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Three stories high, this building has an area of 22,606 square feet. The building is named after William Joseph Peele (1885-1919) who was described as a "strange and useful character." Peele conceived the Watauga Club, which is responsible for establishing NC State, and gave the dedication address for the first building, Holladay Hall. It was his strong conviction that education should be for the common man and that classical education had a stultifying grip that must be loosened to advance the state economically.

Known at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the best writer in the Class of 1879, Peele displayed some of his best writing skills in a sketch he wrote of Wilson Caldwell, janitor at the University. His interest in history led to the establishment of the North Carolina Historical Commission. A prominent Raleigh lawyer, Peele was a strong advocate of progress and shortly before his death, he remarked "I wanted to live to see a great telescope on the [Chapel] Hill, pointing away from the earth to the infinite, to the stars."