The JC Raulston Arboretum (JCRA) is a public arboretum and garden created to serve three purposes; teaching, research, and extension programs. The 10.5-acre complex is located about one mile from the main campus and has 18 gardens, including the Butterfly Garden, Japanese Garden, and Paradise Garden. It has nine plant collections, which are considered the foundation of the arboretum. The plant collections include herbaceous perennials, a redbud collection, and the only dwarf loblolly pine collection in the world. In its first years, it was known as the North Carolina State University Arboretum. It was renamed in 1997 in memory of J.C. (James Chester) Raulston, a professor in the horticulture department at NC State. He was the driving force behind the creation of an arboretum and served as its first director. Raulston was born in Oklahoma and attended Oklahoma State University, graduating with a degree in agriculture. He completed his masters in horticulture at the University of Maryland and began his Ph.D., but his studies were interrupted by his U.S. Army service. He had participated in the U.S. Army’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps during his undergraduate degree and so was required to serve in the military. His service requirement was made more pressing by the beginning of the Vietnam War and in 1966 he became a member of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. His assignment was testing herbicides, better known as “agents.” In the war against Viet Nam, the United States used agents as defoliants to reveal supply lines, and exposure to them caused devastating health problems as well as environmental damage that disproportionately affected people in Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos. After his service, Raulston finished his Ph.D. and took a job teaching at the University of Bradenton in Florida and then Texas A&M University before accepting a job in the horticulture department at NC State University in 1975. According to the biography, Chlorophyll in His Veins by Bobby J. Ward, Raulston, a gay man, “was comfortable being out to many of his friends and a few colleagues [but] did not make his sexual orientation widely known.” However, in his first years at NC State, Raulston felt there was tension caused by homophobia between himself and some members of the faculty and administration. As he settled into Raleigh, he became more involved in the local gay community as well as the gay gardening community. In 1981, Raulston joined others in starting the Lavandula Society to support gay and lesbian horticulture and gardening professionals. When Raulston joined NC State in 1975, the horticulture department was growing and Raulston believed the department needed an arboretum for teaching and research. Ward writes that in 1976 James Strobel, the head of the horticulture department, created an ad-hoc committee co-chaired by Raulston and Russell Southhall, another horticulture faculty member, to explore the idea of creating an arboretum. Raulston wrote in the article, “A New Approach for Campus Arboretums,” that there was initial resistance from many faculty members who worried the arboretum would compete with their projects for funding, land and people. It took almost two years before the arboretum received full administrative approval. Despite the resistance, Raulston and other committee members began work on turning what was then known as Method Farm or Unit 4 Farm into an arboretum. Fielding Scarborough, a graduate student of Raulston in landscape architecture, created the design for the new arboretum as his master’s project. With Scarborough’s master plan in hand, in the fall of 1976, students planted the first plants at the arboretum, which Ward writes were a selection of woody plants provided by local nurseries. When plans for the arboretum began, there were few arboretums in the Southeast, and even fewer devoted to exotic plants. While there were two arboretums nearby, the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill and the Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham, Raulston believed there was a special need for an arboretum focused on exotic plants in the South. During his time at NC State, Raulston was involved in many international trips in which clippings were collected for the arboretum. Students and volunteers were instrumental in the creation of the arboretum and continue to be important to its operation. Especially in the early years of the arboretum, students and volunteers took part in large projects for the arboretum such as building the first visitor center. The JCRA has one of the most diverse collections of landscape plants adapted to the Southeast. Plant diversity was particularly important to Raulston. He wanted the arboretum to introduce people to new plants and to encourage southern gardeners to experiment with new plants. In order to further facilitate plant diversity outside of the arboretum they allowed members, other gardeners, and nurserymen to collect cuttings. This policy remains in place today and the number of plants distributed each year is recorded and published in the annual reports. Raulston died in 1996 in a head-on car crash which also claimed the life of 17-year-old Jonathan Bass. Upon his death, the NC State horticulture department voted unanimously to rename the arboretum after Raulston. The renaming was swiftly approved by the NC State University Board of Trustees. On its 40th anniversary the arboretum reported “there have been nearly 40,000 plants of 17,000 taxa trialed at the JC Raulston Arboretum.” Director Mark Warington wrote, “Few public gardens have had as great an impact on the field of horticulture in as short a timeframe as the JCRA. The Arboretum not only has a reputation for introducing new plants to cultivation, but perhaps more important, for introducing the right people to the right plants and getting them into production and available to the general public.” Original Source References J. C. Raulston Papers (MC 00578) Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. Friends of the JC Raulston Arboretum Newsletter Fall 2020 – Vol. 23, No. 2, https://jcra.ncsu.edu/publications/newsletters/51-vol-23-no-2/index.php. Friends of the Arboretum Newsletter Spring 2000 - Vol 4, No. 2 https://jcra.ncsu.edu/publications/newsletters/10-vol-4-no-2/10-vol-4-no-2.php. Technician (Raleigh, N.C.) (LH1.N6 T4), Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. Secondary Source References Elliott, Paul, Charles Watkins, and Stephen Daniels. "'Combining Science with Recreation and Pleasure': Cultural Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Arboretums." Garden History 35 (2007): 6-27. Accessed December 22, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25472374. Hay, Amy M. Defoliation of America: Agent Orange Chemicals, Citizens, and Protest. University of Alabama Press, 2021. “‘Moonlight in the Garden’ Returns to JC Raulston Arboretum” The Pilot. Oct 10, 2019. https://www.thepilot.com/news/features/moonlight-in-the-garden-returns-to-jc-raulston-arboretum/article_90aab10a-eab5-11e9-be1f-f38c60e74195.html The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Agent Orange,” Encyclopædia Britannica. September 22, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/science/Agent-Orange. Ward, Bobby J. Chlorophyll in His Veins: J.C. Raulston, Horticultural Ambassador. Raleigh, N.C.: BJW Books, 2009. Weathington, Mark. Gardening in the South: The Complete Homeowner's Guide : Plant Picks, Growing Advice, Style Tips. 2017. Ward, Bobby J. “J.C. Raulston and the Green Closet,” Garden Rant, August 32, 2013. https://www.gardenrant.com/2012/08/j-c-raulston-and-the-green-closet.html.
The original Pullen Hall stood from 1902 to 1965 near Holladay Hall in a space that now holds a parking lot. Like the current Pullen Hall one mile away on Dan Allen Drive, the old building served students. Also like its successor, the old building honored NC State’s original benefactor, Richard Stanhope Pullen (who went by “Stanhope”). The school built Pullen Hall because of a kitchen fire in Watauga Hall that also burned dormitory facilities on Nov. 19, 1901. The State Board of Agriculture in charge of the college resolved in 1902 meeting minutes to erect a separate building for the kitchens as well as “a dining hall for 500 students and [a] chapel or assembly room.” On May 15, 1902, NC State President George Winston laid the first brick for the building, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times. He told the gathered audience, “I read what you wrote about the propriety of naming [the building] ‘Pullen Memorial Hall,’ [and agreed it was] a worthy tribute to a good man…who did much for [North Carolina] and for Raleigh.” Students primarily used Pullen Hall, although the North Carolina Farmers’ Convention, Farm Women’s Convention, State Federation of Home Bureaus, and 4-H Clubs also met in Pullen Hall from before the building was completed in 1903 until the 1950s. Because of its chapel, stage, and wide-open gym, students hosted Young Men’s Christian Association meetings, literary society debates, dances, and baseball practices there in the 1900s and 1910s, according to The Red and White. They also played school pranks in Pullen Hall to escape mandatory chapel: an alumnus from 1917 recalled his classmates released beehives, while another from the class of 1914 admitted that as sophomores, his colleagues sneaked a live bear in from the now-gone Pullen Park Zoo. