the town limits held 9,825 people in 1,451 families.Search the index · Junior Service League of Chapel Hill, Population Survey and School Census of the Chapel Hill School Attendance District (1948), scan p. 5
  50. 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, Don S. MathesonSearch the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Schley Grange Hall National Register nomination (OR3148)
  51. The Carl Smith Building is completed on North Columbia Street Carl Smith's commercial building on North Columbia Street was completed in 1949; Gooch's Cafe moved in, and the area office of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis took rooms on the second floor.Search the index · Chapel Hill Weekly (DigitalNC): Gooch's Cafe history, December 21, 1956, p. 1
  52. William Muirhead opens the rental office of Glen Lennox Muirhead named his apartment colony on the Raleigh highway Glen Lennox, after his wife's family, and opened its rental office in one of the apartments. It was to have 314 apartments in 48 one-story buildings; by March 1950, 66 families had moved in.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, December 23, 1949, p. 1 (Glen Lennox item)
  53. Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in The 1950 census counted 34,435 people in Orange County, 9,177 in the town of Chapel Hill and 1,795 in Carrboro. Chapel Hill township as a whole had 18,222.U.S. Census Bureau: 1950 Census of Population, Vol. I, North Carolina, Number of Inhabitants
  54. Orange Fire Protective Association buys Orange County's first rural fire truck Because Hillsboro's town fire truck was restricted to calls within about a mile and a half of town, rural residents formed the Orange Fire Protective Association and raised money through one-time memberships of $10 for a house and more for farm buildings. By March 15, 1951, 260 members had given $4,500 and a Ford fire truck for the countryside had arrived, crewed by the town's volunteer firemen.Search the index · Orange Rural Fire Department: History of the Fire Service in Hillsborough
  55. Orange County hires an electrical inspector to enforce the state electrical code The county took on an electrical inspector in 1952 to enforce the North Carolina State Electrical Code. By 1975 the county enforced that code in every township and inside Carrboro and Hillsborough.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 21
  56. Philip Green's guidebook for zoning and planning boards is published Green, who had learned the field on the Charlotte study, wrote a 430-page guidebook that the Institute published in 1952, the first such work for local zoning and planning boards in North Carolina. He went on to a national reputation in zoning and planning law. People: Philip P. Green Jr.Search the index · Howard E. Covington Jr., The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government (2018), p. 218
  57. The Webb brothers design a house on Whitehead Circle for Alex and Betty McMahon James M. Webb and John B. Webb Associates designed the house at 419 Whitehead Circle for J. Alex and Betty W. McMahon. Like many of the brothers' houses, it is long and low under flat roofs set at different heights, with a privacy wall and small windows on the street side and big windows looking into the woods at the back. People: John B. WebbSearch the index · NCSU Libraries, North Carolina Architects and Builders: Webb, James M. (1908-2000)
  58. UNC names Cobb Dormitory for Collier Cobb The university named its new Cobb Dormitory in honor of the geologist Collier Cobb, who had taught at UNC for forty years.Search the index · NCpedia (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography): Cobb, Collier
  59. Orange County commissioners turn to professional appraisers for a property revaluation In August 1952 the commissioners heard a representative of the Southern Mapping and Engineering Company and told county accountant and tax supervisor Ira Ward to draft a contract. By January 1953 they had decided with Ward that values would be set at current market value as of January 1, 1953, with a board of assessors overseeing the appraisers.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, August 8, 1952, p. 1
  60. Collier Cobb Jr. leaves the Orange County Board of Commissioners after fourteen years Elected in 1938 and chairman since December 1942, Cobb left the county board after seven terms, having missed only three meetings. The new board passed a resolution thanking him, and he pointed to the school improvement program and the start of the new courthouse. People: Richard Junius Mendenhall HobbsSearch the index · DigitalNC: The News of Orange County, December 4, 1952, page 1
  61. Hugh Lefler and Paul Wager edit a bicentennial history of Orange County For the county's 200th anniversary, Lefler and Wager edited Orange County, 1752-1952, with chapters by about fifteen contributors on early history, agriculture, industry, schools and more, plus a dictionary of county biography and lists of county officials.Search the index · UNC Libraries: Orange County History Guide, General History
  62. The legislature drops Collier Cobb Jr. from the university trustees After eight years on the board, Cobb, chairman of the trustees' buildings committee for the Chapel Hill campus during the largest building program in its history, was left off the nominating list by the legislature's joint committee on trustees. He said he held no ill will.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, April 21, 1953, page 4
  63. 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)
  64. The Planning Board approves Muirhead's street layout around Glen Lennox The Chapel Hill Planning Board approved new streets on the fringes of Glen Lennox, including Ayr Street, which Muirhead named, extending the colony's central road across the highway so children could reach the new Glenwood School more safely.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 6, 1953, p. 1 (Glen Lennox street layout item)
  65. Chapel Hill school board pledges to comply with Brown "to the best of our ability" Under chairman Carl Smith, the Chapel Hill school board unanimously resolved to comply with the Supreme Court's integration ruling to the best of its ability while operating its schools under the state's school laws, keeping existing assignment practices for 1955-56.Search the index · Chapel Hill News Leader (DigitalNC): Racial Stand Is Taken In School Board Policy, August 18, 1955, p. 6
  66. Carr Store Road is paved through Cedar Grove Carr Store Road, the east-west road through the Cedar Grove crossroads, was paved in 1958, about a decade after the north-south Efland-Cedar Grove Road. Until then farmers in the area could find farm-to-market roads impassable for months of the year.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Cedar Grove Rural Crossroads Historic District National Register nomination (OR1424)
  67. The University tears down the Abernethy house on South Columbia Street for Ackland grounds and parking UNC bought the house from the widow of Dr. Eric A. Abernethy, long the director of the University Infirmary, and tore it down to extend the Ackland Art Center grounds and make a gravel lot of about 60 faculty parking spaces. The house dated from 1905 and had housed many students. People: Eric A. AbernethyDigitalNC: Daily Tar Heel, February 3, 1959, p. 1
  68. Sandy McClamroch is elected to the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen McClamroch, one of five candidates for three seats, was elected on May 5, 1959 with F. E. Strowd and Roland Giduz, and was sworn in with Mayor Oliver K. Cornwell the following Monday night. Campaigning, he had called for coordinating town and university planning and for bringing the university's payments for town services above the table. People: Oliver K. Cornwell, Roland GiduzSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, May 14, 1959, page 1 (Newly Elected Town Officers Are Installed)
  69. Orange County commissioners give a cool reception to a Research Triangle planning request At a special meeting, Orange County commissioners gave only a lukewarm reception to a request to help fund a land development survey for the Research Triangle area and took no action pending firm figures. The Chapel Hill Weekly reported that the county expected to gain mostly new residents and school costs from the park rather than industry, and commissioners discussed zoning the area northeast of Chapel Hill toward the Durham County line. People: Richard Junius Mendenhall HobbsDigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 19, 1959, page 1
  70. Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in The 1960 census counted 42,970 people in Orange County, 12,573 in Chapel Hill and 1,997 in Carrboro. Chapel Hill township had 25,030, up from 18,222 in 1950.U.S. Census Bureau: 1960 Census of Population, Vol. I, Part 35 North Carolina, Number of Inhabitants
  71. Chapel Hill Township's population grows 55 percent in the Census counts in the 1976 plan put Chapel Hill Township at 25,030 people in 1960 and 38,856 in 1970, far faster growth than any other township, and the planners estimated 53,921 by 1975. The county as a whole went from 57,707 in 1970 to an estimated 66,800 in 1974.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 123
  72. James Freeland buys the South Churton Street land that becomes Daniel Boone Village James Freeland bought the land on South Churton Street in 1960. He developed it from the 1960s as Daniel Boone Village, a motel, restaurant and amusement complex, and his family kept it after his death.Search the index · The News of Orange County: Daniel Boone Village sold (September 11, 2018)
  73. Chapel Hill aldermen pay the town's share of the Research Triangle planning commission budget The Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen appropriated $1,545, six percent of the $25,750 budget of the Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission for 1960-61. The commission also asked the Orange County commissioners for four percent, or $1,030.DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, June 16, 1960, page 3
  74. The university's attorney finds the trustees never deeded the cemetery to the town In a letter of November 11, 1960 to J. A. Branch of the university business office, university attorney J. A. Williams reported no sign that the trustees had ever conveyed title to the cemetery land to Chapel Hill.NC State Historic Preservation Office: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, National Register nomination (OR0496), p. 19
  75. McClamroch is sworn in as mayor and Joe Page is named to his aldermen seat McClamroch and three re-elected aldermen, Adelaide Walters, Paul Wager and Hubert Robinson, were sworn in at the Monday night meeting of the Board of Aldermen by Recorder's Court Judge William Stewart. The board named businessman Joe Page to the unexpired two year aldermen's term McClamroch left on becoming mayor, and elected Mrs. Walters mayor pro tem. People: Paul W. Wager, Hubert Robinson, Adelaide WaltersSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, May 11, 1961, page 1 (Joe Page Gets Appointment To Board Of Aldermen)
  76. Sandy McClamroch is elected mayor of Chapel Hill without opposition McClamroch ran unopposed for mayor in the May 1961 town election. Before the vote he took questions from residents at a public meeting at the Negro Community Center sponsored by the Chapel Hill Fellowship for School Integration and the Civic Club, and on a WUNC radio panel, saying he wanted to improve the town's public relations and would discuss merging Chapel Hill and Carrboro.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, April 20, 1961, page 1 (McClamroch In As Mayor; Seven Running For Board)
  77. Carl Smith leads the Democratic primary for Orange County commissioner Carl Smith of Chapel Hill topped the six-man Democratic primary for three county commissioner seats with 3,783 votes, ahead of Gordon Cleveland and Donald McDade; nomination usually amounted to election in the county.Search the index · Chapel Hill Weekly (DigitalNC): Carl Smith Leads Race For Board, May 28, 1962, p. 1
  78. Chapel Hill Planning Board reviews the Research Triangle Planning Area land use plan The Chapel Hill Planning Board held a special meeting to review the Research Triangle Planning Commission's land use plan for the planning area, which projected population and density to 1980. The Chapel Hill Weekly described the plan as a major guide for future zoning changes and school locations.DigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, December 19, 1962, page 1
  79. Chapel Hill Planning Board favors a large village in response to the Triangle commission's development plan Reviewing the Research Triangle Planning Commission staff's General Development Plan for Chapel Hill to 1980, the Planning Board went on record preferring that the town grow as a large village rather than a small city. The plan also addressed subdivision layout, a collector road system and a proposed lake on Bolin Creek north of town. People: Ross ScroggsDigitalNC: The Chapel Hill Weekly, March 20, 1963, page 1
  80. A planning study projects Chapel Hill school growth to John Scott of the Research Triangle Planning Commission told the Chapel Hill School Board that district enrollment could reach 8,000 pupils by 1980, more than double the current number, and cited a 1960 township population of 25,000. The study, made for the Chapel Hill Planning Board and the Chapel Hill City Board of Education jointly, was issued as Schools, 1970-1980 (June 1963), and the School Board examined the finished projection on July 24, 1963.DigitalNC: The News of Orange County, May 16, 1963, page 2
  81. The old school buildings and the Caesar Cone house on West Franklin are razed for a bank and University Square East Chapel Hill's old elementary and high school buildings on West Franklin came down, along with the house known as the Caesar Cone house. Central Carolina Bank & Trust and the University Square East shopping center went up in their place.Search the index · Bernard Lee Bryant Jr., Occupants and Structures of Franklin Street, Chapel Hill (1998; Chapel Hill Historical Society, 1999), scan p. 323
  82. The planning department moves into New East Parker won space on the first two floors of New East, vacated when the geology department moved to Mitchell Hall, and the Department of City and Regional Planning left the Alumni Building for it in 1964. In 1966 he secured an $82,000 National Science Foundation grant toward renovating the building.Search the index · UNC Department of City and Regional Planning: Edward J. Kaiser and Karla Rosenberg, The School That Jack Built (2013), p. 69
