Charlotte Technical High School, 1926-c2000

As cotton mills came into the Belmont and North Charlotte communities by 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 and Chadwick Hoskins Mills to create a vocational school to provide the children with an industrial education. This school, first known as Belmont Vocational School, was located at 1400 Pegram Street, and completed in September 1922. The first principal of the school was Harry K. Moore, who came from Middleton, Ohio.

Initial enrollment was not large, and the overcrowded Villa Heights School was able to use the excess space for some of the primary students. The first year included seventh, eighth, and ninth grade students, with the first graduating class in 1926. Student enrollment increased each year, and the upper grades eventually filled out the school.

Principal Moore resigned in 1926, and was followed by Forest T. Selby of Oxford, Ohio. Many changes occurred during Selby’s tenure, including the addition of courses in a variety of subjects, a new woodworking shop, evening classes for adults, and the renaming of the school to Charlotte Technical High School or “Tech High,” in 1927.

Charlotte Technical High School ceased existence in 1954, and became Hawthorne Junior High School. Graduates of Tech High were very interested in continuing the relationships they formed with each other, the faculty, and the school, however. They held reunions, wrote newsletters, formed social groups such as the Tech High Lunch Bunch, and participated in community activities. Many of these activities continue today, including the administration of the Lula Faye Clegg Memorial Scholarship Fund, which honors Ms. Clegg, who taught history, civics, and social studies at the school from 1923 to 1965.