Dan Allen Drive and Dan Allen Parking Deck
description: Dan Allen Drive borders important landmarks: Hillsborough Street, the Dan Allen Parking Deck, Witherspoon Student Center, Western Boulevard, and Greek Village. None of those buildings existed when Daniel Allen graduated from the college in 1896. Instead of a road name, Raleigh knew Daniel “Dan” Allen as a businessman and philanthropist as well as a proponent of white supremacy and segregationist housing policies. The school did not purchase the land under Dan Allen Parking Deck until 1987. That land was part of “House Creek district” in 1871, where Wake County’s fourth-highest population of African Americans lived according to a map by Fendol Bevers. The statistic eventually included Dr. Thomas Love, who purchased the lot in 1888. Part of the first generation in his family who learned to read according to the 1900 Census, Love and his brother opened Love’s Drug Store by 1910. They dispensed medical advice, along with tickets to local events the city forbade African Americans from buying elsewhere, according to N&O. In 1903, Love sold the land to his sister, Maggie, and her husband, physician Dr. Lovelace Capehart. George and Susan Capehart enslaved Lovelace as an infant in Bertie County, North Carolina, according to their list of enslaved people; Arthur Caldwell’s History of the American Negro and his Institutions reported that after the Civil War, no one advised Lovelace about receiving an education. Nevertheless, he earned law and medical degrees, which helped him nourish Raleigh's African American community as a physician and Shaw University professor. The N&O reported Maggie became an activist in 1939, when she and neighbors sued to stop the city from expropriating her next home on Smith Street. By 1934, the areas south and east of Capehart’s former property did belong to NC State, and a highway engineering professor said in a letter he sought “an underpass [under the train tracks] connecting the north and south sides of the State College campus.” A year later, …
creator: Alanna Natanson
date: 2021/03/31

Daniels Hall
description: The building formerly known as Daniels Hall stands on North Campus at North Carolina State University at the corner of Lampe and Stinson drives. This building is home to some of the prominent science fields at North Carolina State University, such as the Physics Department and the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Built in 1926, the building originally housed both the physics and electrical engineering departments In 1938 Chancellor John Harrelson dedicated the building in honor of Josephus Daniels. Daniels’ professional endeavors spanned many careers. He was the editor and publisher of the Raleigh based newspaper News and Observer from 1894 until his death in 1948, Secretary of the Navy during World War I, and even Ambassador to Mexico from 1933 to 1941. Daniels played a key role as a perpetrator of the Wilmington Coup of 1898, a political event in Wilmington, North Carolina where the Democratic party overthrew the Fusionist elected government. Daniels was also a founding member of North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now North Carolina State University) as a founding member of the Watauga Club; a group made up of young professionals eager to better the economic and social aspects of the state of North Carolina, their interest in the state’s betterment led to the founding of NC State University. In Washington, North Carolina in 1862, Mary Cleaves Seebrook Daniels gave birth to Josephus Daniels. His father, also named Josephus Daniels, was a ship builder in North Carolina, but before Josephus the younger turned three, his father was killed by a Confederate soldier, likely because of his Unionist sympathies and ideals. Mary Daniels and her young children moved to Wilson, North Carolina where Josephus Daniels the younger left home to further his education at the Wilson Collegiate Institute, then Duke University and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he studied law. In 1894, Josephus Daniels gained…
creator: Kelly Scott
date: 2019/11/20

David Clark Laboratories
description: On May 10, 1963, Walter Clark unveiled a plaque at the former Mangum Hall as part of a ceremony to mark the renaming of the building for his brother, David Clark. As the editor of The Southern Textile Bulletin, the recipient of an honorary doctorate in textiles, and longtime supporter of athletics at NC State, David Clark represented important features of the university’s growth in the early and mid-20th century. The university chose to rename the hall in honor of Clark “whose dedicated participation in the development of North Carolina State College and the School of Textiles was an inspiration,” as the dedication plaque read. These words failed to convey Clark’s troubling history with the university. While no full length biography of David Clark exists, sociologist Bart Dredge has written extensively on Clark’s work as an editor and outspoken supporter of white supremacy. Dredge locates the vehemence of Clark’s racism in the motivations of the generation of men whose fathers fought for the Confederacy and who believed that the South lost the Civil War because of its relatively low level of industrial development. Susan Washington Graham Clark, the daughter of North Carolina Governor William A. Graham, gave birth to David Clark in Raleigh in 1877. His father was Walter M. Clark, a colonel in the Confederate army and a long serving member of the North Carolina Supreme Court. As a student at NC State College, David Clark played on both the baseball and football teams, sparking a fondness for sport at the school that would last through his lifetime. In 1896, Clark earned a degree in mechanical engineering and another in civil engineering in 1897 at NC State College, and served as Alumni Association President in 1903-04. He started his own cotton mill, which did not survive the Panic of 1907, a series of runs on banks and a rapid stock market loss that caused mass bank failure. From there he went into trade publishing, working at Textile Manufacturer. In 1910, he start…
creator: Tammy S. Gordon
date: 2019/11/18