  83. The Mayor's Ad Hoc Committee on Open Space reports on creek-side open space for Chapel Hill A committee named by the mayor proposed keeping strips of open land along the town's creeks, including Bolin Creek and the western reaches of Morgan Creek and its branches, as linked open space and paths. Its proposals reappear throughout the 1969 alternatives.Search the index · Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Development Alternatives (1969), scan p. 62
  84. Hillsborough makes its first annexations beyond the one-square-mile town In 1966 the town began extending its limits past the square mile platted in 1754, first taking in homes on Cameron and Ruffin streets to the northeast and the Bellevue mill and its village to the west. Annexations have continued since, most of them under ten acres.Search the index · NC Digital Collections: Heather Wagner Slane, Hillsborough Architectural Survey (2017), p. 10
  85. The Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley forms Residents who had begun organizing in 1965 against plans to dam the Eno for a water-supply reservoir formed the Association for the Preservation of the Eno River Valley on October 14, 1966. Led by Margaret and Holger Nygard, it began the campaign that preserved the river corridor in Durham and Orange counties. People: Margaret Nygard, Holger NygardEno River Association: ERA Through the Eras, Beginnings of the Eno River Association
  86. The Army Corps of Engineers is buying land for the New Hope Reservoir southeast of Chapel Hill Planners presenting options for the area south of Morgan Creek in October 1967 noted that the Corps was acquiring land for the New Hope Reservoir. The reservoir lands were to take in the Morgan Creek valley farther east, and the flood pool would reach University land around Finley Golf Course, so the planners treated the reservoir as the outer limit for any loop road south of town.Search the index · Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Development Alternatives (1969), scan p. 66
  87. Orange County adopts a zoning ordinance for Chapel Hill Township The county adopted a zoning ordinance for Chapel Hill Township, the fast-growing southeastern corner of the county around Chapel Hill and Carrboro. A single enforcement officer, working with a county planning board and board of adjustment, administered it.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 21
  88. Chapel Hill Planning Board hears twelve sets of development alternatives for parts of the town At twelve regular meetings, the Planning Board was shown three development schemes for each sub-area of the Chapel Hill Planning District, from Upper Bolin Creek and Northside to the campus and Eastgate. The presentations, also given to other groups, became Part I of the 1969 report.Search the index · Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Development Alternatives (1969), scan p. 12
  89. Orange County adopts subdivision regulations for Chapel Hill Township Ten months after zoning Chapel Hill Township, the county adopted subdivision regulations for the same township, setting rules for platting lots and building roads in new developments outside the towns.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 21
  90. Chapel Hill changes its rules to allow cluster subdivisions The town modified its subdivision rules so developers could group houses on smaller lots and keep the rest of a tract as shared open space while holding to the overall zoning density.Search the index · Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Development Alternatives (1969), scan p. 37
  91. George Watts Hill Jr. is tapped as an honorary member of the Order of the Golden Fleece At a ceremony in Memorial Hall, the university's Order of the Golden Fleece tapped George Watts Hill Jr., Dean Maurice Lee and Dr. Daniel Patterson, all of Chapel Hill, as honorary members along with eighteen new student members. People: Daniel W. PattersonSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, May 1, 1968, p. 1
  92. Drought drops University Lake to a sixth of its normal level and forces water rationing With the lake nearly empty, the university spent about $100,000 on a pipe connecting Chapel Hill to Durham's water system and bought Durham water. Lawn watering and car washing were banned under penalty of fine, and there was concern that classes would be suspended before levels recovered by the end of 1969. People: J. Carlyle SittersonCarolina Story, Virtual Museum of University History (UNC): Droughts, 1960s-1970s
  93. A third Granville Towers dormitory goes up near Cameron Avenue A third Granville dormitory and a parking area were being built in 1969, replacing a patch of rural-looking land a few blocks from downtown.Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Development Alternatives (1969), scan p. 40
  94. Chapel Hill and Carrboro area has about 35,000 people, 15,000 of them students The planners put the population of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area at about 35,000, of whom about 15,000 were University students. Students and other residents had once been about equal in number, but the non-student population had lately grown faster.Search the index · Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Development Alternatives (1969), scan p. 171
  95. Engineering study for UNC recommends a reservoir on Cane Creek After the 1968 drought left University Lake dangerously low, a study sponsored by the University of North Carolina and conducted by the engineering firm Hazen and Sawyer recommended damming Cane Creek. The Haw River, the proposed Jordan reservoir, an enlarged University Lake and the Eno were among the alternatives set aside. People: Daniel A. OkunCaselaw Access Project: In re Appeal from Environmental Management Commission, 53 N.C. App. 135 (1981)
  96. Jim Webb leaves City Planning and Architectural Associates and practices on his own Webb withdrew from City Planning and Architectural Associates, the name his firm had used since about 1960, and set up practice again as James M. Webb, AIA and AICP.Search the index · NCSU Libraries, North Carolina Architects and Builders: Webb, James M. (1908-2000)
  97. Part of the DuBose land east of Glen Lennox is developed as a golf course subdivision Of the large undeveloped holdings of Col. D. St. Pierre DuBose near N.C. 54 and the Durham County line, 500 acres were being developed in 1969 as a private residential subdivision built around a golf course.Search the index · Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Development Alternatives (1969), scan p. 51
  98. County planning board recommends rezoning the Blackwood Station tract for Fiber Industries The Orange County Planning Board unanimously recommended rezoning the 450-acre Blackwood Station tract from residential to industrial for a $100 million Fiber Industries plant promising 1,500 jobs. Board member Mark Burnham pressed for stricter performance standards, and commissioners Carl Smith, Ira Ward and Harvey Bennett had backed the Chamber of Commerce's pro-Fiber campaign. People: Carl Smith (Chapel Hill businessman and county commissioner), Harvey BennettSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, July 24, 1969, p. 1
  99. Fiber Industries withdraws its New Hope Creek rezoning request; commissioners chairman Carl Smith blames opponents Fiber Industries withdrew its request to rezone 450 acres near New Hope Creek for a plant after opposition from UNC, Duke and Mayor Howard Lee. County commissioners chairman Carl Smith blamed 'unintelligent intellectuals' and a town political 'machine', and said Lee, the town's Black mayor, was not serving Black residents by opposing the plant. People: Howard N. LeeSearch the index · Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Fiber Industries withdraws request, August 7, 1969, p. 1
  100. The Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission issues Development Alternatives for Chapel Hill The regional commission, working for the Town of Chapel Hill through the state Division of Community Planning, published three alternative land-use schemes for each of twelve parts of the Chapel Hill Planning District and for the whole town and its surroundings. The report was paid for in part by a federal urban planning grant under Section 701 of the Housing Act of 1954 and was meant to start discussion toward a comprehensive plan, not to recommend any one scheme.Search the index · Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Development Alternatives (1969), scan p. 5
  101. Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in The 1970 census counted 57,567 people in Orange County, 26,199 in Chapel Hill (26,195 of them in the Orange County part) and 5,058 in Carrboro. Chapel Hill's population had more than doubled since 1960.U.S. Census Bureau: 1990 CPH-2-35, Population and Housing Unit Counts, North Carolina
  102. Eno Township has the fastest growth rate of any Orange County township in the The county's population almost doubled between 1960 and 1980, growing about 3.4 percent a year in each decade, faster than the state as a whole. Chapel Hill Township added the most people, but Eno Township, on the Durham side, grew fastest in the 1970s.Search the index · N.C. Department of Transportation, Statewide Planning Unit, Thoroughfare Plan, Orange County, North Carolina (1990), scan p. 22
  103. Northside and Pine Knolls residents resist federal urban renewal When Northside and Pine Knolls were targeted for urban renewal, residents confronted HUD and avoided the wholesale clearance seen in Durham's Hayti, winning home improvements and new construction instead.Marian Cheek Jackson Center: Our Neighborhoods (history of Northside)
  104. The Hill family sells parts of Riverbend Farm for Eno River State Park In the 1970s and 1980s the Hills sold portions of their acreage along the Eno to the new state park, leaving about 27 acres with the house.NC State Historic Preservation Office: Cabe-Pratt-Harris House, National Register nomination (OR0656), p. 12
  105. County zoning and subdivision rules take effect in Eno Township Orange County extended its zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations to Eno Township, on the Durham side of the county. The 1976 report lists no other township under county zoning, and the Planning Board was then still asking for countywide zoning.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 21
  106. Carrboro adopts a three-to-five-year beautification program The town adopted the survey's program as its plan for improving Carrboro's appearance over three to five years. It set seven focal points, among them the East Main and Rosemary junction, the depot area, the open mill yard on Weaver Street and the Town Hall grounds, and laid out 41 numbered neighborhood clean-up projects with a month-by-month calendar.Search the index · North Carolina Division of Community Services, Beautification Survey and Program, Carrboro, North Carolina (1971), scan p. 3
  107. Carrboro's planning and zoning district reaches University Lake on Jones Ferry Road By 1971 Carrboro's planning and zoning district ran west along Jones Ferry Road to its outer edge where the road crosses an arm of University Lake, the area's water reservoir.Search the index · North Carolina Division of Community Services, Beautification Survey and Program, Carrboro, North Carolina (1971), scan p. 15
  108. Chapel Hill's Board of Adjustment turns down a ten-pump gas station on West Franklin Street The Board of Adjustment voted unanimously to deny Kenan Oil Company a special use permit to clear the site of an older service station and build a ten-pump self-service gas pavilion. The company sued, and in December 1971 Superior Court upheld the denial.Search the index · DigitalNC: Daily Tar Heel, February 22, 1971, p. 2
  109. State planners prepare a beautification survey and program for Carrboro The Division of Community Services in the state Department of Natural and Economic Resources, with planner Ervin G. Dobson, prepared a handbook for the Town of Carrboro and its Appearance Commission that surveys the town street by street, praising its wooded approaches and marking problem spots. A federal urban planning grant under Section 701 of the Housing Act of 1954 paid for part of the work.Search the index · North Carolina Division of Community Services, Beautification Survey and Program, Carrboro, North Carolina (1971), scan p. 3
  110. The governor appoints a commission to study the future of the university's water and sewer systems Governor Robert W. Scott named a Utilities Study Commission to weigh whether the University of North Carolina should keep, sell or otherwise dispose of the water and sewer systems it operated for Chapel Hill and Carrboro. On May 28, 1976 the commission concluded that divesting most of the university's utility holdings was the best course. People: Robert W. ScottOrange Water and Sewer Authority: Learn (History of OWASA)
  111. Rogers Road landfill opens Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County opened a shared, unlined county landfill on Eubanks Road, built in late 1972 beside the historically Black Rogers-Eubanks community, whose residents were told it would close after about ten years. It was expanded repeatedly and ran for 41 years, closing in June 2013. People: Howard N. LeeThe Daily Tar Heel: Orange County landfill to close this weekend (June 26, 2013)
  112. Chapel Hill's Community Appearance Commission reports on how downtown should grow After several years of study, the Community Appearance Commission sent the Planning Board and Board of Aldermen a set of policies for the central business district: keep its small village scale, protect views, step down to the neighborhoods and allow taller buildings only where they would not stand out. The aldermen referred it to the CBD Study Committee, which approved most of it.Search the index · Robert M. Leary and Associates, Central Chapel Hill (1973), scan p. 81
  113. The State Board of Conservation and Development endorses a state park on the Eno Won over by the Eno River Association, the board approved the idea of a state park along the river in Orange and Durham counties. Soon afterward The Nature Conservancy bought the 300-acre Red Hills Farm and passed it to the state as the first park land.N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation, Eno River State Park Master Plan (1979), scan p. 10
  114. Chapel Hill aldermen voted to buy the Eubanks Road site for the county landfill Three months after the Chestnut Ridge site was abandoned, the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to buy a 200-acre tract on Eubanks Road for $235,000. An unlined landfill was then built on about 80 acres of it, next to the Black Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood.RENA Community Center: The Orange County Landfill