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the Technician reported that Pullen Hall was valuable to students hosting class meetings and guest speakers. Most often, the choir, band, glee club, and drama group performed there. Some of those artistic performances appear less innocent today. On Feb. 19, 1931, 30 NC State students performed what the Technician called “a campus-produced ‘ole-time black face minstrel’” show to raise money for stage equipment. The Faculty Council endorsed it, and Professor William Carraway even participated. The show was so popular, according to the Technician, that “200 would-be theater-goers were turned back at the door” and the musical lasted sixty extra minutes due to encores. Students performed again the following year. NC State was just one among many college campuses that fundraised using blackface minstrel performances in the 1930s, according to historian Rhae Lynn Barnes: shows involved few production costs because songs popular for blackface minstrelsy (like “Oh! Susanna”) had just entered the public domain, and attendance was high because predominantly-white civic institutions pushed performances as “part of the American past” amidst Great Depression-era uncertainty. The amateurs did not acknowledge that they promoted “romantic ideas about...slavery,“ according to Barnes, or that professional performers had traditionally used blackface to reassure working class audiences of their racial superiority to Black people, according to historian Eric Lott. After 1930, student performances did not stop people from complaining about Pullen Hall. “Students during bleak wintery days call it Noah’s Ark” the Tarheel Club News reported, which the Technician explained was because of its wooden, uninsulated structure and “old and musty exterior.” By 1951, the Extension Service also called Pullen “ancient.” Even Chancellor Carey Bostian said it needed “urgent repair” in 1954, while the Visiting Committee of the Board of Trustees declared Pullen’s wooden floors and stairwells, “rightfully condemned from the standpoint of safety” in 1962. The Committee's fears were realized on the night of Feb. 22, 1965, when Provost Banks Talley saw flames, as he told N&O, “belching from the whole side of Pullen Hall.” The building burned down, but not before two firemen and several student volunteers were injured. Two months later, the Rocky Mount Telegram reported that police charged an NC State dropout with starting the Pullen fire and seven previous, smaller fires. The culprit’s brother called him “deeply depressed” in the N&O. As he began a six-year sentence, the Charlotte Observer reported, NC State paved over Pullen’s ruins to build a parking lot, according to The Technician. In 1989, a great, great-nephew of Pullen wrote to the Institutional History and Commemoration Committee that “since Pullen Hall had burned some years ago, he would like to see some kind of a permanent memorial at the University,” according to meeting minutes. The Board of Trustees complied and named the three-year-old Student Services Center “R. Stanhope Pullen Hall” because “the Pullen legacy is the cornerstone of our campus and warrants perpetual recognition.” From 1990 to 2020, the new Pullen Hall housed offices such as career counseling and university housing, according to The Technician. Other services, such as the counseling center, “Disability Services,” student bank, and the Office of Hispanic Student Affairs, were there at times. Stanhope Pullen was born in Neuse, North Carolina on Sept. 18, 1822 to a “prominent planter,” according to his North Carolinian (NC) obituary. Stanhope’s family depended on forced labor: in 1840 and 1850, census workers listed him as a “merchant” living with his father, Turner Pullen. Turner enslaved twenty-four human beings in those decades, according to the 1840 Census and 1850 Slave Schedule. In 1860, census workers listed Stanhope’s occupation as a “gentleman” while he lived in the Raleigh house of his aunt, Penelope Smith. She enslaved twenty-five people in 1860, according to the Slave Schedule. During the Civil War, the obituary reported, Stanhope Pullen supplied troops while “holding a position in the office of the Quartermaster General under the late Carter H. Harrison.” In the post-war period, historian Joe Mobley wrote, Raleigh’s population skyrocketed, and wealthy people sought big, elegant homes. Pullen grew rich developing housing in new neighborhoods to meet demand, according to North Carolinian. Pullen also assisted Raleigh entrepreneurs by investing in cotton mills. But he refused to interfere in their management as owners paid paltry wages, maintained poor working conditions, and employed child laborers (according to Mobley). Because of his investments, Pullen left behind $200,000 at his death in 1895. Without a wife or children, Pullen devoted his fortune to civic projects. When the state bought land for its new agricultural college in 1887, Pullen feared the site provided little potential for expansion, according to N&O. So, Pullen bought the Eason Lee farm 1.5 miles west of the Capitol and divided it in half with a plow and mule, according to a 1923 Alumni News. He gave half to the city to create the park later named in his honor and offered the other half (sixty-six free acres) to the state government “for the establishment and conduct of a College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts,” according to two land deeds. Notably, the NC State News said Pullen’s selection upset “local sharecroppers, ill-at-ease about losing the rolling farmlands.” Nevertheless, Alumni News wrote in 1923, “commodious structures [including both Pullen Halls] are built upon land donated by a modern and unassuming man who…was an earnest believer in industrial education.” References Original Source References 1840 United States Census, Wake County, North Carolina, digital image s.v. "Turner Pullen," Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Census, St. Matthews District, Wake County, North Carolina, digital image s.v. "Turner Pullen," Ancestry.com. 1850 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules, St. Matthews District, Wake County, North Carolina, digital image s.v. "Turner Pullen," Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Census, Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina, digital image s.v. "Stanhope Pullen," Ancestry.com. 1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules, Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina, digital image s.v. "Penelope Smith," Ancestry.com. American Civil War Research Database. S.v. “J. C. Pullen.” “Auditorium Work at the A&M Begins,” Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, N.C.), May 15, 1902. “Black-Face Boys First to Be Seen Here in 16 Years,” The Technician (Raleigh, N.C.). February 13, 1931. Bostian, Carey H. to Alumni and Friends of North Carolina, November 1954. In Office of the Chancellor, Carey Hoyt Bostian Records, UA 002.001.003, Folder “Alumni Association.” Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. Bushong, William B. “Pullen Hall,” North Carolina Architects and Builders: A Biographical Dictionary, Copyright & Digital Scholarship Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. “Coming Farmers’ Convention,” News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), July 21, 1903. Committees, Institutional History and Commemoration Committee Records, UA 022.009, Box 5, Folders “Meeting Minutes, Annual Reports 1988-1989;” “Meeting Mins, Annual Reports 1989-1990.” NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. “Good Appointment.” Weekly State Journal (Raleigh, N.C.). August 12, 1863. “Enrollment of the Militia and Election of Officers,” Raleigh Register (Raleigh, N.C.). August 31, 1861. “Ex-Student Given New Fire Sentence.” Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.). August 31, 1967. “Gift of Mr. Pullen to the State of North Carolina,” March 22, 1887. In Office of Finance and Administration, Facilities Division, Construction Services Records, UA 003.004. Box 135, Folder “Pullen Deed.” Special Collections Research Center, NC State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. Lynch, Bob. “Huge Fire Destroys Pullen Hall, Damages Peele Hall at N.C. State.” News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), February 23, 1965. “The Militia,” Semi-Weekly Standard (Raleigh, N.C.). August 28, 1861. Olds, Fred A. “The State’s A&M College.” Charlotte Daily Observer (Charlotte, N.C.). May 9, 1909. “Original Pullen Gift.” 1887. In Alvin Marcus Fountain Papers. MC 0007. Box 2, Folders “Alumni Committee on Institutional History and Commemoration, Place Names, Research, Pullen Road.” Special Collections Research Center, NC State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. Owens, E.B. “Random Sketches of College History,” Alumni News (Raleigh, N.C.). April 1923. “Raleigh Mourns the Death of its Greatest Benefactor, Who Died Sunday Afternoon.” North Carolinian (Raleigh, N.C.). June 27, 1895. Technician (Raleigh, N.C.) (LH1.N6 T4), Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. Accessed September 18, 2020. "NC State University Libraries’ Digital Collections: Rare and Unique Materials. “Watauga Hall is a Mass of Ruins,” Morning Post (Raleigh, N.C.), Nov 30, 1901. “You might as well know the truth,” Tarheel Club News (Raleigh, N.C.). August 5, 1931. “Youth Charged in Fire Cases.” Rocky Mount Telegram (Rocky Mount, N.C.). April 4, 1965. North Carolina State University, and University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Agromeck. Raleigh, N.C.: Student Publication Authority, North Carolina State University, 1985. North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, Department of 4-H Youth Development Records, UA 102.010. Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, North Carolina State College, North Carolina, United States, and North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station. Extension Farm-News. Raleigh, N.C.: Agricultural Extension Service, 1915. North Carolina State University, Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes, UA 001.001. Special Collections Research Center NC State University Libraries . North Carolina State University. Alumni Association Publications, UA 010.200. Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. North Carolina State University. Office of Alumni Relations Publications, UA010.200. Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts. The Red & White. West Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, 1898. Secondary Source References Connolly, Nathan. (“The Faces of Racism”) Interview with Rhae Lynn Barnes. Backstory. Podcast transcript. February 8, 2019. https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/the-faces-of-racism/ Lockmiller, David A. History of the North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering of the University of North Carolina, 1889-1939. Raleigh: [Printed by Edwards & Broughton], 1939. Lott, Eric. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. Cary: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2013. Accessed December 30, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central. Mobley, Joe A. Raleigh, North Carolina: A Brief History. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2009. Reagan, Alice Elizabeth. North Carolina State University, A Narrative History. Raleigh: North Carolina State University Foundation and North Carolina State University Alumni Association, 1987.
