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This is a contributing entry for Charlotte's Belmont Neighborhood - From a Mill Village to More Than a Century Later and only appears as part of that tour.Learn More.

Tech High School

Introduction

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Listen to a narration of this entry's description by UNCC Urban Institute User.

Text-to-speech Audio

The next stop is at the large institutional structure. As cotton mills came into the Belmont and North Charlotte communities in the early 1920s, Charlotte city leaders and businessmen began working together to improve the education of the children of the mill workers and others in the surrounding community. City leaders worked with the owners of The Louise Mill to create a vocational school to provide children of the Belmont and North Charlotte communities with industrial education.

Images

Tech High School from Sandborn Map

Building, Rectangle, House, Violet

Mill house and new house

Plant, Sky, Building, Window

Mill house and new house

Plant, Building, Property, Window

Mill house and new house

Plant, Building, Property, Green

Mill house and new house

Building, Plant, Window, Property

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

The Belmont Park Vocational School opened in September 1922 as one of Charlotte’s first secondary education offerings and the first vocational school in North Carolina to offer a high school curriculum. It was one of three high schools built, including Central High School for whites in Elizabeth and Second Ward High School for Blacks.

The school contained 16 classrooms with space for domestic science classes, manual training, sewing classes, a model dining room, and two workshops. In 1927 the school was renamed Charlotte Technical High School. After the class of 1954 graduated, the school became Hawthorne Junior High, located at 1411 Hawthorne Lane.

In 2020, this location served as the Hawthorne Academy of Health Sciences, Military, and Public Service, a Charlotte Mecklenburg School. The original building was demolished long ago.

Continue north on Pegram Street and make a right turn to go east on Kennon Street. Look for Soulshine Organics on the right as you head toward the medallion at 1405 Kennon Street.

As you walk, note the mix of duplexes and more modest original homes compared to larger new construction. Some of the larger, newer homes began to sell for $500,000 to more than $700,000 in 2020.

Additional Information