Occoneechee Speedway

The Occoneechee Speedway sits on around forty-two acres of land off Elizabeth Brady Road, about a mile outside downtown Hillsborough. The site is relatively tucked away, and is a quiet rural respite from the surrounding town. Although vegetation has taken over the site, which at one time used to be clear of trees, many original features from the track's 1948 opening remain, including the 0.9-mile dirt track, which runs in part along the Eno River, a concession stand, now in ruins, deteriorated men's and women's restroom buildings, and a ticket office. Additional structures, including a circa 1958 lightpost and a circa 1958 concrete grandstand measuring 208 feet in length, forty-four feet in width, and approximately eighteen and six-tenths feet in height, were installed by Orange County Schools after the property was leased to the district for school sporting events.

The track's history begins officially in 1948, although the land on which it sits has a storied past of its own. The Speedway occupies a former portion of the late-eighteenth-century plantation of James Hogg, an original trustee of the University of North Carolina. Hogg's plantation house, Poplar Hill, was one of three built by the slaveowner along the Eno River. Poplar Hill was passed from Hogg to his daughter, Robina, and her husband William Norwood. In the 1890s, Julian Shakespeare Carr purchased Poplar Hill and surrounding lands. He renamed it Occoneechee Farm after a local Native American tribe. Carr renovated Hogg's plantation house and built a large farm complex, as well as a horse-racing track for entertainment and recreation.

In 1923, Occoneechee Farm was split into seventeen tracts and sold at public auction. John Graham Webb purchased the land on which the horse-racing track sat. T.H. Webb acquired it in 1927. The property was transferred to E. Buchanan Lyon and his wife in 1945, and was sold to W.S. Murchison and J.R. Rogers of Raleigh in 1946 for $10,000. In 1947, Bill France, Sr., the founder of NASCAR, noticed the horse-racing track while flying over Hillsborough. In 1948, he bought the land from Murchison and Rogers.

With land in hand, France, along with North Carolinians Ben Lowe, Dobe Powell, Enoch Staley, and Joe Buck Dawson, announced plans to build a one-mile oval racetrack with seating capacity for 5,000 spectators. In February 1948, NASCAR was incorporated. On June 27, 1948, the Occoneechee Speedway opened for its first race, a one hundred mile NASCAR race, which attracted an estimated 20,000 fans. Fonty Flock won the first race.

From 1948 until 1954, dirt track races at the Occoneechee Speedway entertained working-class whites in Orange County and the surrounding area. In 1954, the name of speedway changed to the Orange Speedway. By 1956, NASCAR races had begun to be held on paved tracks, as they kept drivers safer, kept cars in better condition, and enabled more robust racing infrastructures. In 1958, Bill France, Sr., leased the racetrack to the Orange County Board of Education for $100 per year as a venue for local sports games. A football goalpost in the center of the track, as well as a lightpost and concrete grandstands are remnants of this change.

The final Grand National race was held at Orange Speedway on September 15, 1968. Richard Petty won. The corporation that owned the Orange Speedway voluntarily dissolved in May 1984. In June 1997, the Historic Preservation Foundation of North Carolina bought the land on which the Orange Speedway sat. In November 1997, the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust bought the land. It has since remained in their trust. In 2002, the Occoneechee/Orange Speedway was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Since November 2002, the site has been open to the public as a walking trail and natural site. Remnants of the track's heyday, including two stock cars and outbuildings, stand as a reminder of the past and as a record of the beginnings of one of the most popular sports in the United States today.

Martin, Jennifer. Woodard, Sarah. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Occoneechee Speedway, Hillsborough, North Carolina. Raleigh, North Carolina. Edwards-Pitman Environmental Incorporated, 2001.