  115. Efland and Orange Grove volunteer fire departments are incorporated As the Orange Rural Fire Department's board worked from 1971 to set up fire districts covering the whole county, rural communities formed their own departments: the Efland Volunteer Fire Department incorporated in September 1972 and the Orange Grove Volunteer Fire Company on February 1, 1973. New Hope followed later in February 1973.Search the index · Orange Rural Fire Department: History of the Fire Service in Hillsborough
  116. New Hope Improvement Association sues to stop the Eubanks Road landfill Opponents of the landfill formed the New Hope Improvement Association, which drew about 500 members, and filed a lawsuit in late September 1972. The suit was denied in early October.RENA Community Center: The Orange County Landfill
  117. Officials signed the landfill agreement that carried promises to the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood RENA's chronology records that Chapel Hill Mayor Howard Lee, Mayor Robert Wells Jr. and county commission chairman H.D. Bennett signed the full landfill agreement. Residents remember Lee promising that their road would be paved and that the filled site would become a recreation center for them. People: Howard N. LeeRENA Community Center: The Orange County Landfill
  118. Eno River State Park is created After years of citizen opposition to damming the Eno for a reservoir, Governor James Holshouser accepted the first tracts for Eno River State Park in June 1973, including 90 acres donated by Dr. and Mrs. Frederick Bernheim. The first 1,000 acres opened to the public in 1975 along the river in Orange and Durham counties. People: Margaret NygardEno River Association: ERA Through the Eras, Creation of the Eno River State Park and West Point on the Eno City Park
  119. A sewer hookup moratorium and stricter codes slow building in Carrboro After rapid apartment building in the 1960s and early 1970s, Carrboro brought in tougher building codes and zoning in 1973. With a moratorium on sewer hookups as well, the town issued building permits for only 47 housing units between April 1973 and the spring of 1976.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 107
  120. Robert M. Leary and Associates delivers its study of downtown Chapel Hill to the town committee The Raleigh planning firm Robert M. Leary and Associates, working with Hammer, Greene, Siler Associates of Washington and Bair, Abernathy and Associates of Florida, sent its finished Central Business District study to Chapel Hill's CBD Study Committee. The committee had commissioned it as new shopping centers threatened downtown trade and as the town reconsidered its thoroughfare plan.Search the index · Robert M. Leary and Associates, Central Chapel Hill (1973), scan p. 9
  121. Chase Park and Elliott Woods apartments are completed The Inter-Church Council's housing corporation finished Chase Park and Elliott Woods, 79 federally assisted low-income apartments on Elliott Road in Chapel Hill. Construction began in January 1973, and the complexes took applications from June 1974.In the index: Inter-Faith Council for Social Service (Chapel Hill, N.C.) · Triangle Blog Blog: The five-year-long struggle to build Elliott Woods
  122. John A. Parker retires as head of the planning department Parker retired in 1974 at sixty-five after leading the Department of City and Regional Planning since its start. More than a hundred academics, alumni and friends met at a conference in Chapel Hill that spring to mark the occasion, with a retirement banquet in May 1974.Search the index · UNC Department of City and Regional Planning: Edward J. Kaiser and Karla Rosenberg, The School That Jack Built (2013), pp. 86-87
  123. Chapel Hill Transit begins service Chapel Hill's municipal bus system began running on August 1, 1974, after Mayor Howard Lee and UNC Chancellor Ferebee Taylor cut the ribbon, with eight town, campus and park-and-ride routes. Carrboro was not yet served. People: Howard N. LeeSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): bus system opening day ceremony, August 26, 1974
  124. Orange County begins enforcing the state building code With one building inspector, the county began enforcing the North Carolina State Building Code in September 1974, in all townships and in Hillsborough.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 21
  125. Orange County forms a Planning and Inspections Department At the start of 1975 the county brought its codes and ordinances under one director in a new Planning and Inspections Department. It had four staff on April 1, 1975 (a planning director, a secretary and two inspectors), and two planners, a planning technician and an inspections assistant were added later that year.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 21
  126. Orange County and the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro create the Orange Water and Sewer Authority The Orange County Board of Commissioners and the governing boards of Chapel Hill and Carrboro incorporated OWASA under Chapter 162A of the North Carolina General Statutes. It was created as a public body to acquire, consolidate and operate the three existing water and sewer systems serving the area.Orange Water and Sewer Authority: Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, fiscal year 2024
  127. Orange County allows private roads in rural subdivisions Amendments approved while the 1976 plan was being written let new subdivisions use private roads not paved to state standards, under county construction classes set by the number of lots, and dropped the "zoning lot" rule that had let a second house go on a lot without a clear legal record. Subdividers could also post cash or a letter of credit instead of a bond.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 25
  128. Orange County starts a new planning process with a countywide land-use survey Using federal "701" planning money, the planning department began in July 1975 by auditing past planning: it corrected the zoning maps and ordinances (restoring an approved recreation section that had never been added), updated board appointments and held the first of several joint meetings with the Chapel Hill and Carrboro planning departments. It also drew new county base maps and completed a countywide land-use inventory, information the report says had never been gathered in one place.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 21
  129. State planners show three Eno River park plans at a Hillsborough public meeting The Division of Parks and Recreation presented three versions of a river park running about eighteen miles from Guess Road west to near Hillsborough. Landowners along the western river in Orange County objected, above all to the state's use of eminent domain against unwilling sellers.N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation, Eno River State Park Master Plan (1979), scan p. 10
  130. Orange County forms an Eno River task force, and state park planning stops The county formally created a task force to weigh the aims of private owners against protection of the river. At the request of county officials the state put its park planning on hold.N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation, Eno River State Park Master Plan (1979), scan p. 10
  131. The Orange County Planning Board ranks what its job should be Over its regular meetings that winter, the county Planning Board and planning staff, guided by the state's Local Planning and Management Service, used the Nominal Group Technique to list and rank the board's duties. One group put revising the zoning ordinance first and countywide zoning third; the other put long-range policy and the flow of citizen views to the commissioners at the top.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 41
  132. Cane Creek is chosen as the site of a new reservoir and area landowners organize against it A consultant's feasibility study concluded that Cane Creek, west of Carrboro, was the best site for a reservoir to supplement University Lake, and OWASA began assembling land there. Cane Creek residents and farmers formed a conservation group and fought the project in court for years, arguing that it would destroy farms and hasten the decline of agriculture and that expanding University Lake had not been properly considered. People: Daniel A. OkunANCHOR, A North Carolina History Online Resource: Cane Creek Reservoir
  133. Carrboro grants its first unified business development permit, for Carr Mill After about three months of hearings and negotiation from December 1975, Carrboro issued a conditional use permit for the mill project, the town's first for several businesses in more than one building on one lot. The developers agreed to keep the southwestern lawn as public open space, save trees, get Appearance Commission approval for the new building, give land for street widening, build sidewalks and put utilities underground.Search the index · Margaret A. Thomas, Carr Mill, Carrboro, North Carolina: A Rehabilitation Project under the Tax Reform Act (1979), scan p. 11
  134. Hillsborough annexes West Hillsborough West Hillsborough, which in 1950 had 1,456 residents and so outnumbered the town itself, came inside the town limits in 1976. Together with the next year's annexation it probably accounts for the town's population more than doubling between 1970 and 1980, from 1,444 to 3,019.Search the index · NC Digital Collections: Heather Wagner Slane, Hillsborough Architectural Survey (2017), p. 10
  135. Orange County adopts a policy for protecting the Eno River After its task force reported in May 1976, still split over eminent domain, the county adopted a statement calling for permanent protection of the river through both state park ownership and restricted private ownership, backed by conservation zoning and easements. It asked the state to use condemnation only to protect the river, not to enlarge the park.N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation, Eno River State Park Master Plan (1979), scan p. 10
  136. Chapel Hill aldermen adopt ordinances creating a historic district and commission After a crowded public hearing, the Board of Aldermen unanimously set up a 131-acre Historic Conservation District around East Rosemary, East Franklin, Hillsborough, Boundary and North streets, with a commission to approve exterior changes and delay demolitions. George Watts Hill Jr. spoke for the ordinances and faulted the university for keeping its campus out. People: Jonathan HowesSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, January 14, 1976, p. 1
  137. County planners hold community meetings across rural Chapel Hill Township To gather views for a township development plan the commissioners had asked for, the planning department met residents at the New Hope Fire Station, Mt. Carmel Church, the Homestead Community Center in Calvander and Damascus Church, handing out a questionnaire on county issues. The report describes this kind of outreach as new for county planning.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 63
  138. Rural Chapel Hill Township residents rank land-use planning and roads as top concerns Questionnaires from the four spring meetings put land-use planning first at New Hope and Calvander, road upkeep first at Damascus and fire protection first at Mt. Carmel, where residents leaned partly on Chatham County fire units. Saving farmland ranked in the top five at every meeting, and planners credited the New Hope Improvement Association for fire protection ranking low at New Hope.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 61
  139. County planners take a preliminary land plan back to four rural communities In a second round of meetings at Mt. Carmel Church on Farrington Road, the Homestead Road Community Center in Calvander, the New Hope Improvement Center on Piney Mountain Road and Damascus Church, planners showed residents the ranked needs, draft goals and a preliminary plan for Chapel Hill Township. Most who came told the staff the process had given their communities more say over their land than ever before.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 65
  140. County planners propose a six-class land classification for Chapel Hill Township Adapting the draft state system under the Land Policy Act of 1974, the plan sorted the township into six classes, from developed town land and 8.6 square miles of "transition" land for ten years of urban growth along NC 86 and US 15-501 to conservation land along streams, in Duke Forest and around University Lake. Four rural clusters were marked as "community" areas: the Mt. Carmel Church area, Heritage Hills and Dogwood Acres, Blackwood Station, and NC 54 at SR 1944.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 89
  141. Orange County planners issue a ten-year planning guide centered on Chapel Hill Township The county Planning Department, working with the Planning Board and state planners and paid for in part by a federal 701 grant, issued A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, meant as a ten-year guide for managing growth in Chapel Hill Township and later the rest of the county. Its land classification system and development plan had not been adopted by the commissioners when it went to press.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 11
  142. The county's sketch plan calls for a rural greenbelt north of Chapel Hill and Carrboro The Sketch Development Policy Plan would keep high-density housing inside Chapel Hill and Carrboro, confine new shops to five convenience areas such as Blackwood Station and Mt. Carmel, and hold the land toward Hillsborough at low density so that Duke Forest, farms and streams would form a natural greenbelt. Heavier industry was steered to other parts of the county.Search the index · Orange County Planning Department, A Planning/Management Process for Orange County, North Carolina, with Recommendations for Sound Land Development (1976), scan p. 147
  143. The state approves conveying the university's water and wastewater systems to OWASA The Governor and Council of State approved the conveyance of the University of North Carolina's water and wastewater utilities to OWASA under Agreements of Sale and Purchase among the university, the two towns and the authority. The university's Board of Trustees had approved the conveyance on June 11, 1976.Orange Water and Sewer Authority: Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, fiscal year 2007
  144. Seven landowners near Hillsborough sue to stop the Eno River State Park plan Just as master planning resumed, seven landowners near Hillsborough sued the state, arguing that adopting a park master plan would be an unlawful taking of their property. A restraining order and injunction halted the planning for more than two years.N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation, Eno River State Park Master Plan (1979), scan p. 10