Greek Village
description: Greek Village is located on South Campus, between North Campus and Centennial Campus. It is approximately 50 acres of land owned by the University for use by Greek Life organizations on campus. Construction on Greek Village began in 2011, a massive rebuilding project of what was formerly Greek Court. The development of Greek Village is divided into five phases and each phase includes a certain number of houses being demolished and rebuilt. According to NC State’s Fraternity and Sorority webpage, as of 2021, there are 19 of a total 21 planned sorority and fraternity houses built. The land is owned by the University and leased to the organizations, while all new houses which are built are owned by the Greek organizations themselves. The University continues to own and operate several houses in Greek Village. The project was first discussed in 2005, by a small ad hoc group of Greek Life staff and alumni, as indicated by the 2005-2006 Department of Greek Life Report. In March 2006, Chancellor James L. Oblinger appointed sixteen members to an official task force to redevelop Greek court. To these sixteen appointees Oblinger explained the commitment of the University to the project in a March 16, 2006 letter, writing, “Greek letter organizations have been an integral part of student life at NC State University for more than 100 years... The University is committed to our fraternities and sororities, and wants to continue to provide strong support to those groups.” The group was tasked with investigating a land-lease system which would allow chapters to build their own houses on university property as well as urging them to “utilize the principles from the University Physical Master Plan.” The “Final Report & Recommendations” made by the Greek Court Redevelopment Task Force stated that one of the reasons the school was supporting the redevelopment of Greek Court into Greek Village includes that “Alumni/ae of these organizations are active supporters of the University provi…
creator: Emma Stout
date: 2021/05/14

Harrelson Hall
description: “On first sight, Harrelson Hall looks as if it was designed to be dunked in the Union coffee or to be used as a giant tractor tire,” wrote Technician reporter Max Hurlocker in 1967. When Harrelson Hall was built in 1961, it was the first cylindrical building on a college campus. Once a prominent feature of the brickyard, directly across from D.H. Hill library between Polk and Williams Hall, Harrelson Hall was demolished in 2016 and replaced by grassy landscaping. Harrelson Hall is named after John W. Harrelson, former Chancellor of the University and the first alumnus to serve in the position. Harrelson served from 1934-1953, and upon his death in 1955, Harrelson left the school an endowment of more than $100,000. When Harrelson was first appointed his title was “Dean of Administration.” It was changed to Chancellor in 1945. According to Alice Regan, in “North Carolina State University: A Narrative History,” Harrelson’s early leadership was seen by students as paternalistic and students compared school rules such as strict attendance policies to those of high schools or the military. This tension was mitigated after 1939 with the appointment of a faculty-student committee. Harrelson also proved he was willing to stick up for students’ freedom of expression in the months before the United States entered World War II. Despite anger aimed towards students proposing “America First” policies, Harrelson defended students' right to freedom of expression within the student newspaper, the Technician. During Harrelson’s tenure the School of Forestry and the School of Design were established. Harrelson recruited Henry L. Kamphoefner to be the first dean of the school of design. Kamphoefner hired Professors James W. Fitzgibbon, Duncan Stuart, Edward Waugh, and George Matsumoto. Letters held in NC State’s Special Collections show that Chancellor Harrelson questioned their political loyalty, worrying that they might have political beliefs which aligned with communism. A letter fr…
creator: Emma Stout
date: 2021/04/07