Bostian Hall
On December 17, 1980, NC State University Chancellor Joab L. Thomas dedicated Bostian Hall on North Campus as a facility for research and teaching biological sciences. Thomas said during the dedication that the new building near the Brickyard honored “Carey Bostian, a warm, compassionate human being, dedicated and skillful administrator, and very clearly one of the world’s greatest teachers.” Three years prior, the News and Observer reported the school enrolled a record number of students in biology courses, leaving little laboratory space for “individual work by students and professors.” In response, the university allocated $2,705,000 to construct Bostian Hall. According to the dedication program, Architect F. Carter Williams paid particular attention to lecture halls and laboratories for instruction in designing the building which totaled 38,529 square feet. A 1983 Course Bulletin indicated many biological programs operated there, including the interdepartmental Biological Sciences and Pest Management for Crop Sciences programs. In 2020, Bostian still housed the Biological Sciences department, along with Plant and Microbial Biology. After hours, school organizations hosted events in Bostian such as the 1983 History Department panel with African American historians entitled “John Hope Franklin, Black History, and North Carolina State University” and the 1990 Women’s Resource Coalition discussion “Sex, Lies, and Campus Rape.” Bostian originally came to NC State in 1930 because of the Zoology Department. A Zoology professor had resigned suddenly, Bostian reported in a 1987 oral history, and his major professor at the University of Pittsburgh recommended the North Carolina native to fill the vacancy. NC State took the recommendation even though Bostian had neither applied for the position nor finished his dissertation. The State College News (SCN) reported that Bostian’s service on faculty committees after gaining full professorship in 1946 helped him attain the Director of Instruction position in 1950. When the chancellor position opened in 1953, students urged Gordon Gray, the Consolidated University president, to select Bostian. “I was reluctant to be nominated because I was afraid I’d be chosen,” Bostian joked in the oral history. But in his inaugural address on February 22, 1954, Bostian explained he endeavoured “to serve my college and my state.” Bostian valued his “direct relationship with students” as chancellor, according to his oral history. SCN reported he gathered more than $5000 in scholarships and loan funds and met bi-weekly with student leaders. He received the Distinguished Teaching Award twice, according to his obituary in Bulletin Online. Reagan reported he was also the first faculty member to win NC State’s prestigious Watauga Medal. When Bostian died in 2000, Friday noted in the obituary, “you miss a person like that because his influence never ends.” Nationwide and statewide forces also affected his term. Bostian spent approximately $8.5 million on nine new buildings; the funds came when voters approved a statewide bond. Because the federal government feared the Soviet Union’s nuclear proliferation and invested heavily in collegiate scientific education, Bostian installed a new nuclear reactor for what one booklet called “peacetime training and research.” Bostian also helped to convince Governor Luther Hodges to develop Research Triangle Park, which attracted technical and industrial companies to North Carolina. Racial integration was the most important movement to touch Bostian’s administration. He was careful to defend whatever position on integration was lawful and cost-effective. For instance, he wrote Gordon Gray in June 1955 that he would “be glad to” tell African American high schoolers that their applications ”must not be accepted” because of trustee and state policy, although he concurrently enrolled thirty-eight non-European international students (according to registration lists). After a September 1955 District Court case required the UNC system to overturn its segregation policy for undergraduates, however, Bostian admitted two African American students in the Summer 1956 session (as The Raleigh Times reported). In correspondence, Bostian then ordered the dining facilities manager to treat “Negro students exactly as any other student” and told a citizen “we are endeavoring to carry out the law without discriminating either for or against the Negroes we admit.” When Clemson University excluded Black members of NC State’s band from a 1956 football game, Bostian responded, “I don’t think our band ought to go” (according to Provost Nash Winstead and a 1993 Focus article). In 1955, Bostian also prioritized the budget when he sought Gray’s permission to invite Black agricultural extension workers to summer training. He hoped “to provide instruction for the Negro workers on our own campus in order to avoid a great expense in time and money.” Still, like most leaders of predominantly white universities of the time, he did not address underlying inequalities in the segregated South. He proposed standardized tests for applicants in a 1954 letter, which his own faculty members opposed because other states used tests “to discriminate against blacks,” according to historian Alice Reagan. Although Bostian sought integrated extension training, he told the Board of Trustees they could lodge and feed the Black agents off campus. Winstead reported Bostian later “ruled that the agents could eat in the cafeteria.” According to Dean of the School of Agriculture and Life Sciences James Legates, who quoted Bostian during the 1980 dedication speech for the hall, Bostian left the chancellorship in 1959 because he wanted “to inform as many people as I can about genetics.” To do so, he taught an 800-student “Genetics in Human Affairs” course (according to his oral history) and spoke before alumni and civic organizations. “Control of genetic processes holds great promises for the good of man,” he told audiences such as the Raleigh Rotary Club in 1977, “while presenting moral and ethical problems.” For Bostian, it was most important to improve life through scientific investigation. Bostian’s complicated approach to genetics was typical of his time. Bostian advocated for applying new knowledge of human genetics, following the trend of some biologists who envisioned their field generating and then affecting policies based on exciting discoveries. For instance, he celebrated the scientific revelation that “large numbers of diseases and defects are due to heredity,” as he told an Introduction to Agriculture class in 1970. But unless more couples “made use of genetic counseling,” he advised the Watauga Club that same year, “eventually the load of genetic defects will get to the place that compulsory sterilization will be necessary.” The comments echoed the fears and solutions proposed by geneticists discussing the long-term effects of radiation on human health, according to Turney. But Bostian also reflected pre-World War II stances on genetics when he asked in his 1970 Watauga Club speech, “what will be lost to society if parents [with low IQ’s] were to be sterilized?” In 1966, biologist Joshua Lederberg reported that only “a minority” of the many scientists discussing selective breeding “would seek the sanction of law to enforce the doctrine.” “Most geneticists,” he said, “would insist on a deeper knowledge of human genetics before considering statutory intrusion on personal liberties in this sphere.” In that 1970 Watauga Club speech, “Genetics and the Future of Man,” Bostian described a future advocated by some geneticists: one with selective breeding techniques like “clonal propagation,” “genetic engineering,” and fertilization of eggs outside of a woman’s womb, three possibilities that historian Jon Turney says captured the imagination of some biologists at the time. But other scientists feared “horrifying results” from the new techniques, while journalists declared the “more powerful techniques” of selective breeding “frightening.” Bostian concluded a “less spectacular way of upgrading the genetic make-up of society seeks to encourage a higher birth rate in families where parents are above average in intelligence and achievements, to counteract the higher birth rate among those families of lower intelligence and lesser achievements.” His comment suggested he believed intelligence was genetic. Even though Bostian saw a possible future for compulsory sterilization for low-IQ individuals and advocated increased birth rates among parents with “above average intelligence,” his views were not totally out of the mainstream for geneticists at the time and in Bostian’s generation. References Original Source References Carey H. Bostian, interview by D.W. Colvard, January 17, 1979, transcript and recording, Knowledge is Power Oral History Collection, North Carolina State University, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Office of the Dean Records, UA 100.001, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/ua100_001-001-oj0098-008 Carey Hoyt Bostian Papers, MC 00076, Box 3: Folders “Talks,1967-1968,” “Talks,1970,” “Talks,1977,” NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center Committees, Institutional History and Commemoration Committee Records, UA 022.009, Box 9, Folders “Correspondence, memos, meeting mins, annual reports, 1978-1979;” “Correspondence, memos, meeting mins, annual reports, 1979-1980;” “Correspondence, memos, meeting mins, annual reports, 1980-1981;” NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center Office of the Chancellor, Carey Hoyt Bostian Records, UA 002.001.003, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center Box 1: Folders “Agriculture, School of, 1954;” Box 2: Folders “‘F’ General, 1954;” Box 4: Folders “Students, Negro, 1954;” Box 5: Folders “Students,1955;” Box 7: Folders “‘E’ - General, 1955;” Box 11: Folders “‘C’ - General, 1956;” Folders “‘D’ - General, 1956;” Box 13: Folders “Student Affairs, Office of, 1956;” “Students,1956;” Box 18: Folders “UNC Consolidated, President William C. Friday, 1957;” “Students, 1957” Box 22: Folders “Nuclear Reactor;” “Student Affairs, Office of, 1957;” “Student Affairs, Office of, 1958;” “Students, 1958;” “UNC Consolidated, President William C. Friday, 1957.” University Archives Reference Collection, Biographical Files, UA 050.003, Box 45, Folder “Bostian, Carey Hoyt,” NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center University Archives Reference Collection, University Buildings, Sites, & Landmarks Files, UA 050.004, Box 2, Folder “Bostian Hall,” NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. Secondary Source References Donaldson, Devan. Desegregation at North Carolina State University -- The Early Years. Galesburg, Illinois: National Association for Black Culture Centers, 2007. In University Archives Reference Collection Student Research Projects, 1969 - 2007 (UA050.005), Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/ua050_005-donaldson Frasier, Ralph K. “Frasier v. UNC--A Personal Account.” The Negro Educational Review 56, no.1 (2005): 83-90. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:bsc:&rft_dat=xri:bsc:rec:iibp:00253357 Lederberg, Joshua. "Experimental Genetics and Human Evolution." The American Naturalist 100, no. 915 (1966): 519-31. Accessed November 27, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2459206. Levin, Matthew. Cold War University: Madison and the New Left in the Sixties. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central. Link, Albert N. and John T. Scott. “The Growth of Research Triangle Park.” Small Business Economics 20, no. 2 (2003): 167–175. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1022216116063 Reagan, Alice Elizabeth. North Carolina State University, A Narrative History. Raleigh: North Carolina State University Foundation and North Carolina State University Alumni Association, 1987. Turney, Jon. Frankenstein's Footsteps: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Winstead, Nash Nicks. The Inclusion and Involvement of African-Americans at North Carolina State University, 1953-1993. Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina State University, 2000. Inclusion and Involvement of African-Americans at North Carolina State University, 1953-1993 (LD3928 .W5 2000) held by Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/LD3928-W5-2000
