Two Orange County Sites Added to National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places added two Orange County properties to its listings on Friday.

The Orange County Historic Preservation Commission announced both the Cedar Grove School and the Schley Grange Hall are now officially national historical sites. Both properties gained approval from the North Carolina National Register Advisory Committee and were nominated by the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Officer to achieve the feat.

Peter Sandbeck, who works as Orange County’s Cultural Resources Coordinator, said both landmarks have been protected well by community members through the years and credited their efforts to the properties earning this title.

“These historic structures were achieved through years of hard work, determination and perseverance on the part of the residents of their respective rural farming communities,” he said in the county’s release. “Their stories help tell the diverse history of the people of Orange County—our hard-working farm families, black and white, who sought better lives for their children.”

The Cedar Grove School, located off North Carolina Highway 86 in North Orange County, opened in 1951 as the first consolidated school to be built in the county for African American students. It was often used as a meeting spot for parents and the community to advocate for desegregation and was closed as a school in 1969 with the full integration of county schools. Beginning in 1980, the building housed Orange County’s Northern Human Services Center before undergoing renovation and reopening in 2016 as the Cedar Grove Community Center.

The Schley Grange Hall is a brick, Colonial-style building made in 1949 to replace the schoolhouse where members of Schley Grange No. 710 previously met. The group won the grand prize in a national competition sponsored by the Sears Roebuck Foundation and the National Grange to have it built. Today, the property continues to serve as a meeting place and recreation center for the agricultural community of Schley, which is north of Hillsborough.

The National Register of Historic Places is the nation’s official list of buildings, structures, objects, sites and districts worthy of preservation for their significance in American history, architecture, archaeology and culture. These additions mean Orange County has 46 individual properties on the National Register, along with seven Historic Districts.

To view the full release from Orange County about the new national historic sites, visit the county’s website.

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Two Orange County Sites Added to National Register of Historic Places

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