201 N. CHURTON ST. / CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL LIBRARY / ORANGE COUNTY HISTORICAL MUSEUM

View north west, 1930s (photo by the Albertype Company, via UNC)

The NW corner of Churton and Tryon streets was the location of the 1836 "Session House" for the adjacent Presbyterian Church. In 1934, the Session House building was torn down and a new building was built on the site.

It was built as a United States Federal Civil Works Administration (CWA)/Federal Emergency Relief Administration (ERA)/North Carolina Emergency Relief Administration (NCERA) project, costing $15,466.10. The building was named the Confederate Memorial Library by a "local historical group" (i.e. Daughters of Confederate Veterans and others) who donated money to the library in lieu of erecting a memorial obelisk to the Confederacy in Hillsborough.

1943 Sanborn fire insurance map excerpt

The building has been used as the Orange County Historical Museum since the 1980s, when the public library outgrew the structure and moved into part of the former Hillsborough High School.

From the National Register Nomination:

The design of this WPA project reflects a Colonial Revival dwelling, with a raised basement, side- gable roof with cornice returns, and four gabled dormers on the facade. The building has exterior stone chimneys in the gable ends, a wide denticulated cornice, and wood shingles on the gabled dormers. Eight-light casement windows on the main level and four-light casement windows at the basement level are grouped and have cast-stone headers and windowsills. There are twelve-light windows in the dormers, paired eight-light casement windows with eight-light transoms in the gable ends, and quarter-round multi-light windows flanking the chimneystacks. The replacement front door has an original surround with eight-light-over-one-panel sidelights and three panels separating the door and sidelights from the multi-light arched transom. The entrance is sheltered by a pedimented front-gabled porch supported by grouped Doric columns with a denticulated cornice.

07.02.2016 (G. Kueber)

Until 2015, this building had the words "Confederate Memorial Library" in the gable of the front portico. After the shooting of 10 people in an African-American church in Charleston, SC by a white supremacist on June 17, 2015, Hillsborough was prompted, along with other communities, to re-examine commemorations of the Confederacy. The town council utlimately decided to remove the words and put them into storage, which was completed in January of 2016.