James B. Hunt Library, located on Centennial Campus, is a research library focused on science, engineering, technology and textiles, all strengths of NC State University. It was opened in 2013 and has since been the recipient of numerous awards including the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the highest honor given to libraries in the United States, and the AIA / ALA Library of the Year Award in 2013. In 2015, Library Journal gave its “New Landmark Library” to the Hunt Library. The library is named after James B. Hunt, North Carolina’s first two term governor and the state’s only four term governor. He served from 1977 to 1985 and 1993 to 2001. Hunt graduated from NC State University in 1959 with his bachelor in agricultural education and in 1962 with his masters in agricultural economics. He served two terms as NC State’s student body president. In Hunt’s first term in office he helped to pass an amendment to the state Constitution allowing governors to serve two consecutive terms. As Governor, he appointed the first Black cabinet secretary, the first Black North Carolina Supreme Court justice, and the first Black chief justice in North Carolina. In his four terms as governor he was particularly known for championing educational policies. He was also instrumental in the creation of NC State’s Centennial Campus, when he granted the school 385 acres of land in 1984. The driving force behind Hunt Library was Susan Nutter. She was the vice provost and director of libraries before her retirement in 2017. When she arrived at NC State in 1987, the library was in dire need of updated facilities. A particular challenge was the lack of space for students. The University of North Carolina system standard for libraries is to provide space for 20 percent of the student body. NC State was failing to meet this standard, a problem that continued into the 21st century. In 2009, the libraries had space for fewer than 9 percent of students. In a Technician article, David Hiscoe, the Director of Communication Strategy at NC State University Libraries, reported, “During exams I would have students lying on the floor outside of the door to my office in D. H. Hill trying to study.” Nutter had a vision to re-create the image of the school’s libraries. She believed that libraries should be inspiring places and envisioned making a state-of-the-art library for NC State. During a talk at the 2015 Designing Libraries for the 21st Century Conference, Nutter recalled that in the early 2000s NC State offered her $9.5 million to build an addition to D.H. Hill Library. Believing the University needed something more than just a space to cram more students into, Nutter turned them down, and her persistence paid off. In 2007, the North Carolina General Assembly appropriated funds for the new library. To pick the designers, NC State held a charrette, a process in which design teams partnered with students to create proposals for the new library. The design firm Snøhetta was selected, but not because the University loved their initial design. In fact, as Elaine Molinar, an architect with Snøhetta, recalled in a Storycorps interview, “The work that we turned out at the end of the day was not very good, in fact I think [they] all hated it.” What set Snøhetta apart from the competition was their interactions and collaboration with the students on their team. This was important to Nutter, who always stressed that the library was primarily for the students. Snøhetta also had an impressive resume, having previously designed the award-winning Library of Alexandria in Egypt. Construction on Hunt Library began in 2009. Breaking from University precedent, Nutter did not want a brick library. Instead it was built out of aluminum and glass. The facade, which features a wall of metal curtains, is meant to resemble a textile. This feature also regulates the light within the library, controlling the temperature while still allowing natural light. Usability and environmental sustainability were top design priorities. To achieve sustainability, they included features like solar heated water and incorporated recycled building material. To increase usability, they focused on details like glass walls and tables that could double as whiteboards, and different chairs and table types for individual study and group collaboration. Technology is an important part of Hunt Library. This is exhibited in spaces such as the Game Lab and the Teaching & Visualization Lab. It also meant that when designing Hunt Library questions of WiFi and cell connectivity were important factors. The most famous technology located in the building might be the bookBot, a system that retrieves books from closed, high-density shelving. The bookBot was selected because using open shelving for the 800,000 and one million volumes the library expected to house left little room for the desperately needed study space. The building is also home to the Institute for Emerging Ideas (IEI), a group founded by Governor Hunt. The digital exhibit, James B. Hunt: A Legacy of Leadership, called the IEI a “think and do tank,” that tries to solve issues in education, economy, health, and both the built and natural environment. Nutter was against allocating space to the IEI, as it took away space from the library. This is reflected in the North Carolina State University Libraries Annual Report, 2014/2015, which stated despite Hunt opening, the libraries still only had space for 13 percent of students, rather than the goal of 20 percent. This has since been helped by the renovations of D.H. Hill library. When the library was first proposed, there was some opposition from students. An op-ed piece from the Technician shows that some students were upset over the high cost and others upset about its location on Centennial Campus. However, student’s reception of the library has generally been positive, and it is considered a competitive advantage for the University and the heart of Centennial Campus. Original Source References Baumgartner, Peter, Jake Frost, Erica Shirts Frost, “Chairs of Hunt Library.”Tumblr. Accessed Nov 11, 2020. https://chairsofhuntlibrary.tumblr.com/. Elaine Molinar, Marvin Malecha, and Susan Nutter 2017, StoryCorps Oral Histories about the North Carolina State University Libraries, MC 00619, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. Hunt Library, North Carolina State University Libraries, Director's Office Records, UA 012.001, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. Interview with Gwen Emery by Virginia Ferris, 22 June 2015, The NCSU Libraries Oral Histories about the James B. Hunt Jr. Library, MC 00200, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. NC State University Libraries. “Technology at Hunt Library.” Accessed Nov. 11, 2020. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/huntlibrary/technology. Nutter, Susan, Joe Hewitt, and David Ferriero, StoryCorps Oral Histories about the North Carolina State University Libraries, MC 00619, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. Nutter, Susan., et al. Creating a vision. [A presentation from Designing Libraries for the 21st Century, Raleigh, NC]. (2015, September 21). Retrieved from https://mckimmon.online.ncsu.edu/online/Play/af2f5b2593624a4790f703cece99feeb1d?c atalog=204eeecb-2f0f-4b4b-a1d9-b13bc33f1dd3. Technician (Raleigh, N.C.) (LH1.N6 T4), Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. NC State Libraries.“North Carolina State University Libraries Annual Report, 2014/2015.” https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/documents/annualreports/AnnualRep1415.pdf. Buro Happoid, Davis Langdon, DEGW, PBC+L, Snøhetta. “James B. Hunt Library Programming & Pre-Design Final Report.” August 8, 2008. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/sites/default/files/huntlibrary/documents/102508_ppd.pdf. North Carolina State University and Meyer, Scherer and Rockcastle, Ltd. “Library Master Plan.” June 2002. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/sites/default/files/huntlibrary/documents/masterplan_final.pdf. Secondary Source References Marty, Paul F. "An Introduction to Digital Convergence: Libraries, Archives, and Museums in the Information Age." Archival Science 8, no. 4 (2008): 247-250. doi:http://dx.doi.org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/10.1007/s10502-009-9094-1. https://proxying.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/docview/214894353?accountid=12725. NCSU Libraries. “North Carolina State University Libraries Annual Report, 2014/2015.” NC State University. Accessed November 12, 2020. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/documents/annualreports/AnnualRep1415.pdf. Pearce, Gary. 2010. Jim Hunt: a biography. Travel Guides, Fiction and More. Winston-Salem, N.C.: John F. Blair, Publisher. https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=D0892FFC-1B46-4494-A754-DB19E9062D41. Carr, Patrick L. “Extending the Technological, Discursive, and Rhetorical Horizons of Academic Research Libraries’ Information Architectures: An Analysis of North Carolina State University's James B. Hunt Jr. Library,” (PhD diss., East Carolina University, Greenville, June, 2017), 176. https://thescholarship.ecu.edu/bitstream/handle/10342/6342/CARR-DOCTORALDISSERTATION-2017.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. “James B. Hunt Jr. Library” NC State Sustainability. Accessed November 3, 2020. https://sustainability.ncsu.edu/campus/buildings/leed/james-b-hunt-jr-library/. NCSU Libraries. “James B. Hunt Jr. A Legacy of Leadership.” NC State University. Accessed Nov 1, 2020. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/hunt-legacy-of-leadership/. Beckwith, Ryan Teague.“Jim Hunt” NCpedia. December 26, 2007. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/jim-hunt. Media “The Hunt Library Story (updated)” NC State. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okr78MUrImI. Our State. “Hunt Library: The Library of the Future.” PBS. May 2, 2016. https://www.pbs.org/video/our-state-hunt-library-library-future/.
Brick Layers: An Atlas of New Perspectives on NC State's Campus History
Centennial Campus was named in honor of NC State’s 100th anniversary, which occurred in 1987. It is located south of the original campus (now North Campus). Differing from traditional campuses, Centennial plays host to university, industry, and government partners. It is home to academic bodies like the College of Engineering, the Veterinary Medical Campus, and the Wilson College of Textiles, but also to LexisNexis, an office of the National Weather Service, and Centennial Campus Magnet Middle School. The campus also has housing, a golf course, a state-of-the-art library, and a hotel and conference center. Plans for Centennial Campus began in the early 1980s at NC State. There was a desperate need for more space to accommodate a growing student population which had surpassed 20,000 for the first time. To address this need, Bruce Poulton, who became chancellor in 1982, spearheaded plans to create a new campus and in 1984 Governor Hunt (an NC State graduate) transferred 385 acres to NC State for a new campus. This was followed by a second grant in 1985 by Governor James. G. Martin of another 450 acres. The governors transferred this land from Dorthea Dix Hospital, originally known as the Asylum for the Insane of North Carolina to the college in order to enhance the level of education and economic opportunity in North Carolina, and for this reason Centennial Campus is often considered NC State’s second land-grant. Centennial Campus grew through additional grants and purchases to eventually total over 1,000 acres. In 1988, NC State bought 76 acres from the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh. After negotiating over the price, the News & Observer reported the Diocese agreed to sell the land for $7.5 million, pending approval from the Pope. The land had once been the site for the Nazareth Catholic Orphanage. The orphanage had a small graveyard and there is some uncertainty about where or whether the graves were moved. In September of 1985, Chancellor Bruce Poulton created the University Planning committee. They reached out to see what buildings and programs the University community wanted on Centennial Campus and received 83 proposals. Many departments had a strong desire to build competitive graduate research facilities. The Carley Capital Group was hired as the master developers and along with the University Planning committee created the master plan. Two design principles for Centennial Campus were respecting the land and cluster development. This means designs followed the natural topography of the land and were ecologically sound. Cluster development means that buildings were set up in “neighborhoods” with doors facing central courtyards and connected by walking paths. According to Paige Meszaros’s “The History of North Carolina State University's Centennial Campus,” there was no shortage of opposition. Some questioned the legality of the land transfer, while others resented the land being taken from the then still operational Dix Hospital. There was even opposition from faculty. Denis Wood, a design professor, wrote an unfavorable letter to the editor about Centennial Campus. In return, Chancellor Poulton informed Dr. Wood that by signing the unfavorable comments with his official NC State title, he had violated the Faculty Rights and Responsibilities section of the University of North Carolina Code. Traffic was another controversial issue. The contention intensified over plans to build a new road, Century Boulevard. There was an erroneous assumption that Century Boulevard was NC State’s project and Chancellor Poulton had to respond to letters from upset residents and alumni, informing them the road was the city of Raleigh’s project. The city council created alternative proposals and in 1995 construction began on Centennial Parkway. From the beginning travel between the two campuses occurred by bus, car, bike, and foot, but in the 1990s the University seriously considered building a monorail. This idea was ultimately shelved due to high cost. In May 1987, construction began on the College of Textiles complex. In an interview Bob Barnhardt, then Dean of the College of Textiles, remembered how the move was initially resisted by faculty who feared being isolated and worried about scheduling classes on a separate campus. On his first day they presented him with a signed paper stating they