North Carolina School for the Deaf: Main Building

About this property

The North Carolina School for the Deaf (NCSD) is a state-supported residential school for deaf children established in 1894, in Morganton, North Carolina, US. North Carolina School for the Deaf is one of two primary public schools for Deaf and hard of hearing students in Pre-K through 12th grade in North Carolina, with the other being the Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf. The school offers an education program as well as vocational rehabilitation services on campus for students after graduation. The school has dormitory facilities. It is accredited by Cognia (formerly Advance Education) and the Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf. The North Carolina General Assembly passed legislation changing several aspects of the school's governance, including making the school an independent state agency starting July 1, 2024. The school will now be governed by a five-member board of trustees, with four members appointed by the General Assembly and one member by the Board of Education. The change is expected to give the school more control over admissions policies. As of 2025, the school had an annual budget of over $11 million. The Deaf & Blind Pathways Foundation, formerly known as NCSD Foundation, is a nonprofit independent from the school, but it works cooperatively with them to raise funds for things like educational equipment, field trips, and college scholarships. The school is on a national historic district campus in Morganton, North Carolina with 12 buildings on 160 acres (650,000 m2) of land. The historic district encompasses 14 historic buildings constructed between about 1891 and 1939. They include the main building, classroom buildings, recreational facilities, the original infirmary, staff housing, and farm buildings. They representations of Victorian, Romanesque Revival, Colonial Revival style architecture. The main building is a high Victorian three-story brick building with a slate roof and five-story tower. The Main Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and the historic district in 1989. The North Carolina School for the Deaf Historical Museum is located on the campus of the school for the Deaf at Morganton, NC. The original site was in the Historic Main Building common room before it was moved to the former Superintendent's Home in 2003. The Museum was spearheaded as a Senior Project by Jimmy Autrey, NCSD graduate of 1977 along with a number of student & staff volunteers. The Museum displays a historical timeline of pictures & artifacts pertaining to the establishment of the North Carolina School for the Deaf in 1891 as well as the original NC Institution for the Deaf & Blind in 1845 & the NC Institution for Colored Deaf & Blind in 1869, both at Raleigh, NC. The Museum maintains a record of student enrollment, organizational activities, school publications, memorabilia, photographic images, newspapers & class books in the Archival Collection Room. Currently, the Archives have over 1000 pictures with the state of the art computerized storage for research purposes & exhibition.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Burke County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Burke County.

More historic places in North Carolina

Browse all historic places in North Carolina.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

North Carolina history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.