  145. Severe drought creates a local water crisis A drought from August 1976 to January 1977 forced Chapel Hill and UNC to buy more water from Durham, ban unnecessary water use and cut campus services. By August 1977 University Lake was lower still, and the new Orange Water and Sewer Authority kept conservation rules and used federal drought aid to buy Durham water.Daily Tar Heel, August 25, 1977, p. 63: Droughts not new to Chapel Hill
  146. UNC trustees approve a Cane Creek pipeline on OWASA's recommendation With University Lake 64 inches below capacity, the UNC Board of Trustees approved an $824,450 pipeline and small temporary dam to draw water from Cane Creek, described as a step toward the planned reservoir. OWASA, due to take over the University water system in January 1977, recommended the Cane Creek project over alternatives that included pumping raw water from the Haw River to a treatment plant.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Board of Trustees approve $824,000 pipeline from Cane Creek, October 11, 1976
  147. Orange Grove residents form the Cane Creek Conservation Authority Farm families around Cane Creek organized the Cane Creek Conservation Authority to stop the dam and elected 23-year-old dairy farmer Bobby Kirk president; the group had about 100 active members and said 12 dairy farms would be affected. It argued that the reservoir would end farming in the area, that owners had not been consulted, and that Jordan Lake and other sources were alternatives. People: Bobby KirkDaily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Area groups opposed to planned Cane Creek reservoir, December 6, 1976
  148. Carrboro amends the Carr Mill permit to allow offices on the second floor The town amended the mill's conditional use permit in December 1976 so the developers could rent the second floor as offices. In return they paid to widen the access road and build sidewalks to the new parking lot.Search the index · Margaret A. Thomas, Carr Mill, Carrboro, North Carolina: A Rehabilitation Project under the Tax Reform Act (1979), scan p. 12
  149. Hillsborough annexes Hillsborough Heights The African American neighborhood of Hillsborough Heights, north of West Hillsborough, was annexed in 1977, one year after West Hillsborough.Search the index · NC Digital Collections: Heather Wagner Slane, Hillsborough Architectural Survey (2017), p. 10
  150. Carr Mill Shopping Village opens in Carrboro's renovated mill Carr Mill Shopping Village, a shopping center built inside Carrboro's renovated former textile mill, was scheduled to open on May 1, 1977, with ten retail stores, a Harris Teeter supermarket and a Revco drug store. By that September it advertised about 25 businesses; the complex is now known as Carr Mill Mall.In the index: Carr Mill (Carrboro, N.C.) · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, March 30, 1977, page 4
  151. Court of Appeals lets OWASA survey Cane Creek land over owners' objections Landowners including the estate of Nancy Armstrong had refused OWASA's surveyors access to the dam site. After a trial court ordered access on April 28, 1977, the N.C. Court of Appeals held that the authority could enter and survey before starting eminent domain proceedings.Caselaw Access Project: Orange Water & Sewer Authority v. Estate of Armstrong, 34 N.C. App. 162 (1977)
  152. Bob Drakeford is elected mayor of Carrboro Robert "Bob" Drakeford, a Carrboro alderman since 1975 and a Carrboro Community Coalition candidate, won the mayor's race on November 8, 1977, with 57 percent of the vote over John Boone. He was the town's first Black mayor and served until 1983.DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, November 9, 1977, page 1
  153. Caldwell and Cedar Grove volunteer fire departments are incorporated The Caldwell Volunteer Fire Department was incorporated on December 6, 1977 and the Cedar Grove Volunteer Fire Department a week later, on December 13, extending local fire protection across the northern townships.Search the index · Orange Rural Fire Department: History of the Fire Service in Hillsborough
  154. OWASA asks the state for power to condemn Cane Creek land OWASA petitioned the N.C. Environmental Management Commission for a certificate authorizing eminent domain for the Cane Creek reservoir, which would need about 700 acres of mostly woodland and prime farmland. The commission held a seven-day hearing between April and June 1978.Caselaw Access Project: In re Appeal from Environmental Management Commission, 53 N.C. App. 135 (1981)
  155. Neighbors oppose the university's request to rezone the former Baity land At a Board of Aldermen hearing, Elizabeth C. Baity and nearby residents opposed putting 36 acres of the land she had sold the university in 1974 under University A zoning, amid rumors of a sports coliseum. George Watts Hill Jr. asked the aldermen to take time to study University A zoning, and they sent the request to the planning board.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, September 27, 1978, p. 1
  156. The state Supreme Court refuses the Eno park landowners' appeal By denying discretionary review of a Court of Appeals ruling for the state, the North Carolina Supreme Court ended the injunction against Eno River State Park planning. Work on the master plan resumed the next month.N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation, Eno River State Park Master Plan (1979), scan p. 10
  157. Sandy McClamroch helps found the Carol Woods retirement community McClamroch, by then a former mayor and the founder of WCHL, was instrumental in founding the Carol Woods retirement community in Chapel Hill in 1979.Search the index · Orange County Veterans Memorial: Roland (Sandy) McClamroch
  158. State commission overrules its hearing panel and backs condemnation A three-member Environmental Management Commission panel recommended in March 1979 that OWASA be denied the certificate, but the full commission adopted the minority report and granted it. The Daily Tar Heel reported this was the first time the full commission had gone against a panel's recommendation.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Dam delayed in planning stages, August 2, 1979
  159. Carrboro is named a Governor's Community of Excellence The state named Carrboro a Governor's Community of Excellence in 1980, partly for the quality of life its historic neighborhoods gave the town.Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Brown, McSwain and Florin, Carrboro, N.C.: An Architectural and Historical Inventory (1983), p. 6
  160. Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in The 1980 census counted 77,055 people in Orange County, 32,421 in Chapel Hill (32,038 in the Orange County part) and 7,336 in Carrboro.U.S. Census Bureau: 1990 CPH-2-35, Population and Housing Unit Counts, North Carolina
  161. Northside's Black population falls by about 40 percent Between 1980 and 2010 Northside's Black population fell by roughly 40 percent as investors bought homes and converted or replaced them as student rentals; over the same period the share of university workers living 10 or more miles away rose above 60 percent.UNC-Chapel Hill: Supporting the Northside Neighborhood Initiative
  162. Orange County replaces houses on East Margaret Lane and South Cameron Street with a government complex A group of houses on East Margaret Lane and South Cameron Street is cleared for county buildings put up between 1980 and 1988: the Department of Education at 200 East King Street, the Government Services Building at 200 South Cameron, its annex at 208 South Cameron and the Orange Family Medical Group at 210 South Cameron.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), South Cameron Street and East King Street, county government buildings
  163. Army Corps of Engineers issues the federal permit for the Cane Creek dam The Corps' district engineer issued OWASA a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit to place fill for the dam on the same day the Court of Appeals voided the state certificate. The permit was set to expire on August 31, 1982 unless construction had begun.Caselaw Access Project: Cane Creek Conservation Authority v. Orange Water and Sewer Authority, 590 F. Supp. 1123 (M.D.N.C. 1984)
  164. Court of Appeals throws out the state's approval of the Cane Creek project On appeal by the Cane Creek Conservation Authority, several landowners and Teer Farms, the N.C. Court of Appeals vacated the commission's certificate, which Wake County Superior Court had upheld on March 5, 1980. It held that the decision needed an environmental impact statement under the state Environmental Policy Act and a review of the whole record, and sent the case back to the commission.Caselaw Access Project: In re Appeal from Environmental Management Commission, 53 N.C. App. 135 (1981)
  165. Orange County begins discussing the first expansion of the Eubanks Road landfill Ten years after the landfill opened, the county began discussing an expansion even though it had estimated the site would be full by 1985. Residents had been told the landfill would close after about ten years.INDY Week: Digging deeper
  166. The university drops a plan to take over the cemetery and extend it into the east grove In 1982 the university proposed taking control of the cemetery from the town and extending it into the wooded grove on its east side for about 185 new graves, citing poor upkeep. Opposition in the neighborhoods east of the campus led it to abandon the plan.NC State Historic Preservation Office: Old Chapel Hill Cemetery, National Register nomination (OR0496), p. 20
  167. Opponents sue in federal court, arguing the dam permit has lapsed The Cane Creek Conservation Authority filed suit in U.S. District Court claiming OWASA's Corps permit expired on August 31, 1982 because no fill had actually been placed at the site. OWASA said its preliminary work before the deadline kept the permit valid. People: Sam CrawfordDaily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Fights on to stop OWASA dam, October 20, 1982
  168. OWASA agrees to buy the Stanford dairy farm at the dam site The same day the commission ruled, OWASA agreed to buy 267 acres of the dam site from dairy farmers William and Joyce Stanford for about $1.28 million, bringing it to 60 percent of the 728 acres it needed. Between 20 and 25 of the 48 affected landowners had sold by then.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): OWASA buys 60 percent of land needed for Cane Creek reservoir, October 18, 1983
  169. State commission grants OWASA condemnation power for the third time After a second hearing in late 1982, the Environmental Management Commission reissued OWASA's certificate in March 1983, a Wake County Superior Court judge sent it back, and on October 13 the commission reinstated OWASA's power of eminent domain. Mike Teer, by then president of the Cane Creek Conservation Authority, said the group would appeal.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): OWASA wins Cane Creek right, October 14, 1983
  170. OWASA buys out most of the Cane Creek landowners By April 1986 OWASA owned 48 of the 50 parcels needed for the reservoir, almost all bought through negotiated sales. Sam Crawford recalled an opening offer of $500 an acre that rose to about $3,500 to $3,600, and that his family lost 50 acres, including their biggest field. People: Sam CrawfordDaily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): N.C. Court of Appeals upholds (Valerie Stegall), April 4, 1986
  171. Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Orange County bought the Greene Tract as a possible landfill site The three governments purchased the roughly 164-acre Greene Tract, just north of Rogers Road inside Chapel Hill's extraterritorial jurisdiction, for a future landfill. The county's landfill site search committee did not choose it, and its future use was argued over through the 1990s.Orange County: Greene Tract Frequently Asked Questions, May 2022
  172. Federal court dismisses the opponents' permit suits for lack of standing The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina dismissed the two suits brought by the Cane Creek Conservation Authority and Teer Farms, finding they alleged only a general fear of environmental loss rather than a direct injury. The court noted that OWASA had so far acquired all its land through voluntary purchases.Caselaw Access Project: Cane Creek Conservation Authority v. Orange Water and Sewer Authority, 590 F. Supp. 1123 (M.D.N.C. 1984)
  173. Houses begin going up on Winnawa Walk and Saponi Drive south of the Eno After Poplar Hill is moved off its old site south of the Eno in 1981, the land is divided into lots along two new streets, Winnawa Walk and Saponi Drive, and houses are built there from 1985.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), Winnawa Walk and Saponi Drive
  174. OWASA builds a temporary impoundment on Cane Creek During a water shortage OWASA built a temporary impoundment at the Cane Creek site as an emergency water source, while the permanent dam was still being designed.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Amy Weisner on the Cane Creek Reservoir, April 13, 1988
  175. Estes Drive and Burlage Circle residents reach an agreement with Hakan-Corley over the Siena Hotel Attorney Grainger Barrett announced an agreement between residents of the Burlage Circle and Estes Drive neighborhood and developer Hakan-Corley and Associates over the hotel planned for the former Brady's restaurant site.Search the index · Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Siena Hotel neighborhood agreement, February 24, 1986, p. 5
  176. Court of Appeals upholds OWASA's right to condemn the Teer land The N.C. Court of Appeals affirmed the commission's 1983 certificate against an appeal by the Cane Creek Conservation Authority and Teer Farms, ruling among other points that water quality was a proper factor. The Daily Tar Heel reported that the case turned on two parcels owned by dairy farmer Thomas Teer, the last two of the 50 parcels OWASA needed.Caselaw Access Project: In re Appeal from Environmental Management Commission, 80 N.C. App. 1 (1986)
  177. Orange County Rural Buffer is established Orange County adopted the Orange County-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Joint Planning Area Land Use Plan and map on August 19, 1986, designating a low-density Rural Buffer. The three governments signed the Joint Planning Agreement on November 2, 1987, and the county dates the buffer to 1988.Search the index · Town of Chapel Hill: Joint Planning Agreement (Orange County, Chapel Hill, Carrboro), November 2, 1987, as amended