Hillsborough Street
description: Hillsborough Street is a staple of NC State. As NC State has grown and changed, the stores along Hillsborough and the street itself have reshaped as well. Hillsborough Street is also a site of school events, protests, and celebrations. The street runs from the State Capitol building to Interstate 40 where it cuts between Raleigh and Cary, but this entry will cover Hillsborough Street from Dan Allen Drive to Hillsborough’s intersection with Oberlin Road, which is the path of Hillsborough Street next to campus. When NC State opened in 1889, Hillsborough Street was a dirt road with a house and a grocery store, Ellis and Brown Grocers, although it is uncertain where on the street the buildings were. The house next to the grocers had stood on Hillsborough since 1709. Treasurer of West Raleigh Baptist Church, Andrew Jackson Ellis, owned the store and his daughter, Martha Luvenis Ellis, was married to Louis T. Yarbrough, a student of the first graduating class of NC State. The Ellis’s and Yarbrough’s connection with NC State continued into the next generation through Martha and Louis’s daughter, Mary Yarbrough, one of the first women to receive a graduate degree from NC State. The state fair was across the campus from 1873 to 1928 in the southeast section of what is now University Park, which is bordered by Hillsborough St., Kilgore Ave, Brooks Ave, and Chamberlain St. The fair changed location due to the change of ownership from the Agricultural Society to the state Department of Agriculture. The University Park area (which ran north by Wade Avenue, Hillsborough Street to the south, Faircloth/Meredith College to the west, and Oberlin Road/Cameron Village to the east) was where Camp Polk was set up. Tank training for World War I took place at Camp Polk. On the south side of Hillsborough, the campus did not stretch to the street until around 1900 with the construction of Patterson Hall. Prior to around 1900 about 50 people resided in the African American community of Cook’s…
creator: Jordan Scott
date: 2020/09/01

Holladay Hall
description: Completed in 1889, Holladay Hall is the oldest building on NC State’s campus. The hall was named after the college's first president, Alexander Quarles Holladay in 1915. An an unveiling of a Holladay portrait in 1912, Marshall De Lancey Haywood remarked on the subject's commitment to Virginia and education. To Haywood, the Holladay family's five-generation-long-history in Spotsylvania County and the young Holladay leaving his studies at University of Berlin to serve in the Confederate Army spoke to his commitments. Holladay's dedication for education was demonstrated in his own scholarly growth and his dedication to NC State students. One former student wrote, "He took such an interest in me and my success, and was ever kind and considerate." Along with being president of NC State, Holladay was the history professor and taught European and American history. As president Holladay had to defy the school’s reputation as a “Cow College.” One way he did this was through strictly enforcing a demerit system on the campus. Ten demerits were the most points one could receive for actions such as missing class, not being in the building at night, or profanity or obscenity in and around the campus. Eight demerits were received for going into town during the daytime without permission. The lowest demerits one could receive is two for unexcused tardiness and unnecessary noise in the hall. Holladay Hall's construction was the result of many. Charles L. Carson was the architect, W.E. Ashley was the general superintendent, Charles Goodwin supplied granite, P. Linehan and Company managed the sandstone, Hamil and Honeycutt were in charge of the brickwork, and the prisoners of Raleigh’s Central Prison provided labor and brick, as they did for other state buildings like the Labor Building, the North Carolina Supreme Court Building, and the Executive Mansion. States across the American South, including North Carolina, used prison labor to construct their projects and infrastructure. Unti…
creator: Jordan Scott
date: 2019/12/10