had voted unanimously not to move. However, in 1991 textiles became the first college to move to Centennial Campus. As construction began in the late 80s and early 90s, the University was uncertain if it would be successful attracting businesses. The land is public and so is owned by the people of North Carolina. This means NC State can only lease the land to businesses, not sell. Claude McKinney, Special Assistant to the Chancellor for the Development of Centennial Campus, remembered in an interview how this caused them to lose some partnerships, “You had a number of people, Cotton, Inc. being one—they just wanted to own the land. If they were going to build a building on it, they wanted to own it first. And we said, “But you can’t do that.’” In 1991 ABB became the first major corporate partner. Frank Hart, provost under Chancellor Monteith, remembered in an interview that ABB was attracted by NC State’s access to technology. NC State works with all its partners to create beneficial partnerships. All Centennial Campus partners must collaborate in some way with NC State, and in addition to the intellectual resources on campus, partners also have access to certain University amenities like the libraries and can get discounts on events such as football. In the late 90s, the first multi-tenant buildings on Centennial opened and were soon full. Jaine Place, the Partnership Development Specialist, explained in an interview that the early days of Centennial Campus aligned with the dot-com bubble and they had a constant stream of interested business partners. By 2018, Centennial Campus could boast of over 75 on-campus partners including IBM and the National Security Agency. In his 2018 “Centennial Campus Update,” Chancellor Randy Woodson wrote, “These partnerships solve complex global challenges, provide real-world opportunities to our students and faculty, and create jobs and investment for NC and beyond.” References Original Source References Barnhardt, Bob. “Interview with Bob Barnhardt.” Interview by Chad Morgan. Centennial Campus Oral Histories, MC 00066, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/centennialcampus/oral_history/scrc_barnhardt.html. “Centennial Campus” NC State University. Accessed October 9, 2020. https://centennial.ncsu.edu/. Graziano, Carl. “City study backs Century Boulevard construction.” News & Observer, (Raleigh, NC), May 20, 1987. Newspapers.com. https://www.newspapers.com/image/655734362. Hart, Frank. Interview with Creative Services. Office of Public Affairs, Creative Services Records, 1889-2014, UA014.015, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/centennialcampus/eprofiles.html. Hunt, James. “Governor Jim Hunt Interview.” Interview with Creative Services. Office of Public Affairs, Creative Services Records, 1889-2014, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. UA014.015. https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/ua014_015-036-cn0137-K505. Joseph, Toni. “Alternative plans to Century Boulevard offered.” News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), September 9, 1987. Newspapers.com. https://www.newspapers.com/image/655749621/?terms=centennial%20parkway&match=1. Litt, Steven. “Promising design plan presents challenge for Centennial Campus.” News & Observer, (Raleigh, NC), December 30, 1987. Newspapers.com. Accessed October 13, 2020. https://www.newspapers.com/image/655888547. Litt, Steven. “Road paved with good intentions?” News & Observer, (Raleigh, NC), June 7, 1987.Newspapers.com. https://www.newspapers.com/image/655733896/?terms=century%20boulevard&match=1. McKinney, Claude. “Interview with Claude McKinney.” Interview with Creative Services. Office of Public Affairs, Creative Services Records, 1889-2014, UA014.015, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/ua014_015-036-cn0134-K499. North Carolina State University, Office of the Chancellor, Bruce Robert Poulton Records, UA 002.001.006, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/ua002_001_006/access. North Carolina State University, Office of Finance and Administration, Centennial Campus Records, UA 003.010, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/ua003_010/access. Place, Jaine. “Jaine Place oral history interview.” Interview by Chad Morgan. Centennial Campus Oral Histories, MC 00066, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/mc00066-001-bx0001-005-001. Poulton, Bruce. Interview with Creative Services. Office of Public Affairs, Creative Services Records, 1889-2014, UA014.015,NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/centennialcampus/eprofiles.html. Technician (Raleigh, N.C.) (LH1 .N6 T4), Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. Worsley, George. “NCSU Creative Services Centennial Campus Interviews — Worsley.” Interview with Creative Services. Office of Public Affairs, Creative Services Records, 1889-2014, UA014.015, NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/ua014_015-036-cn0137-K502. Sykes, Debbi. “Catholics to sell land to NCSU.” News & Observer (Raleigh, NC), May 26, 1988. Newspapers.com. Accessed October 13, 2020. https://www.newspapers.com/image/655402618/?terms=Vatican%20approval%20centennial%20campus&match=1. Secondary Source Resources Albert N. Link, John T. Scott, The economics of university research parks, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Volume 23, Issue 4, Winter 2007, Pages 661–674, https://doi-org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/10.1093/oxrep/grm030. Catholic Diocese of Raleigh. “Cathedral campus transformation continues; land sale transacted in conjunction with Pullen Road project.” April 25, 2018. https://dioceseofraleigh.org/news/cathedral-campus-transformation-continues-land-sale-transacted-conjunction-pullen-road-project. “Enrollment History – NC State 1889-Present.” NC State University. Accessed October 12, 2020. https://oirp.ncsu.edu/students/enrollment/headcount-enrollment/headcount-archives_reports_resources/enrollment-history/enrollment-history-nc-state-1889-present/. High, Morgan. “Inside ABB and NC State’s Decadeslong Partnership.” NC State University, September 22, 2020. https://news.ncsu.edu/2020/09/abb-nc-state-partnership/. Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral. “The Nazareth Property.” Accessed October 12, 2020. https://www.raleighcathedral.org/content.cfm?id=665. Meszaros, Paige. “The History of North Carolina State University's Centennial Campus.” Centennial Documentation Project. NCSU Libraries. Special Collections Research Center. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/centennialcampus/ehistory.html NC State Facilities. “Campus History: The Physical Development of NC State University.” Accessed October 12, 2020. https://facilities.ofa.ncsu.edu/about-us/campus-history/. NC State University. “Centennial Campus Celebrating 30 Years of Innovation.” https://nebraskalegislature.gov/pdf/reports/committee/appropriations/lr200_ncsu_2015.pdf NC State University. “Centennial Campus Update.” March 2, 2018. https://leadership.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2018-3-2-BOV-Centennial-Update-FINAL.pdf. NC State University Libraries. “Historical State Timelines”. Accessed October 10, 2020. https://historicalstate.lib.ncsu.edu/timelines/centennial-campus. Noble, David F.. America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism (Galaxy Books). United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 1979. RTI International Center for Technology Applications, “Intellectual Property and Technology Commercialization in North Dakota.” July 7, 2006. https://www.legis.nd.gov/files/resource/committee-memorandum/ec071906appendixh1.pdf Shaffer, Josh. “They died at a Raleigh orphanage, but no one knows exactly where they are now.” News & Observer, (Raleigh, NC), Updated November 10, 2017. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/josh-shaffer/article183205001.html. Tauss, Leigh, “Raleigh Finally Pays Due to Indigenous People in a Dix Park Ceremony.” Indy Week (Raleigh, NC), August 5, 2020. https://indyweek.com/news/wake/dix-park-native-land-acknowledgment/.
Yarbrough Drive Steam Plant and Smokestack
Since at least 1996, Facilities Division has called the plant “Yarbrough Drive Steam Plant.” The drive, noted historian Doris King in 1987, was a “permanent memorial” to Louis Thomas Yarbrough, “a man whose love and loyalty to the institution were outstanding.” Yarbrough was born on October 18, 1873 in Caswell County, North Carolina, according to his obituary. The graduate of a “one-teacher school,” Yarbrough enrolled with the college’s first class in 1889 on scholarship. AN reported he taught at NC State for four years after his graduation in 1893, then joined the US Post Office Department. Yarbrough spent over thirty-seven years with the mail service, first as a clerk, then as manager of the state capitol’s post office, and finally as an esteemed postal inspector. As inspector, he caught local thieves stealing mail and international criminals shipping fraudulent merchandise. Yarbrough remained close to his alma mater, physically and socially. He settled on Hillsborough Street, where he offered an “Open House” for visiting alumni until his death in 1952, according to King. AN reported Yarbrough also chaired the Alumni Association’s “Necrology [obituary] Committee” and attended commencement ceremonies until at least 1945. Most importantly, Yarbrough helped his daughter Mary fall in love with and eventually attend NC State, where she became the first woman to earn a Master of Science from the college in 1927. Today, the smokestack named after Louis Yarbrough overlooks a courtyard named after Mary Yarbrough. The iconic spot had humble beginnings, and since has reflected larger themes in US environmental history. On February 8, 1924, The Technician newspaper announced North Carolina State College’s plans for its new power plant located seventy-five feet from the railroad tracks. A 175-foot-high smokestack was adjacent, eight feet in diameter. “The name of the college,” the newspaper wrote, “will be set in white brick near the top of the stack…visible to those approaching Raleigh from” the west. Since 1924, the school has constructed a street leading to the plant (Yarbrough Drive), has surrounded it with buildings (including Riddick and SAS Halls), and has reduced its environmental impact. The smokestack remains a lively landmark on campus. Historian Alice Reagan explained there had been a power plant next to Page Hall since 1907. But as the 1926 college catalog noted, the North Carolina General Assembly funded five new campus buildings from 1921-1925. “A new power plant at the College became necessary to provide heat, light and power for the new construction,” The Alumni News (AN) reported in January 1924. Using a design by J.E. Sirrine, the school built the plant for $107,000 that year, according to blueprints and contracts. The construction process was unpleasant and dangerous: AN recalled how “mud was an ever-present commodity” while contractor J.A. Gardner installed steam tunnels, and The Technician reported that two construction workers fell more than fifteen feet on November 28, 1924 when the building’s scaffolding collapsed (both survived). By January 1925, reporters were relieved to see “small rolls of white smoke gently making their escape” as Gardner completed tests, and the smokestacks were fully operational by February. From then on, the school improved and expanded the power plant about every ten years to keep up with heat and electricity demands, according to records from the Office of the University Architect. Sixty-two years after its construction, it was still going strong, and an article in Technician emphasized the diversity of activity on campus by listing that it powered “autoclaves, pasteurization equipment, soil sterilizers, a coal gasification project, and machinery in various labs.” Not everyone praised the smokestack and plant, as reported occasionally in Technician. They made NC State look like a factory, complained one columnist in 1967. “Passengers riding through campus on the Amtrak trains probably think ‘cow college’ instead of ‘world-class university’ when they see the smokestack,” another argued in 1988. When the school’s name changed in 1965, however, a student urged the university not to remove “State College” from the smokestack to “visibly retain our gritty, yokel image.” Campus community members in the 1970s, as many in the US with new concerns about the environment, objected to the impact of the coal-burning power plant. “The smoke stack still competes as one of Raleigh’s biggest polluters,” a Technician writer lamented in August of 1970. A month later, the North Carolina Board of Water and Air Resources ordered state agencies –including the university—to burn more efficient fuels in their power plants, like natural gas and oil. Students were not entirely satisfied with the school’s planned conversions. By October of 1971, two boilers still awaited conversion, and the City of Raleigh asked NC State to switch back to burning coal in all boilers during the winter to preserve natural gas. Nationwide, demand for natural gas exceeded supply in the 1970s, the Federal Energy Administration reported in 1975. That led to shortages like Raleigh’s. For some, the smokestack became a symbol of pollution; a Housing Advisory Board member complained in 1972, “we find State’s smokestack--an atavistic edifice of unpromising