  178. OWASA breaks ground for the Cane Creek dam OWASA held a groundbreaking for the Cane Creek Reservoir, designed by Hazen and Sawyer: a 72-foot-high, 1,350-foot earthen dam on a 760-acre site, with a 480-acre lake holding 3 billion gallons. Completion was scheduled for June 1989.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Scott Greig on the Cane Creek groundbreaking, January 26, 1987
  179. The Siena Hotel prepares to open on East Franklin Street The 80-room Siena Hotel, built by the Siena Partnership of Joe Hakan and Sam Longiotti as part of a nine-acre development with the Chapel Hill Center, was scheduled to open in late October 1987.Search the index · Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): New Siena Hotel to offer Italian-style hospitality, September 29, 1987, p. 4
  180. Jonathan Howes is elected mayor of Chapel Hill Jonathan Howes, director of UNC's Center for Urban and Regional Studies, won the mayoral race with 53 percent of the vote over Julie Andresen and David Lineberger, carrying the student precincts at Greenwood and Country Club. Outgoing mayor James Wallace said the office would be in very good hands.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, November 4, 1987, page 1
  181. Hillsborough annexes "Northern Fairview" The June 1988 annexation took in nearly 150 acres, including much of the town's mid-century African American housing north of US 70. It brought town services but also higher taxes, which angered some residents.Search the index · NC Digital Collections: Heather Wagner Slane, Hillsborough Architectural Survey (2017), p. 19
  182. Cane Creek Reservoir is filled OWASA completed and filled the reservoir on Cane Creek west of Carrboro, adding roughly three billion gallons of storage drawn from a 32 square mile drainage area. Before it came online OWASA's estimated dependable yield was about two million gallons a day, and the 1980s had brought repeated mandatory restrictions and purchases of water from neighboring utilities.Orange Water and Sewer Authority: Asset Management Plan, FY2020
  183. Downtown Commission asks for a special tax district for downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro Downtown Commission president Joe Hakan asked the Chapel Hill Town Council for a special service district taxing downtown property 7 cents per $100 to help fund the commission and a free downtown trolley. The council later voted the district down.Search the index · Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): downtown tax district item, February 14, 1989, p. 1
  184. Cal Horton becomes Chapel Hill's town manager Cal Horton, Chapel Hill's public safety director, took over as town manager in 1990 after Sonna Loewenthal's months as interim manager. He held the post until 2006.Search the index · Town of Chapel Hill: Minutes of a public hearing of the Mayor and Council, September 17, 1990
  185. Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Orange County begin a countywide search for a new landfill site The three governing boards started a countywide search for the next sanitary landfill, carried out with a citizens' Landfill Search Committee and an engineering consultant. The Greene Tract, bought in 1984 for landfill use, was screened but not made a finalist.Town of Chapel Hill: Minutes of the Town Council, February 12, 1996
  186. Census counts Orange County residents working in Durham County in Of 49,915 employed Orange County residents in the 1990 census, 12,185 (about 24 percent) worked in Durham County, 31,591 worked in Orange County and 2,085 worked in Wake County.U.S. Census Bureau: 1990 County-to-County Worker Flow File, North Carolina, by county of residence
  187. Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in The 1990 census counted 93,851 people in Orange County, 38,719 in Chapel Hill (37,604 in Orange County and 1,115 in Durham County) and 11,553 in Carrboro.U.S. Census Bureau: 1990 CPH-2-35, Population and Housing Unit Counts, North Carolina
  188. Mark Chilton is elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council at 21 Chilton, then a UNC undergraduate, won a seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council in 1991 at the age of 21 and served until 1997. He took a geography degree from UNC in 1993 and a law degree from North Carolina Central University in 1997.Search the index · INDY Week: Mark H. Chilton
  189. Joe Hakan becomes chairman of the chamber of commerce Joe Hakan became chairman of the chamber's board of directors and led it out of a budget deficit, cutting salaries and staff and hiring a lower-paid director.Search the index · Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): chamber of commerce item, June 4, 1992, p. 4
  190. Grant supports new farmers’ market shelters Funding enabled preparation of the Town Commons location.Search the index · Carrboro Farmers’ Market — Mission & History
  191. The Eno River Association buys timber rights on Occoneechee Mountain To stop logging on about 96 acres along the summit, where the mountain's rarest plant communities grow, the association bought the timber rights the owners had sold to a timber company, holding them for 18 months while it negotiated to buy the land.R. Marina Riley, A Strategy to Protect the Environmental and Cultural Values of Occoneechee Mountain in Orange County, North Carolina (1994), scan p. 27
  192. Piedmont Minerals grants easements for an Occoneechee Mountain parking lot and trail The mining company, which owned about 40 acres on the mountain's north side, gave easements for a one-acre parking lot on the floodplain by SR 1148 and a narrow trail linking it to the Town of Hillsborough's 28-acre Occoneechee Park.R. Marina Riley, A Strategy to Protect the Environmental and Cultural Values of Occoneechee Mountain in Orange County, North Carolina (1994), scan p. 25
  193. Gold family donates future park land The donation supplied land later developed as Gold Park.Search the index · Eno River Mill — The Mill’s History
  194. UNC razes the Michie House, the last private home on campus, for parking Demolition crews took down Sallie Markham Michie's house at South Columbia Street and Cameron Avenue three weeks after a judge ordered it sold to UNC by eminent domain. Michie had willed it to the DAR and the Magna Carta Dames on condition it never go to the University; the state paid the two groups $550,000.DigitalNC: Daily Tar Heel, November 28, 1995, p. 1
  195. Maple View Farm builds a creamery and begins bottling its own milk Maple View Farm, which had begun dairying near Hillsborough in 1963 when Orange County had about 100 dairy farms, built a creamery in 1996 and began bottling milk on the farm in glass bottles in place of selling to a co-op. It opened an ice cream shop in 2000; by 2019 only two dairy farms remained in the county.Search the index · North Carolina Field and Family: How a Fifth-Generation Dairy Farmer Embraced the Local Food Movement
  196. Chapel Hill Town Council recommends site OC-17 beside the Eubanks Road landfill for the next county landfill After the search narrowed to four sites judged permittable, the council voted 7 to 2 to recommend a reduced site OC-17, adjacent to the existing landfill, as the county's next sanitary landfill. INDY Week reports that the county commissioners and the Hillsborough board also voted for it that month, with Carrboro Mayor Mike Nelson opposed. People: Mike NelsonTown of Chapel Hill: Minutes of the Town Council, February 12, 1996
  197. Chapel Hill authorizes buying land beside the landfill to widen its buffer The council unanimously authorized the town manager to buy the 4.05-acre Wilson property adjoining the Eubanks Road landfill at $6,000 an acre to expand a minimal buffer, subject to approval by Carrboro and Orange County.Town of Chapel Hill: Minutes of the Town Council, April 22, 1996
  198. Four governing boards hold a unified public hearing on a new landfill next to the Eubanks Road site The Orange County commissioners, Chapel Hill council, Carrboro aldermen and Hillsborough commissioners took comment on site 17 and three alternatives. Neighbours including David Caldwell, Kathy Schinley and Cornelius Kirschner spoke against it, B.B. Olive presented a 39-signature petition, and Frank Emory, representing Duke University, said the poorest residents lived nearest site 17. People: David Caldwell Jr.Town of Chapel Hill: Summary of a Unified Public Hearing on Landfill Matters, June 19, 1996
  199. East Chapel Hill High School opens East Chapel Hill High School opened on August 20, 1996, to relieve crowding at Chapel Hill High School, with construction still under way around it. It enrolled grades nine through eleven that first year, most of them transfers from Chapel Hill High, and held an opening celebration on November 17.In the index: East Chapel Hill High School (N.C.) · Daily Tar Heel, August 21, 1996, p. 1: New high school opens despite ongoing construction
  200. Hurricane Fran strikes Orange County Hurricane Fran came ashore on the night of September 5, 1996 and crossed to the Triangle overnight. In Chapel Hill winds topped 70 mph, falling trees caused about 29,000 power outages and UNC cancelled classes, and the Eno at Hillsborough hit a record flow. No one in Orange County was killed.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): front page, September 9, 1996
  201. Hurricane Fran causes about 29,000 power outages in Chapel Hill Trees on power lines caused about 29,000 outages in Chapel Hill; more than 12,000 residents were still without electricity on Sunday evening, September 8, and about 10,000 on Monday afternoon. Duke Power had 1,800 workers plus 1,000 on loan from other utilities in the area and expected to restore Chapel Hill by the middle or end of that week.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Thousands still in dark after outages, September 9, 1996
  202. Hurricane Fran fells old trees on UNC's north campus Fran brought down several roughly 200-year-old trees around New West Hall and left North Campus and Cameron Avenue covered in fallen trees, while the Davie Poplar survived. University power came back within hours, and Sitterson Hall opened as a place for people to recharge batteries, get ice and water and shower.UNC Computer Science: Alumni Newsletter Issue 18 (Fall 1996)
  203. Mayor Rosemary Waldorf declares a state of emergency in Chapel Hill after Hurricane Fran Waldorf declared a town state of emergency on Friday, September 6, because of storm damage and power outages, and residents were urged to stay home; UNC cancelled Friday classes at 3 a.m. She partially lifted the emergency at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, September 10, keeping it in force where utility crews were still working.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Mayor: Chapel Hill no longer in state of emergency, September 11, 1996
  204. OWASA issues a boil-water advisory after Hurricane Fran knocks out its pumping The Orange Water and Sewer Authority told Chapel Hill and Carrboro customers to boil water from Friday evening, September 6, after its University Lake pump station lost power and the system lost pressure, and the wastewater plant flooded. The advisory was lifted at 1:50 p.m. Monday, September 9, after lab tests found no contamination; the area drew emergency water from Durham, and a conservation order was lifted soon after.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): OWASA boil-water advisory lifted, September 10, 1996
  205. The Eno River at Hillsborough reaches its highest recorded flow during Hurricane Fran The USGS gauge on the Eno River at Hillsborough recorded a peak of 10,800 cubic feet per second at a gauge height of 21.13 feet, the largest peak in its record until Tropical Storm Chantal in July 2025.USGS: Peak streamflow, Eno River at Hillsborough (02085000)
  206. UNC suspends afternoon classes for a campuswide Hurricane Fran cleanup Chancellor Michael Hooker suspended classes from noon on Wednesday so students, faculty and staff could clear storm debris. Nearly 1,000 students reported to the Old Well within the first hour, working with University forester Kirk Pelland's crews, and Coker Arboretum staff expected their cleanup to run into the winter. People: Michael HookerDaily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): University community unites to tidy up Fran's mess, September 12, 1996
  207. A 70-foot oak weakened by Hurricane Fran falls on Venable Hall A 70-foot white oak fell against Venable Hall at about 2:10 p.m., damaging handrails on the building's steps; no one was hurt. University forester Kirk Pelland said Fran's winds and Wednesday's heavy rain had left many old campus trees at risk, and Executive Vice Chancellor Elson Floyd asked people to report damaged trees to the Grounds Division. People: Elson S. FloydDaily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): front page, September 13, 1996
  208. Carrboro aldermen take up a tree-cutter registration plan after Hurricane Fran scams The Board of Aldermen discussed asking tree removal workers to identify themselves at town hall before starting work, after Mayor Mike Nelson cited a resident who paid $800 in advance to remove Fran-felled trees and the workers did not return. Staff were to bring a formal proposal to the next meeting. People: Mike Nelson, Hilliard CaldwellDaily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Aldermen look to protect residents from tree scams, September 19, 1996
  209. Chapel Hill building inspectors count homes destroyed and damaged by Hurricane Fran The town's Building Inspection Department reported four homes near Airport Road, Homestead Road and Culbreth Road destroyed, 391 homes with major damage and 222 with minor damage.Daily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Mayor: Chapel Hill no longer in state of emergency, September 11, 1996
  210. Duke Forest closes and salvages timber after Hurricane Fran Fran brought down more than 1,400 trees across 35 miles of Duke Forest roads, damaged the Bobby Ross Jr. Memorial Picnic Shelter and a research tower in the Blackwood Division, and kept parts of the forest closed for three to six months. A helicopter crew salvaged about 800,000 board feet from 163 acres within two weeks, and salvage through summer 1998 recovered 2 million board feet from 540 acres, worth about $260,000.Duke Forest: Hurricane Fran: Looking Back after 25 Years