Holmes Hall
description: Located on Cates Avenue across from first-year residence halls Tucker and Owen, stands a three-story building designed by LS3P Associates Ltd and constructed in 2007, directed by Balfour Beatty. This building has had a couple of name changes in its lifetime. Its first name was First Year College, and then in 2015 it was renamed University College Commons. In October 2018, at the start of Diversity Education Week, Chancellor Randy Woodson announced that the building was to be renamed Holmes Hall in honor of Irwin Holmes, the first African American to receive an undergraduate degree at NC State University. During the announcement Chancellor Woodson stated that Holmes “broke barriers that would forever change this university and the Atlantic Coast Conference. He was, and is, and always will remain a role model that helped drive needed social and cultural change at NC State, in North Carolina, and beyond.” Born in Reedsville, North Carolina in 1939 and raised primarily in Durham, Irwin Holmes became one of the most significant actors in the early days of desegregation at NC State and he ultimately shaped the history that followed. He noted that his youth was filled with role models in Black Durham: educators, entrepreneurs, activists. His father led Durham’s recreation programs for African Americans, while his mother worked as a teacher. Both parents had masters degrees from NC Central University. In Hillside High School, which was well known for its successful alumni, Holmes excelled in both academics and athletics. In 1956 and at the age of 16, Irwin Holmes enrolled as an undergraduate in electrical engineering at NC State. He had been accepted at the prestigious Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, DC, but chose NC State because of affordability and the reputation of its School of Engineering. The university offered scholarships to support his education, and it was also closer to home and family. He was one of four African American students …
creator: Kelly Scott and Tammy Gordon
date: 2020/05/05

Honorific Naming
description: Honorific naming, also called honor naming or anthroponymic commemoration, refers to the practice of recognizing individuals and the values they represent by using their names to refer to inanimate objects, abstractions, processes, and phenomena. The term “eponym” refers to the person after whom the feature, place, or object was named. Honor names have been applied to such diverse things as natural features, chemical elements, diseases, beer and wine, weather events, mathematical equations, ships, and theories. While street names are the most common type of anthroponymic commemoration in the United States, on college campuses, building names figure largely. Onomastics is the study of names and naming, and in the United States, the American Name Society, formed in 1951, leads the field in promoting dialogue about honorific naming, largely through the journal NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics. The American Name Society provides helpful definitions for understanding different types of naming, including those important to understanding honorific naming at NC State: Anthroponym: proper name for a person or group of people. Sub-areas include the study of names used to label ethno racial groups, nationalities, tribes, families, individuals, etc. Hodonym: a proper name given to routes such as the names of crossings, bridges, pathways, roads, streets, tunnels, etc. Hydronym: a proper name used to label a body of standing or moving water such as a brook, pond, lake, ocean, river, sea, spring, strait, swamp, water fall, watering hole, well, etc. Toponym: a proper name assigned to a place, either with or without inhabitants. ...also be referred to as a “place name”. As geographers, historians, etymologists, and others have shown, naming and renaming reflect not just an honor bestowed, but larger processes of power, politics, economics, and culture. Honorific names have been extended and retracted throughout history, sometimes with little attention and sometimes with significant co…
creator: Tammy Gordon
date: 2020/09/01

Infirmary/Winslow Hall
description: North Carolina State University named Winslow Hall, along Pullen Road on the university’s North Campus, for Arthur Winslow, a surveyor who lobbied North Carolina’s General Assembly to establish the school in 1887. But the Hall was also the site of two notable women in the university’s history. Susan Carroll (1849-1901), the college’s first matron, and Ellen “Ella” McGuire (1861-1946), a nurse, cook, and laundry worker, called the 1897 building their workplace. Both showed strength and resourcefulness in response to the school’s poor employment practices, but students who memorialized the women used gender and racial stereotypes that downplayed their fortitude. During Carroll’s and McGuire’s times, the building was the school’s infirmary (although McGuire started working there after Carroll’s death). Everything from smallpox inoculations to appendix operations occurred within its walls until 1943, according to President’s Reports. The Bureau of Mines inhabited it 1943-1956, and the Alumni Association headquartered there 1956-2006. Since 2021, Winslow Hall has held administrative offices. The Board of Trustees elected Susan Carroll college matron in 1889, before there was even an infirmary. Her duties, they wrote in meeting minutes, involved “care of the dining and bed rooms, linen.” Carroll was used to overseeing household tasks; “keeping house” was her occupation on both the 1870 Federal Census when she lived with her parents in Turkey Creek, NC and on the 1880 Federal Census as a married thirty-year-old in Magnolia, NC. It is unlikely, however, that she labored physically: her father owned nine human beings according to an 1860 US Slave Schedule, and her husband employed a thirteen-year-old Black servant in 1880. Carroll was not used to overseeing infirmaries, as Chancellor John Caldwell later noted in a tribute, but the Board of Trustees granted her charge of the new hospital anyway in 1899. She succeeded, for alumni honored her with a plaque, according to a 1902 …
creator: Alanna Natanson
date: 2021/05/14