and, hopefully, short future--still belching forth bilious smoke on occasions of extreme cold.” By 1974, Facilities switched all the boilers to natural gas for about $327,200. The students’ comments reflected statewide and national concern about air pollution. Health officials began documenting poor air quality and its toll on North Carolina’s humans and animals in the 1960s. The new studies overlapped with national “public concern and political initiatives,” according to researchers Charles Roe and Karl Rohr, so North Carolina politicians responded. The General Assembly and voters amended the state constitution to include an “Environmental Bill of Rights” on November 7, 1971. From then until 1985, the state government passed fifty-nine new environmental statutes, by legal scholar Milton Heath’s calculation. Still, businesses lobbied for and won the Hardison amendments in the late 1970s, blocking additional non-federal regulations. In 2014, the university again addressed the plant’s environmental impact when it “increased capacity, performance, and reliability of steam production,” according to the Office of the University Architect. For $56 million, the school retrofitted the building, traded the three 1974 boilers for larger ones, and converted to a cleaner-burning oil, according to Technician. The modifications, designed by Jacobs Engineering Group and documented on the plant’s website, earned the building a LEED Silver certification. The Yarbrough Drive Steam Plant and Smokestack have served the campus in different ways for different people. Beyond its main function as a source of power, the building has been (among other things) a symbol for the university’s humble origins and committed alumni, a wayfinding feature, a source of pride, and a metaphor for environmental damage. References **Note: The name “Yarbrough” was often misspelled as “Yarborough” in newspapers and school records. Researchers hoping to learn more about the plant or members of the Yarbrough family should search with both spellings. Original Source References Alvin Marcus Fountain Papers. MC 0007. Box 2, Folders and “Alumni Committee on Institutional History and Commemoration, Place Names, Research, Heating Plant, 1972;” “Alumni Committee on Institutional History and Commemoration, Place Names, Research, Power Plant, 1972.” Special Collections Research Center, NC State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. “Durhamite to Speak.” Durham Sun (Durham, N.C.), February 7, 1899, page 1. Newspapers.com. Accessed October 9, 2020. https://www.newspapers.com/image/76082678. Federal Energy Administration, Office of Policy and Analysis. “The Natural Gas Shortage: A Preliminary Report.” Washington, DC: Federal Energy Administration, 1975. Ron Nessen Papers. Box 10, Folder “Energy - Natural Gas Shortage.” Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0204/1511759.pdf G.A. Dees Cartoons. MC 0201. Flat folder 1. Special Collections Research Center, NC State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. “L.T. Yarbrough Dies Here.” News and Observer. (Raleigh, N.C.), March 25, 1952, page 4. Newspapers.com. Accessed October 9, 2020. http://www.newspapers.com/image/654741306. “North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering Catalog, 1926-1927.” North Carolina State University. Course catalog (LD3928.A2253), Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. Accessed October 9, 2020. "NC State University Libraries’ Digital Collections: Rare and Unique Materials." https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/1928 Office of Alumni Relations Publications. UA010.200. Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. Accessed October 9, 2020. "NC State University Libraries’ Digital Collections: Rare and Unique Materials." Office of Finance and Administration, Facilities Division, Design and Construction Services Department Records. UA003.004. Box 116, Folder “Power Plant, 1924-1925 and 1948-1950.” Office of Finance and Administration, Office of Finance and Business, Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities Records. UA003.005. Box 52, Folder “Yarbrough Steam Plant.” NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. Office of Finance and Administration, Office of the University Architect Records. UA003.026. Tubes 301A-301D. NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. “The Portrait of August Leazar.” Farmer and Mechanic. (Raleigh, N.C.), May 30, 1911, page 9. Newspapers.com. Accessed October 9, 2020. https://www.newspapers.com/image/57406902. Technician. LH1.N6 T4. Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. Accessed October 9, 2020. "NC State University Libraries’ Digital Collections: Rare and Unique Materials.” University Archives Reference Collection, Biographical Files, UA 050.003. Box 61, Folders “Yarbrough, Louis,” and “Yarbrough, Mary.” NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. University Archives Reference Collection, University Buildings, Sites, Landmarks Files, UA 050.004. Box 7, Folder “Power Plant;” Box 9, Folders “Yarbrough Court,” “Yarbrough Plant,“ “Whistle,” “First Class.” NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. Water Wheel Construction, MSS 0100. Box MSS 3, Folder 00100 -1. Special Collections Research Center, NC State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. Secondary Source References Heath, Milton S Jr and Alex L. Hess III. “The Evolution of Modern North Carolina Environmental and Conservation Policy Legislation.” Campbell Law Review 29, no. 3 (Spring 2007): 533-589. Accessed October 9, 2020. https://scholarship.law.campbell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1454&context=clr Lockmiller, David A. History of the North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering of the University of North Carolina 1889-1939. Raleigh: General Alumni Association of the North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering of the University of North Carolina, 1939. Overton, Sam. “The history of the Yarbrough smokestack, a remnant of NC State’s pre-university days.” Technician (Raleigh, N.C.). September 20, 2020. http://www.technicianonline.com/arts_entertainment/article_bc38702e-fbac-11ea-8e7d-4f6cb8ee1147.html Reagan, Alice Elizabeth. North Carolina State University, A Narrative History. Raleigh: North Carolina State University Foundation and North Carolina State University Alumni Association, 1987. Roe, Charles and Karl Rohr. “Conservation Movement Part 3: Development of the Modern Environmental Movement.” In Encyclopedia of North Carolina, edited by William S. Powell. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. NCpedia. Accessed October 9, 2020. https://www.ncpedia.org/conservation-movement/modern-development “Yarbrough Steam Plant.” Sustainability at NC State University. North Carolina State University. Accessed October 9, 2020. https://sustainability.ncsu.edu/campus/buildings/leed/yarbrough/. University Architect, Office of the. “029 (029B)—Yarbrough Plant.” Raleigh: North Carolina State University, 2020. Emailed to author, 29 September, 2020.
Spring Hill house is the oldest structure on campus, built sometime between 1816 and 1820. The house is located on Centennial Campus on Barbour Dr. The house was built by the Hunters, a prominent family in Raleigh’s history and was later used by Dorthea Dix Hospital before being transferred to NC State. The Hunters enslaved African people to farm the land around the house for at least two generations. While there is a good deal of information about the Hunters and about Dorothea Dix Hospital, more research needs to be done to better understand the lives of the enslaved Africans who worked the land. In 1757, King George II of England granted 565 acres of this land to John Giles Thomas, a large landowner and enslaver. This land was passed to Colonel Theophilus Hunter, Sr., who served in the Revolutionary War and is considered one of the founding fathers of Raleigh. Hunter, Sr., with James Bloodworth, donated land for Raleigh’s first courthouse. Colonel Hunter served as the first justice for the first county court held in Wake county and was elected to the North Carolina Assembly. He was also a county surveyor and tax assessor. Colonel Hunter and his family moved to Spring Hill sometime between 1771 and 1798, after their previous residence in Raleigh, Hunter’s Lodge, burned. The 1790 census indicates he enslaved 45 people, making him the second largest enslaver in the county. Colonel Hunter died in 1798, and his grave is located near Spring Hill House. According to the Dix Park Legacy Report of 2018, his will names 56 enslaved people. Colonel Hunter left his property to his son, Theophilus Hunter, Jr., who oversaw the building of Spring Hill House, which was completed in 1820. The 1830 census indicates Hunter, Jr., enslaved 65 people and according to the Dix Park Legacy Report, his will names 67 enslaved people. According to Spring Hill’s National Historic Nomination form, at his death in 1840 Hunter Jr. left the property to his three daughters. In 1850, his daughter Maria Louisa Hunter Hall sold her portion of the Spring Hill property to the North Carolina State Commissioners for the State Hospital for the Insane. Spring Hill house was on the property of Emma Hunter, who retained the house until her death in 1864. The 1860 U.S. Federal Slave Schedule lists Emma Hunter as enslaving 16 people, most of them women and children. Upon her death the house was sold to William High, the sheriff of Wake County. High sold the house in 1872 to William Grimes, who was a landowner in the tenant farm system and a hotel owner. In 1907, the State of North Carolina purchased the property from William’s widow, Elizabeth. From 1907 to 2001, Dorthea Dix Hospital occupied the property. Hospital staff members lived communally in the house from 1907 until 1960, when it was renovated as single-family housing for a staff member. It remained this way until 1976, when the house was used by the Hospital Volunteer Services and the Dorothea Dix Volunteer Service Guild. In the 1980s the hospital and members of the public became more interested in the historic significance of Spring Hill, resulting in the nomination of Spring Hill to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. In January 2001, Spring Hill house along with the land attached was transferred to NC State to be a part of Centennial Campus. After renovations, the Japan Center moved into Spring Hill house in June of 2001. The Japan Center, founded in 1980 as an initiative led by Governor James Hunt, works to strengthen connections between Japan and North Carolina and acts as a resource for citizens, companies, and public and private institutions. The center supports the Japanese language program and works to provide scholarships for students to study abroad and attend the Japan-American Student Conference. The center also works with schools around North Carolina to promote teaching about East Asia and Japan. References Original Source References “A Raleigh Centennarian” The Charlotte Democrat (Charlotte, North Carolina). Nov 29, 1875. https://www.newspapers.com/image/168164226/?terms=john%2Bhunter. Ancestry.com. “Theophilus Hunter Senior.” 1790 United States Federal Census [database on-line].From First Census of the United States, 1790 (NARA microfilm publication M637, 12 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. Ancestry.com. “Theophilus Hunter 1798.” Wills and Estate Papers (Wake County), 1663-1978 [database on-line]. From North Carolina County, District, and Probate Records, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, North Carolina. Ancestry.com. 1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010.From United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Eighth Census of the United States, 1860. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1860. M653, 1,438 rolls. Secondary Source References Amis, Moses Neal. Historical Raleigh: With Sketches of Wake County (from 1771) and Its Important Towns; Descriptive, Biographical, Educational, Industrial, Religious. United States: Commercial Printing Company, 1913. Battle, Kemp P. The Early History of Raleigh, the Capital City of North Carolina. A Centennial Address Delivered by Invitation of the Committee on the Centennial Celebration of the Foundation of the City, October 18, 1892. Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton, printers, 1893. Dix Park Communications Subcommittee of Dix Legacy Committee. “Final Legacy Report,” August 28, 2018. https://dixpark.org/sites/dixpark/files/2018-11/Dix%20Park_Full%20Legacy%20Report_2018.pdf. Dorothea Dix Park Master Plan. Adopted by Raleigh City Council. February 19, 2019. https://dixpark.org/park-planning. Dorothea Dix Hospital. “Spring Hill House.” Archived at Wayback Machine, July 11, 2001. https://web.archive.org/web/20010711010136/http:/www.dhhs.state.nc.us/mhddsas/DIX. Eanes, Zachary. “$2 billion, HB2 reassurances and a site next to Dix Park couldn’t bring Amazon to NC.” The News & Observer, (Raleigh, NC), November 30, 2018. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article221641250.html. Grimes Family Papers, 1713-1947, 03357. Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/03357/. Karpel, Richard. “Newspaper Notice Helps Save County’s Oldest Grave.” Public Notice Resource Center, November 6, 2018. https://www.pnrc.net/2018/11/06/newspaper-notice-helps-save-countys-oldest-grave/. Long, Belle. “Grave Listing of the Theophilus Hunter Cemetery.” The Jacob Hunter Trust. Accessed September 29, 2020. https://jacobhuntertrust.org/cemeteries/grave-listing-of-the-theophilus-hunter-cemetery/. Norris, Elizabeth E. “Hill, Theophilus Hunter”NCpedia, 1988. https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/hill-theophilus-hunter. Native Land Digital Team, “Map of Native Land,” Native Land Digital, Accessed April 17, 2020, https://native-land.ca/. NC State University. “NC Japan Center.” Accessed September 29. https://japan.ncsu.edu/. Hinton, Mary, Duke Kerr, and Mary Bates Sherwood. “Hunter, Theophilus.” NCpedia, 1988. https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/hunter-theophilus. Seed, Patricia. Ceremonies of possession in Europe's conquest of the New World, 1492-1640. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1995. “Spring Hill,” National Register of Historic Places Inventory—Nomination Form, October 31, 1984, North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, www.hpo.ncdcr.gov/nr/WA0188.pdf. Smith, Rick. “Source: Should Amazon choose Raleigh, NCSU-owned property is a leading contender​.” WRAL TechWire, June 4, 2018. https://www.wraltechwire.com/2018/06/04/source-should-amazon-choose-raleigh-ncsu-owned-property-is-a-leading-contender%E2%80%8B/. Shaffer, Josh. “Raleigh is Growing Around Wake County’s Oldest Grave. Leave it Alone, Descendants Say,” The News & Observer, (Raleigh, NC), October 23, 2018.https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article220407315.html. Shaffer, Josh. “Raleigh is Growing Around Wake County’s Oldest Grave. Leave it Alone, Descendants Say.” The News & Observer, (Raleigh, NC), October 23, 2018.https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article220407315.html. Summerell Chamberlain, Hope. History of Wake County, North Carolina. USGenNet Inc., 2014. http://www.us-data.org/nc/wake/bio/hunter_theophilus.txt. Visit Raleigh. “Spring Hill House.” Accessed September 29, 2020. https://www.visitraleigh.com/listing/spring-hill-house/60552/. Waugh, Elizabeth Culbertson. North Carolina's Capital, Raleigh. Raleigh: Junior League of Raleigh, 1967. Multimedia “Roots of Hope:Rediscovering The Legacy of John Hunter Documentary Premiere.” City of Raleigh. Sep 23, 2020. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNRviiVhiMI. Wilson, Jade. “ The Will of the Father.” The Black on Black Project, June 1, 2019. https://www.blackonblackproject.com/will-of-father-raleigh.
Park Shops is located on Stinson Drive on North Carolina State University’s North Campus, behind 111 Lampe Drive and across from SAS Hall. The name “Shops” refers to the building’s original purpose: to be “the mechanical counterpart of the model farm facility in the agricultural curriculum” for engineering students, according to a Historic Site Survey. As machines increasingly replaced manual labor in the 1900s, an article in Technician argued, training in engineering held “great opportunity.” Therefore, for $143,000, the school constructed mechanical shops, a forge, and a foundry appropriate for teaching in 1914. Architect H.P.S. Keller designed a “Shop and Laboratory Building” to house equipment across one floor and a basement and run on steam engines. In the 1920s, Craftsmen-in-training turned steel into I-beams, cast-iron into fire grates, and rough wood into phonograph cabinets, among other creations. Students serviced the college president’s car in the automotive shop and saved the school $5,000 annually by building desks and chairs for campus laboratories and dorm rooms, according to The News and Observer (N&O) and Technician. Many land-grant university engineering programs had emphasized hands-on learning and used student-made products since the 1860s, according to historian Paul Nienkamp. Students worked in shops to “implement and practice new concepts and skills,” but also because “legislators demanded that students provide labor at the new institutions if they wanted buildings, physical infrastructure, and continued funding that required specialized equipment.” On New Year’s Eve in 1919, a fire ignited from wood shavings. The N&O reported the flames incinerated the wood shop and auto shop, and the school lost $75,000 worth of equipment. Within months, Mechanical Engineering professors and students resumed normal operations and continued producing for the school. In 1934, students used the foundry to cast the numerals for the clocks on Memorial Belltower, according to the Technician. The paper also reported that the student chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers roasted hamburgers in the forge in 1941. Even if it made a good grill, college President John Harrelson complained the building needed “modernizing” in 1950. Instead of a renovation, the school gave the shops to the Physical Plant in 1962. Others continued to use the facility, such as mechanical engineers who hosted welding demonstrations during every Engineering Fair in the 1960s. The Industrial Engineering Department housed robots with 3-D vision there in the 1980s, according to The Technician. The building finally received a comprehensive renovation in 2009. The school converted the mechanical shops into forensic analysis, osteology, and archeology labs. The Head of the Forensic Analysis Lab Chelsey Juarez told The Technician in 2015 that because the labs were “state-of-the-art,” the school helped the State Medical Examiner’s office process crime scene evidence--including human remains. The 2009 renovations also brought a Port City Java coffee shop. Five years later, The Technician reported, the Park Shops spot was the highest-grossing location for the Wilmington-based company in the country. The building earned the name “Park” in 1942, when the Buildings and Grounds Committee renamed twelve generically-named sites on campus. “The foundry and wood shop building,” noted The Technician, “becomes Park Building, after the shop teacher who taught from 1891 until relieved in 1935.” Charles Benjamin Park (1867-1944) was a native of Raleigh and an aspiring machinist from a young age. He was “elected without his knowledge for the position” of Instructor in the shops in 1891, according to a profile in the N&O. Park built the school a “steel-throated monster” of a whistle that “never failed to announce the hour so that all might hear,” according to a reporter for Alumni News. Park also constructed a flagpole from two cypress trees in 1912. The 105-foot pole stood outside Holladay Hall for sixteen years and earned a compliment from President Theodore Roosevelt when he passed through Raleigh. On top of these duties, Park instructed students, freshmen through seniors, for nearly 50 years. His gradebooks demonstrate that he taught classes in mechanical and electrical engineering, industrial mechanical arts, and textiles Monday through Saturday. By the time Park retired, The Technician reported that students affectionately called him “Dad.” Park played an active--if sometimes negative--role in rapidly-expanding community of Raleigh. Park advised the mayor on purchasing city water tanks in 1906, and he helped oversee construction of the “Baptist University,” according to N&O. But on June 23, 1900, the N&O reported that “the best and most influential men of Raleigh” elected Park vice president of the newly-formed “White Supremacy Club, of Raleigh township,” although the newspaper misspelled his name “Parks.” The Morning Post confirmed on the same day that “Charles B. Park” was elected vice-president out of “over seventy-five enthusiastic young Democrats.” In September, the N&O said the White Supremacy Club’s “work was of the greatest value in the August election.” During that “August election” of 1900, citizens approved a state constitutional amendment requiring voters to pay a poll tax and pass a literacy test. Fellow white supremacist and future governor Charles Aycock said the amendment “was drawn with the deliberate purpose of depriving the negro of the right to vote.” Park’s work on the first City Planning Commission, from 1922-1927, had mixed implications. As a commissioner, Park continued Raleigh’s push to pave major thoroughfares, widen streets like Hillsboro (changed to Hillsborough in 1965), and lay water pipes for residents, including “in black areas,” according to scholar Richard Mattson. However, Park also helped write a zoning law that limited “apartment and tenement houses which cut off light and air and reduce residential values” around single-family homes, according to a 1922 News and Observer article. The law segregated people who could only afford to live in an apartment or tenement from those who could afford a whole house. Park therefore left a dual legacy for Raleigh: trained mechanical engineers and whistles, but also voter disenfranchisement and segregated neighborhoods. References Original Source References Barrie, Thomas. “To fight racism, throw out neighborhood zoning laws that lead to segregated housing.” The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 13 June 2020. Accessed September 18, 2020. https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article243494126.html Charles Benjamin Park roll books, MSS 104, Box MSS 4, Folder 104 -1, Special Collections Research Center, NC State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. “Clubs Tonight.” The News & Observer. (Raleigh, N.C.), 15 Sept. 1900. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042104/1900-09-15/ed-1/seq-5/ “Charles B. Park.” The News & Observer. (Raleigh, N.C.), 24 Aug. 1899. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. Accessed September 18, 2020. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042104/1899-08-24/ed-2/seq-181/> “City Zoning Work Will Require Several Months.” The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 9 August 1922. Newspapers.com. Accessed September 18, 2020. https://www.newspapers.com/image/650821384/ Connor, R.D.W. and Clarence Poe. The Life and Speeches of Charles Brantley Aycock. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1912. Documenting the American South. https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/connor/connor.html “No Report Yet as to Water.” The Raleigh Times (Raleigh, N.C.), 3 August 1906. Newspapers.com. Accessed September 18, 2020. https://newscomnc.newspapers.com/image/58163147 North Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical College Catalogue, College Record Vol. 13 No. 4, March 1915. Raleigh: North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, 1915. Undergraduate catalog (LD3928.A22), Special Collections Research Center, NC State University Libraries. https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/LD3928-A22-1915 Office of Alumni Relations Publications (UA010.200), Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. Accessed September 18, 2020. "NC State University Libraries’ Digital Collections: Rare and Unique Materials." Technician (Raleigh, N.C.) (LH1.N6 T4), Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. Accessed September 18, 2020. "NC State University Libraries’ Digital Collections: Rare and Unique Materials. University Archives Reference Collection, University Buildings, Sites, Landmarks Files, UA 050.004 Box 7, Folder “Park Shops,” NC State University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/ua050_004/ “White Supremacy Club Organized.” The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 23 June 1900. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. Accessed September 18, 2020. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042104/1900-06-23/ed-1/seq-6/> “Zoning Law.” The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 4 August 1923. Newspapers.com. Accessed September 18, 2020. https://www.newspapers.com/image/650330501 Secondary Source References Berry, Hardy D., comp. Place Names on the Campus of North Carolina State University. Raleigh: North Carolina State University, 1995. Grayson, Lawrence. The making of an engineer : an illustrated history of engineering education in the United States and Canada. New York : Wiley, 1993. Hunt, James. “Disenfranchisement.” NCpedia.org. 2006. https://ncpedia.org/disfranchisement Marcus, Alan. Service as mandate: how American land-grant universities shaped the modern world, 1920-2015. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2015. Mattson, Richard L. The Evolution of Raleigh's African-American Neighborhoods in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Raleigh: Raleigh Historic Properties and Districts Commission, 1988. NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Accessed September 18, 2020. https://files.nc.gov/ncdcr/historic-preservation-office/survey-and-national-register/surveyreports/RaleighAfricanAmericanNeighborhoods-1988.pdf Mobley, Joe A. Raleigh, North Carolina: A Brief History. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2009. Nienkamp, Paul. “Engineering in a Land-Grant Context: The Past, Present and Future of an Idea.” In Science As Service : Establishing and Reformulating American Land-Grant Universities, 1865-1930. Edited by Alan I. Marcus. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2015. Perman, Michael. Struggle for Mastery Disfranchisement in the South, 1888-1908. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001. University Architect, Office of the. “033—Park Shops History.” Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina State University, 2020. Emailed to author, 31 August, 2020.