  211. Orange Regional Landfill takes Hurricane Fran yard waste free as Chapel Hill faces tens of thousands of tons of debris The Orange Regional Landfill on Eubanks Road accepted yard waste at no charge until further notice. Town Manager Cal Horton estimated Chapel Hill had 25,000 to 40,000 tons of fallen limbs and trees and said the town would eventually remove curbside debris, while urging residents to haul debris to the landfill themselves. People: Cal HortonDaily Tar Heel (DigitalNC): Officials: cleanup process efficient, September 11, 1996
  212. Assembly of Governments agrees compensation items for neighbors of the landfill Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro met as an Assembly of Governments in 1997 to take up benefits for people living near the Orange Regional Landfill and agreed a set of compensation items. In 2007 Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton wrote that not all of them had been carried out. People: Mark ChiltonOrangePolitics: Commissioners discuss waste transfer station tonight
  213. Occoneechee Mountain becomes a State Natural Area At the urging of the Eno River Association and The Nature Conservancy, the state began buying land on Occoneechee Mountain just south of Hillsborough, with the Conservancy purchasing 96 acres for the state. The 124-acre Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area was dedicated on July 20, 1999, with a blessing from an Occaneechi tribal member.Search the index · Eno River Association: Occoneechee Mountain State Natural Area
  214. Orange County chooses to keep expanding the Eubanks Road landfill instead of opening a new site With site OC-17 blocked, the county announced it would expand the existing landfill rather than close it. A new construction and demolition landfill was later built on the north side of Eubanks Road.INDY Week: Digging deeper
  215. Chapel Hill approves digging on the Neville Tract to build new landfill cells The council voted 9 to 0 for a special use permit letting the Orange Regional Landfill take earth from the Neville Tract to build containment cells and for daily cover, with access across landfill property to Eubanks Road. Work was to begin by 1999 and end by 2007.Town of Chapel Hill: Minutes of the Town Council, July 7, 1997
  216. Reviewers deny the OWASA Jones Ferry Road water plant a place on the Study List The Orange Water and Sewer Authority's Jones Ferry Road Water Treatment Plant was among five central region requests on July 10, 1997. Staff recommended denial because of modern alterations, and the committee accepted the staff recommendations without separate discussion of the plant.NC State Historic Preservation Office: National Register Advisory Committee agendas, minutes and approved lists, p. 737
  217. Duke University easement to NASA stalls landfill candidate site OC-17 Chapel Hill's manager reported that Duke University had filed an easement in favor of NASA on candidate site OC-17, leaving the towns unable to test the land. The council voted 8 to 0 to have the town attorney write to the U.S. Attorney and called an Assembly of Governments for October 22, 1997. People: Cal HortonTown of Chapel Hill: Minutes of the Town Council, October 13, 1997
  218. Diana McDuffee leads the vote for Carrboro aldermen Running for the first time as an incumbent after her 1995 appointment, McDuffee led seven candidates with 1,755 votes. Fellow incumbents Jacquelyn Gist and Hank Anderson were also re-elected, and Allen Spalt was the only newcomer. People: Jacquelyn Gist, Hank AndersonSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, November 5, 1997, p. 3
  219. Hillsborough annexes Daniel Boone Village and Boone Square About 76 acres of Freeland's South Churton Street complex came into the town limits in 1998, by which time many of its buildings stood empty and the land was seen as ready for redevelopment.Search the index · NC Digital Collections: Heather Wagner Slane, Hillsborough Architectural Survey (2017), p. 23
  220. Chapel Hill sets conditions for new solid waste sites before handing control to the county The council unanimously directed its Landfill Owners Group members to secure a construction and demolition waste site by fall 1998, naming land on the north side of Eubanks Road next to the landfill, with eminent domain if needed, and the Greene Tract as options. It said pending solid waste issues had to be settled before any change in governance.Town of Chapel Hill: Minutes of the Town Council, July 2, 1998
  221. Chapel Hill backs countywide funding to extend water lines to the Rogers Road neighborhood By a 7 to 2 vote the council said water service lines for the community around the landfill should be paid for from a countywide revenue source so that all county residents share the cost, and opposed using the sales tax for those benefits.Town of Chapel Hill: Summary Minutes of the Town Council, October 12, 1998
  222. The solid waste interlocal agreement set 60 acres of the Greene Tract aside as Headwaters Preserve The 1999 Solid Waste Management Interlocal Agreement set the terms for disposing of the 104 acres that stayed in joint ownership and allowed 60 acres to be deeded to Orange County, which became the Headwaters Preserve. In 2002 the three governments adopted a resolution identifying acreage on the joint portion for preservation and affordable housing.Orange County: Greene Tract Frequently Asked Questions, May 2022
  223. Carrboro aldermen vote 4-3 against renaming themselves the Board of Councillors After months of debate over gender-neutral language, the board rejected a resolution, authorized by a charter change from the General Assembly, to become the Carrboro Board of Councillors. Diana McDuffee, Joal Broun and Alex Zaffron voted for the change. People: Joal Hall Broun, Alex ZaffronSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, August 19, 1999, p. 2
  224. Chapel Hill lets Orange County commissioners pick the next construction and demolition landfill site With the existing construction and demolition landfill expected to fill by summer 2000, the council voted 9 to 0 to let the Board of Commissioners select an in-county replacement site on its behalf, citing time pressure and the expected transfer of solid waste authority to the county.Town of Chapel Hill: Minutes of the Town Council, September 13, 1999
  225. Census counts Orange County residents working in Durham County in Of 60,860 employed Orange County residents in Census 2000, 16,470 (about 27 percent) worked in Durham County, 35,053 worked in Orange County and 4,212 worked in Wake County.U.S. Census Bureau: Residence County to Workplace County Flows for North Carolina, Census 2000
  226. Census counts Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro in Census 2000 counted 118,227 people in Orange County, 46,798 in the Orange County part of Chapel Hill and 16,782 in Carrboro, according to the county's published table.Orange County, NC: Municipal and Unincorporated Populations, 1980-2007
  227. Jim Webb dies and his Briar Bridge Lane house passes to an estate supporting UNC's planning school Webb designed the Ruth Price House at 4 Briar Bridge Lane in 1953 and bought it in 1979. He lived there until he died in 2000, after which it went to his estate, which he had set up to benefit the UNC planning school.Search the index · NCModernist: Jim and John Webb
  228. Penny Rich is appointed to the OWASA board Chapel Hill appointed Rich to the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board in 2001, and she served two three-year terms through 2007. She helped write water conservation policy during a severe drought.Search the index · The Local Reporter: Penny Rich, Over 20 Years of Experience and Service to Orange County
  229. Town Council approves UNC's main-campus Development Plan under OI-4 zoning The Chapel Hill Town Council approved the university's Development Plan covering 582 acres of the main campus in the Office/Institutional-4 district, proposing 41 new buildings, 8 parking decks and new roads, about 5.9 million square feet in all, to carry out the 2001 Campus Master Plan.Town of Chapel Hill: Council agenda memo on UNC Development Plan Modification No. 1, June 23, 2003
  230. Orange County agrees to build a new construction and demolition landfill tied to a recycling ordinance Because the construction and demolition landfill on Eubanks Road would fill around 2003, the Board of Commissioners agreed to build a new one only if certain bulky materials had to be recycled. The Regulated Recyclable Materials Ordinance took effect on October 1, 2002.Orange County, NC: Construction & Demolition (Regulated Recyclable Materials Ordinance)
  231. Chapel Hill Transit becomes fare-free Chapel Hill Transit stopped charging fares on January 2, 2002, and added 11 buses and new routes. Under the funding agreement, UNC paid about 40 percent of the cost and Chapel Hill and Carrboro split the rest by population.Search the index · Daily Tar Heel, January 9, 2002, p. 3: Local Leaders Welcome Fare-Free Bus System
  232. Carrboro switches its town vehicles to biodiesel fuel Carrboro began running its diesel town vehicles on B20, a blend of 20 percent biodiesel, and looked to move to pure biodiesel. Alderman Diana McDuffee had first proposed the fuel after meeting delegates from towns using it at a conference in Seattle.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, September 16, 2002, p. 5
  233. Mark Chilton serves on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen Chilton moved to Carrboro and sat on the Board of Aldermen from 2003 to 2005, the seat from which he ran for mayor. He was working as an attorney and a broker and living in downtown Carrboro.Search the index · INDY Week: Mark H. Chilton
  234. Town forms the Horace Williams Citizens Committee to shape review of the tract Chapel Hill formed the Horace Williams Citizens Committee in 2003 to advise on development proposals for the university's Horace Williams tract, and the Town Council adopted the committee's March 2004 final report as town policy.UNC Board of Trustees: Development Agreement between UNC-Chapel Hill and the Town of Chapel Hill (Carolina North), June 2009
  235. Mark Chilton serves four terms as mayor of Carrboro Chilton was mayor of Carrboro from 2005 to 2013. Supporters held a roast in October 2013 to mark the end of his fourth term and about twenty years in local office.Search the index · INDY Week: Mark H. Chilton
  236. Turnip Patch Park is made on a deep lot between West King Street and West Margaret Lane A small park with a playground and a footbridge over a ravine was made around 2005 on the lot at 333 West King Street, which runs through to West Margaret Lane along South Occoneechee Street. A small building stood there on the 1924 and 1943 Sanborn maps.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), 333 W. King Street (Turnip Patch Park)
  237. Cal Horton retires after sixteen years as Chapel Hill's town manager Horton retired in 2006 after the longest tenure of any Chapel Hill town manager. At his request, money raised in his honor went to a town award for employees who have given at least ten years of exceptional service, now the Cal Horton Service Award.Search the index · Chapelboro: Town of Chapel Hill Issues 2023 Service Award to Public Works Employee (Brighton McConnell, October 5, 2023)
  238. UNC's Campus Master Plan update is approved The update to the 2001 Campus Master Plan found about half of the 2001 plan's sites under construction or in design, with over six million square feet of new buildings under way, and put remaining main-campus capacity at about 4.5 million square feet; it planned residence halls to replace Odum Village on South Campus.UNC Facilities Services: Campus Master Plan Update (approved March 22, 2006)
  239. Orange County commissioners vote to put a waste transfer station at the Eubanks Road landfill The board voted unanimously to develop a solid waste transfer station at the landfill site, following its Solid Waste Advisory Board's recommendation, over objections from Rogers Road residents. The landfill was then expected to fill in 2010. People: Mike Nelson, Robert Campbell, Valerie FousheeThe Carrboro Citizen: Commissioners approve transfer station for solid waste at Eubanks Road site
  240. Carrboro High School opens Carrboro High School on Rock Haven Road was dedicated with a ribbon-cutting on August 23, 2007, and began classes on August 27 with more than 600 students under principal Jeff Thomas. The Carrboro Citizen called it the town's first high school.In the index: Carrboro High School (Carrboro, N.C.) · The Carrboro Citizen: August 23, 2007 issue (Carrboro High opening, p. 1)
  241. UNC trustees approve the Carolina North plan The Board of Trustees approved a plan for Carolina North on the Horace Williams tract, later submitted to the town with the 2009 rezoning application; the trustees adopted Carolina North design guidelines on November 19, 2008.UNC Board of Trustees: Development Agreement between UNC-Chapel Hill and the Town of Chapel Hill (Carolina North), June 2009
  242. Commissioners reopen the search for a transfer station site After Rogers Road residents and the Coalition to End Environmental Racism pressed the county, the Board of Commissioners announced it would reopen its search for a transfer station site. Eubanks Road stayed on the list while consultant Olver Inc. drew up siting criteria. People: Robert CampbellThe Carrboro Citizen: The grassroots of environmental justice
  243. American Asset Corporation withdraws its plan to redevelop Daniel Boone Village After more than a year of talks with the town, American Asset Corporation withdrew its application to annex and redevelop Daniel Boone Village and the neighboring Collins property, about 200 acres on Churton Street north of I-85, where it had proposed some 1,100 homes and large commercial areas. Mayor Tom Stevens said the company had concluded the town board would not approve annexation and remained interested in commercial development of the Boone property. People: Tom StevensSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, February 5, 2008, p. 9
  244. A four-story brick parking deck is built at Nash and Kollock streets A four-story parking deck with a brick veneer and a corner stair and elevator tower was built in 2008 at 104-106 Nash and Kollock streets, with pilasters copying those on the Gateway Center on South Churton Street.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), 104-106 Nash and Kollock Streets, parking deck
  245. Orange County's 2030 Comprehensive Plan places county growth within the Triangle economy The Land Use Element of Orange County's 2030 Comprehensive Plan says the county, as an integral part of the Triangle, grew nearly 50 percent from 1980 to an estimated 121,991 in 2005, and names the Research Triangle Park as part of its region, calling jobs and economic conditions a frequent catalyst for changes in population and land use. It also records the 1984 Joint Planning Agreement with Chapel Hill, extended to Carrboro in 1987, and the 1986 rural buffer plan.Orange County, NC: 2030 Comprehensive Plan, Chapter 5 Land Use Element
