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NPS Form 1o•soo -a
<br />0108 Approval No, 1024 -0018
<br />(8.86)
<br />United States Department of the Interior
<br />National Park Service
<br />National Register of Historic Places
<br />Continuation -Sheet
<br />Occoneechee Speedway
<br />Orange County, N.C.
<br />Section number 8 Page 17
<br />W
<br />American Homes, Inc., whose staff respects the speedway's history and is actively attempting to
<br />save it from the threat of highway development.
<br />A Brief History of Occoneechee Speedway
<br />The Occoneechee Speedway occupies a portion of the former late - eighteenth century plantation
<br />of James Hogg, an original trustee of the University of North Carolina. Hogg built three homes
<br />on the Eno River, one of which, Poplar Hill, passed to his daughter Robina and her husband
<br />William Norwood. In the 1890s, businessman and philanthropist Julian Shakespeare Carr of
<br />Durham purchased Poplar Hill and its surrounding acreage from the Norwood family and
<br />renamed it Occoneechee Farm after a local Indian tribe. Carr made additions to the plantation
<br />house and built a clubhouse for entertaining. He grew crops and raised livestock, notably
<br />racehorses for which he built a racetrack that later became the site of Occoneechee Speedway.ao
<br />In November 1923, Carr's estate was divided into seventeen tracts and sold at public auction.
<br />John Graham Webb purchased two tracts totaling two hundred acres including one parcel
<br />containing the house, clubhouse and racetrack. T.H. Webb acquired the two hundred acres in
<br />1927. The property conveyed to E. Buchanan Lyon and his wife in July 1945. One year later,
<br />W.S. Murchison and J.R. Rogers of Raleigh purchased the farm tract at auction for $10,00041
<br />The tract contained a large barn, tractors and other farm equipment and "200 acres of excellent
<br />farm land. "42 In the late 1940s, auto racing organizer and avid pilot Bill France Sr. of Daytona
<br />Beach, Florida noticed the Occoneechee Farm racetrack while flying over Orange County and in
<br />1947 approached the owners about selling the property to him. 43 On January 27, 1948 Murchison
<br />and Rogers sold the two hundred acres to Hillsboro Speedway, Inc. 44
<br />Five men interested in bringing automobile racing to central North Carolina incorporated
<br />Hillsboro Speedway, Inc. on September. 18, 1947.45 Upon filing papers with the North Carolina
<br />40 The News of Orange County, March 20, 1980.
<br />41 E. Buchanan Lyon and wife, Nancy Camp Lyon to W.S. Murchison and J.R. Rogers, July 26, 1946, Book 124, p.
<br />366 orange County Deeds orange County Register of Deeds, Hillsborough, North Carolina.
<br />42 The News of Orange County, August 1, 1946.
<br />43 William Crowther, correspondence to Jennifer Martin, Raleigh, N.C., November 27, 2001.
<br />44 W.S. Murchison and J.R. Rogers to Hillsboro Speedway, Inc., January 27, 1948, Book 129, p. 131 orange County
<br />Deeds orange County Register of Deeds, Hillsborough, North Carolina.
<br />45 Orange County Records of Incorporations, vols. 2 -3, 1878 -1952 (microfilm), State Archives, North Carolina
<br />Division of Archives and History, Raleigh; Sometime during the nineteenth or early twentieth century, the spelling
<br />of the name of the town of Hillsborough was unofficially changed to "Hillsboro." In 1965, the name officially
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