Mars Hill University opened in 1856 as French Broad Baptist Institute on a four-acre campus with a single building near the present Founders Memorial and fountain, and over time the campus expanded through the addition of Founders Hall in 1892, many upper quad buildings by the 1920s, residence halls on Men's Hill and Women's Hill, Robinson Infirmary, Anderson Amphitheater, Wall Science Building, Memorial Library, Myers Residence Hall, and a memorial to Joseph Anderson, a young black man held in an Asheville jail to secure payment for the trustees' debt on the first building. Research begun in 1989 by Professor Harley Jolley's senior history seminar students led to support for historic district designation, and after further work by Davyd Foard Hood and Richard Sams Dillingham, the institution proposed a district covering buildings and sites fifty years old or older from 1856 to 1955. Covering more than 27 of the campus's 174 acres and containing 20 contributing sites, the Mars Hill College Historic District received a Getty Foundation grant in 2004 for architectural preservation and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 12, 2006 during the university's sesquicentennial celebration. As of October 2017, it was among the largest educational historic districts in the state by number of contributing sites.