  246. The Gateway Center replaces the old post office building at 228 South Churton Street The commercial building put up at 228 South Churton Street to house the post office is torn down around 2007, and the three-story Gateway Center, with shops on the ground floor and government offices above, is built on the site in 2008.Search the index · NC State Historic Preservation Office: Hillsborough Historic District Additional Documentation, National Register (OR0077ad, 2014), 228-230 South Churton Street, Gateway Center
  247. Commissioners drop Eubanks Road and choose two other transfer station candidates Conceding that the 2007 choice had not adequately weighed its effect on Rogers Road, the commissioners voted 5 to 1 to pursue two other sites, the 143-acre Howell property and an OWASA tract in Bingham Township.INDY Week: Where should Orange County stick its garbage?
  248. Penny Rich is elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council Rich won a seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council in 2009 and served until 2012, working on land use, planning, public transit, affordable housing and economic development.Search the index · INDY Week: Orange County Register of Deeds, Penny Rich, 2026 Primary Candidates
  249. Town Council approves the Carolina North development agreement and U-1 zoning After ten joint work sessions with trustees and hearings on May 11, June 15 and June 22, the Town Council approved a 20-year development agreement for Carolina North and rezoned the in-town portion of the tract to University-1, authorizing about 3 million square feet on 133 acres.UNC Board of Trustees: Development Agreement between UNC-Chapel Hill and the Town of Chapel Hill (Carolina North), June 2009
  250. Sammy Slade is elected to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen Slade, a carpenter with a psychology degree from UNC who was raised in Bogota and Chapel Hill, won a seat on the Board of Aldermen in November 2009 and was reelected in 2013. He went on to serve fourteen years on the town's governing board.Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Council Member Sammy Slade (Internet Archive capture)
  251. Commissioners vote to truck county trash to Durham's transfer station After OWASA refused to sell or swap land for a transfer station and Chapel Hill withdrew its Millhouse Road property, the Board of Commissioners voted to haul county trash to Durham's transfer station for three to five years while the towns and county weighed a longer-term plan.The Carrboro Citizen: Timeline: 2009
  252. RENA opened its first community center on Edgar Road Three years after incorporating as a nonprofit, the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association opened a small community center on Edgar Road so the neighborhood had a place of its own to gather and run programs.RENA Community Center: About Us
  253. Orange County commissioners raised the landfill tipping fee to pay for Rogers Road remediation Commissioners raised the tipping fee from $52 to $57 a ton to create a remediation fund of about $50,000 to $60,000 a year for water and sewer connections, cleanup of illegal dumping and a community center in Rogers Road. The county also moved $750,000 out of its solid waste reserve for the same purpose. Chapel Hill and Carrboro objected to the timing of the fee. People: Robert Campbell, Mark KleinschmidtThe Daily Tar Heel: Chapel Hill and Carrboro oppose trash fee
  254. Commissioners decide not to extend the life of the landfill The Board of Commissioners voted not to extend the landfill and approved cleanup of 50 illegal dump sites. In April 2011 it had postponed a decision on deepening the landfill, which could have added capacity to 2018.RENA Community Center: The Orange County Landfill
  255. Penny Rich is elected to the Orange County Board of Commissioners Rich was elected a county commissioner in 2012 and served two terms, to 2020, working on economic development, job creation, affordable housing, transportation and social justice.Search the index · INDY Week: Orange County Register of Deeds, Penny Rich, 2026 Primary Candidates
  256. Commissioners set the landfill's closing date and created the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood Task Force On the night the Orange County commissioners voted to close the landfill on June 30, 2013, they also authorized an eight-member task force, with two members each from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, the county and RENA, to recommend how to deliver sewer service and a community center and how to guard against displacement. An interim report was due that August and a final report to the Assembly of Governments on December 6, 2012. People: Penny Rich, Pam HemmingerTown of Chapel Hill: Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood Task Force
  257. EPA accepted RENA's civil rights complaint over water and sewer service for investigation The EPA Office of Civil Rights took up the question whether the Orange County Planning and Inspections Department had intentionally discriminated on the basis of race by denying water and sewer service to the African American residents of Rogers Road. RENA had filed the complaint with the U.S. Justice Department, which referred it to several federal agencies, and it was joined to an earlier complaint against OWASA accepted on November 23, 2009.U.S. EPA: Resolution and Closure, EPA Complaint No. 13R-07-R4
  258. Mark Chilton compiles a land grant atlas of old Orange County Chilton wrote The Land Grant Atlas of Old Orange County, Volume 2: The Saxapahaw Old Fields, tracing title to about a thousand parcels between 1728 and 1818 in western Orange and eastern Alamance counties. He found that roughly 95 percent of the county's deed records for 1752 to 1781 were lost after a Tory official buried the deed books and they rotted.Search the index · INDY Week: Mark H. Chilton
  259. Mark Chilton wins the register of deeds primary on a same-sex marriage pledge Chilton took just over 42 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, beating the incumbent register of deeds, Deborah Brooks, and a second challenger. He had campaigned on a promise to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite the state ban, and because no Republican filed, the primary settled the office.Search the index · Facing South: Meet North Carolina's revolutionary register of deeds
  260. The county-funded Rogers Road Community Center opened at 101 Edgar Street Orange County commissioners awarded a $522,488 contract to Riggs-Harrod Builders of Durham on April 1, 2014 after a first round of bids came in at two to three times the authorized budget and the building was redesigned. The larger center, with a community room, kitchen, computer lab and outdoor courts, opened that December a short walk from RENA's 2010 building.RENA Community Center: About Us
  261. RENA and the Jackson Center published the Rogers Road community plan commissioned by the three governments In July 2015 Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro asked the Marian Cheek Jackson Center and RENA to run a community-first planning process as sewer design advanced. The resulting report, built from nine Unity Board sessions and two rounds of interviews, set four priorities for the neighborhood and became the reference document for the later zoning districts and Greene Tract resolutions. People: Robert Campbell, David Caldwell Jr.Orange County: Rogers Road, Mapping our Community's Future
  262. Carrboro accepts a community climate action plan The Board of Aldermen accepted a plan setting out steps residents could take to cut greenhouse gas emissions, extending the Energy and Climate Protection Plan the town had adopted in 2014 for its own operations. The two plans aimed at an 80 percent cut from 2010 emission levels by 2030. Sammy Slade was the board's leading advocate for the town's climate policy.Search the index · Town of Carrboro: Community Climate Action Plan
  263. Ground was broken on the sewer extension to the historic Rogers Road area Orange County, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, OWASA and RENA held a groundbreaking at the RENA Community Center on Edgar Street after the sanitary sewer design was finished and a contractor hired. Construction was to begin in July 2017 and run 10 to 12 months. People: Robert CampbellTown of Carrboro: Sewer Construction in the Historic Rogers Road Area Will Begin This Summer
  264. Carrboro broke ground on the Rogers Road sidewalk and bus stop project A $1.37 million project put a five-foot sidewalk from the west side of Rogers Road to Meadow Run Court, together with a new bus pad and shelter. Ground was broken in late June 2018 and construction began that fall. The project traced back to a New Horizons task force created in 2005.Chapelboro: Carrboro Breaks Ground on Rogers Road Sidewalk Project
  265. Penny Rich chairs the Orange County Board of Commissioners Rich was vice chair of the county commissioners from 2016 to 2018 and chair from 2018 to 2020, and she led the board through the start of the county's COVID-19 response.Search the index · INDY Week: Orange County Register of Deeds, Penny Rich, 2026 Primary Candidates
  266. Horace Williams Airport closes UNC closed Horace Williams Airport on May 15, 2018, under a November 2017 trustees resolution, citing money lost running the field and at least $1 million in needed runway repairs. The airfield dated to 1928 and had trained Navy pre-flight cadets during World War II; the Carolina North campus once planned for the site had stalled.In the index: Horace Williams Airport (Chapel Hill, N.C.) · UNC Auxiliary Services: UNC-Chapel Hill's Horace Williams Airport Closes (May 10, 2018)
  267. Durham–Orange light rail project ends On March 27, 2019, the GoTriangle board voted unanimously to stop planning the 18-mile Durham-Orange light rail line between Chapel Hill and Durham after Duke University declined to sign needed agreements. Orange County commissioners voted unanimously on April 2 to end the county's work on it.In the index: Duke University · WUNC: GoTriangle Ends Light Rail Project (March 27, 2019)
  268. Chapel Hill and Carrboro created Historic Rogers Road zoning districts The Chapel Hill Town Council closed its public hearing on May 22, 2019 and enacted Land Use Management Ordinance amendments establishing new zoning districts for the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood. Carrboro added Section 15-136.1 to its Land Use Ordinance on June 18, 2019, creating the HR-R and HR-CC districts expressly to carry out the Mapping Our Community's Future plan.Town of Chapel Hill: File #19-0481, Zoning Districts for the Historic Rogers Road Neighborhood
  269. The Rogers Road sewer extension was placed in service OWASA put the extension into service on June 27, 2019 after the state accepted the as-built certification, ending a wait that residents traced to the 1972 landfill agreement. About 3.5 miles of sewer had been laid, and the neighborhood held a celebration at the community center on June 3. Individual owners still had to pay to connect their homes. People: Penny RichU.S. EPA: Resolution and Closure, EPA Complaint No. 13R-07-R4
  270. EPA closed the Rogers Road civil rights complaint as moot The EPA External Civil Rights Compliance Office told the Orange County attorney that Complaint No. 13R-07-R4 was closed because interlocal agreements to which the county was a party had produced a completed water and sewer extension, and because OWASA is bound by those agreements to serve Rogers Road residents who connect. The letter found no systemic issues left to investigate and made no finding of discrimination.U.S. EPA: Resolution and Closure, EPA Complaint No. 13R-07-R4
  271. The three governments adopted an interlocal agreement on the future of the Greene Tract The agreement required Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro to act jointly in hiring consultants, entering development agreements and taking public input, put the mayors, chair and managers in a working group to negotiate the ultimate uses, and stated an initial intent covering mixed use and affordable housing, a school site with recreation, a joint preserve and connectivity. A November 2021 resolution then approved the recombination plat and the conceptual plan for the 60-acre county tract and the 107-acre joint tract.Orange County: Greene Tract Frequently Asked Questions, May 2022
  272. Sammy Slade announces he will not seek reelection to the Carrboro Town Council As candidate filing opened, Slade said he would step back after fourteen years, writing that he had believed local action was where representation could happen most authentically but that local government, operating within the same system, was no longer where he could help mitigate climate change.Search the index · Chapelboro: Sammy Slade Set to Leave Carrboro Town Council After 14 Years
  273. The ArtsCenter moves to Roberson Street The ArtsCenter opened its new home at 400 Roberson Street in downtown Carrboro with a parade and ribbon-cutting on August 26, 2023, after moving from 300 East Main Street. The renovated former office building, nearly 18,000 square feet, added a larger ceramics studio, maker spaces, a black-box theater and a youth education center.Search the index · Chapelboro: The ArtsCenter Opens, Celebrates its Upgraded Home in Downtown Carrboro (August 28, 2023)
  274. State law removes Chapel Hill's zoning control over UNC projects The Regulatory Reform Act of 2025 became law without the governor's signature, making UNC System projects in Orange County subject only to state rules and leaving the town a consultation role on utilities, stormwater, traffic and similar matters.Daily Tar Heel: New law exempts UNC System from local development regulations
  275. Penny Rich runs for Orange County register of deeds Rich, by then an assistant clerk of superior court, entered the 2026 Democratic primary for Orange County register of deeds. She campaigned on modernizing the office's technology and public website and on heir property issues affecting African American families.Search the index · INDY Week: Orange County Register of Deeds, Penny Rich, 2026 Primary Candidates
  276. UNC announces a campus extension at Carolina North The university announced plans for a mixed-use extension on about 230 acres around the former Horace Williams Airport, with student and workforce housing, research space and retail, calling it the largest expansion since 1793; groundbreaking is expected in summer 2027.UNC-Chapel Hill: UNC-Chapel Hill announces plans to develop campus extension in Carolina North