Watauga Hall has the honor of being the oldest residence hall on North Carolina State University’s campus; it was the designated residence hall for NC State’s first Black students and first women students. The University built Watauga Hall in 1896 and named the building after the Watauga Club, a group of prominent, young, white men in Raleigh whose efforts were integral in creating North Carolina State University, then, the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. While the Watauga Club was meant to be a Progressive club, the members did not want to call it “Progressive Club,” which would have stirred up controversy amongst politicians. In his book, Universal Education in the South, founding member Charles W. Dabney explains the members chose the name Watauga because, “this would suggest nothing in particular to the public.” In many publications Watauga is credited as being an “Indian word” but does not specify the national or linguistic origins. Many competing translations have been given such as “sparkling water,” “the land beyond,” or “the river of many islands.” For the men, the name Watauga also connoted the Watauga Association, an early group of white settlers in Western Appalachia, as well as North Carolina’s Watauga County. The Club began as a forum for members to discuss economic issues facing North Carolina after the U.S. Civil War. Members set themselves in opposition to the old-guard legislators whom they referred to as “fossils” and “mummies” and who Club members saw as inhibiting modern education based in scientific methods and principles. Of the members, none were older than their thirties. Early members of the Watauga Club included several well-known men of the era, many of whom are the namesake of other buildings at NC State. William J. Peele, for whom the University named Peele Hall, served as the group’s first President. Peele was a lawyer and also helped to create the State Literary and Historical Association. A prominent member and the namesake of Page Hall was Walter Hines Page. He was a publisher and later ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Woodrow Wilson. He helped create Doubleday, Page & Company, which later became Doubleday press. Page published famous works by Booker T. Washington as well as publishing two works by noted racist Thomas Dixon Jr, who was also an early member of the Watauga Club. The racist film Birth of a Nation was based on Dixon’s 1905 book The Clansman. Dabney Hall is named after Charles W. Dabney, quoted above, who staunchly advocated for public education and industrial education in the United States, following the German model. William Stuart Primrose, who worked in insurance, was the first member of the Watauga Club to have a building named after him in 1896. Another member of the Watauga Club was Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy during World War I and a prominent white supremacist, whose name was removed from Daniels Hall in June 2020. The young men believed North Carolina needed to industrialize and especially that the state needed an industrial college. A News & Observer article quotes Watauga member G. E. Leach explaining, “The school would unfold a great future, it opens a new era for the poor man.” While the club was able to get an initial bill passed in 1885, it came with no funds to build the school. The Watauga Club kept working towards establishing an industrial school but it was not until they joined forces with Leonidas Polk, editor of the Progressive Farmer, and a powerful leader in a movement for an agricultural school in North Carolina, they were able to secure funding. Finally, a bill was passed on March 5, 1887, establishing the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. While the club was inactive for a time between 1902 and 1924, it continues today. Watauga housed a dining hall on the first floor and dormitories on the second floor. In 1901 the original building burned down and was rebuilt in 1902. The student residents helped to put the fire out; they were praised by the Board of Trustees for their “courage and devotion to their college.” A News & Observer article from 1947 explains what life was like in the Watauga during the early days. Students were known for pulling pranks involving live animals and reassembling a cannon on the roof of the dormitory. Raleigh Times reported there were even unconfirmed rumors of a liquor still and a bar in the basement of Watauga, which served “Moonshine a la Watauga.” From 1924 to 1943 the building served as the dormitory for seniors and was known as “Seniors’ Paradise.” In 1956, NC State assigned a few rooms in Watauga hall to house the first Black undergraduate students living on campus. Black students were specifically assigned to room together. As Irwin Holmes, one of the first Black undergraduates to attend NC State, remembered in an oral history for NC State Institutional Histories, “I think when I was there we never had more than two rooms, but we had as many as six in those two rooms, even though there were supposed to be only two...” per room. In 1964 the building went through a major transformation when it became the first women’s dormitory. Like women college students across the nation, women living in Watauga had to adhere to a curfew and were required to check in and out. The dorm became a target for “panty raids” such as the one reported by Technician on the night of November 16, 1964, when an estimated 900-1,000 male students gathered around Watauga shouting for “lace” and “panties.” This phenomenon occurred throughout college and universities in the mid-20th century. The upper floors were condemned after 1968 and in the years between 1969 and 1984 the first floor of Watauga was used for Information Services. After renovations, it reopened as graduate housing in 1984. In 1988, the Triangle J Council of Government and “The Leader” news magazine awarded the renovations the Triangle Development Award. Today, Watauga once again serves as a dormitory for undergraduate students. References Original Source References Dabney, Charles William. Universal Education in the South. United States: University of North Carolina Press, 1936. Interview with Irwin Holmes, mc00449-oh-holmes-20141020, NC State University Libraries Rare and Unique Digital Collections, NC State University Libraries Rare and Unique Digital Collections. Accessed August 14, 2020. https://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections/catalog/mc00449-oh-holmes-20141020. Milton Cooper Jr., John. Walter Hines Page: The Southerner As American, 1855-1918. United States: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. North Carolina State University, Office of Public Affairs, News Services Records, UA 014.011 Carton 6, Carton 94, Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/ua014_011. Technician (Raleigh, N.C.) (LH1.N6 T4), Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries. University Buildings, UA 50.4.8 Box 8, Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/ua050_004. Watauga Club Records, 1884 - 2011, MC00229, Special Collections Research Center at NC State University Libraries https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/mc00229. William Joseph Peele Papers, 1888 - 1923, MC00012, Special Collections Research Secondary Source References Allen, Ben, and Dennis T. Lawson. "The Wataugans and the "Dangerous Example"." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 26, no. 2 (1967): 137-47. Accessed August 30, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42622934. Berry, Hardy D. Place Names on the Campus of North Carolina State University. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina State University, 1995. Beckel, Deborah. Radical Reform: Interracial Politics in Post-Emancipation North Carolina. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011. Cockrel, David L. “Watauga Settlement” NCpedia, 2006. https://www.ncpedia.org/watauga-settlement. Knight, Edgar W. "Charles W. Dabney: Pioneer in Industrial Education." The High School Journal 24, no. 1 (1941): 28-31. Accessed August 30, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40367556. Lockmiller, David A. History of the North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering of the University of North Carolina, 1889-1939. Raleigh: [Printed by Edwards & Broughton], 1939. Lockmiller, David Alexander. "The Establishment of the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.” The North Carolina Historical Review 16, no. 3 (1939): 273-95. Accessed August 30, 2020 http://www.jstor.org/stable/23516079. Murphy, Kate. “NC State University removes name of white supremacist Josephus Daniels from building,” News & Observer, June 22, 2020. Accessed August 15, 2020 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article243709067.html. Powel, William S. “Primrose, William Stuart.” NCpedia, 1994. https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/primrose-william-stuart. The Editors of the Encyclopedia. “Walter Hines Page,” Encyclopædia Britannica, August 11, 2020. Accessed August 29, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Hines-Page. Snider, William D. “Watauga Club.” NCpedia, April 13, 2009. https://www.ncpedia.org/watauga-club.