North Carolina School for the Deaf Historic District

This historic district covers the older core of the North Carolina School for the Deaf in Morganton. Nineteen buildings and structures sit on about 68 acres, fourteen of them contributing. They were built between ca. 1891 and ca. 1939 around a broad, tree-shaded lawn below Spa Hill. The centerpiece is the E-shaped brick Main Building with its clock tower, designed by Augustus Bauer in a high-Victorian style. Later buildings include Colonial Revival and Romanesque Goodwin Hall, the eclectic Hoey Hall of 1939 designed by Charles C. Benton, the Superintendent's Residence, an infirmary, staff housing and a farm complex with a large gambrel-roofed barn. The school opened in 1894 after a campaign led by Dr. Edward McKee Goodwin to separate education of the deaf from that of the blind. He served as superintendent until 1937. The school became nationally known for its modern campus and progressive teaching, and the district preserves the original arrangement of its buildings and setting.