Alumni Hall
Located on McCorkle Place, Alumni Hall was a gift from Carolina alumni. The Alumni Association launched a campaign for the building in 1895, the centennial of Carolina's first entering class 100 years earlier. When completed in 1901, the building, designed by architect Frank Wilburn and modeled on the neoclassical Boston Public Library, housed the offices of the president, other university officials, and the Alumni Association, as well as lecture rooms and laboratories. For many years, Commencement Day and University Day processions began at Alumni Hall before processing to Memorial Hall.
During the 1920s construction of Polk Place and buildings around it, the general contractor, T. C. Thompson and Brothers of Charlotte, as well as architects and other construction officials, including the resident architect, Arthur C. Nash, were housed in Alumni Hall. In the late 1920s university administrators moved to a renovated South Building. A half story was added to Alumni Hall in 1939. It has at various times housed the University of North Carolina Press, the Departments of Physics, Sociology, City and Regional Planning, and Anthropology, and the research laboratories of Archaeology.
Date Established: 1898
Date Range: 1898 – Present