Places in this theme

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 27 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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Research sources

Resources picked for this theme, each with a note on what it holds.

Background

National Register files

Historic sites, markers, and maps

Records of the time

Collections and databases 9

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Local help

Background reading at OCPL

Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this theme; they may not discuss the Orange County theme directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Planning Legislation in North Carolina 1982

    A loose-leaf collection of North Carolina's statutes on city planning, redevelopment and regional planning, compiled and annotated by Philip P. Green Jr. for the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill. This 13th edition of 1982 continues a guide the Institute had been issuing since at least 1959.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: City planning and redevelopment law -- North Carolina; Regional planning -- Law and legislation -- North Carolina OCPL call number: NC 348.026 PLA
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Favored by Fortune: George W. Watts & the Hills of Durham Covington, Howard E. · 2004

    Four generations of a Durham family in Howard E. Covington Jr.'s collective biography: George Washington Watts, John Sprunt Hill (his son-in-law), and the two George Watts Hills, father and son. Their interests ran from the American Tobacco Company to Central Carolina Bank, Watts Hospital and the Carolina Inn at Chapel Hill, and they pressed for credit unions, better highways and Research Triangle Park. Published by the UNC Library at Chapel Hill in 2004; 372 pages and 48 pages of plates.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Watts, George Washington, 1851-1921; Hill, John Sprunt, 1869- -- Family; Hill family OCPL call number: NC 338.097 COV
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Habits of Industry: White Culture and the Transformation of the Carolina Piedmont Tullos, Allen · 1989

    Allen Tullos follows the Carolina Piedmont's turn from farms to cotton mills, setting the stories of entrepreneurial families such as the Dukes, Loves and Tompkinses beside the recollections of the white men and women who went into the mills. Oral histories, many recalling the Depression years, carry much of the account, with attention to mill paternalism and the region's religious life. UNC Press, 1989; 419 pages with illustrations.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Industries -- North Carolina -- History; North Carolina -- Economic conditions; Families -- North Carolina -- History OCPL call number: NC 338.097 TUL

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UNC & Campus Life →Schools & Education →Business, Shops & Commerce →Roads, Rail & Transportation →Eno & Environment →

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Illustration by Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell, gifted to the Friends 2026