Renovations on the Compton Union Building and Martin Stadium continued on the WSU Pullman campus. The nine-hole WSU Golf Course was also renovated into an 18-hole championship course and renamed WSU’s Palouse Ridge Golf Club. The renovations were completed and both the CUB and Martin Stadium were open for the fall semester in 2008.
More than 52 percent of student voters approved renovating the Compton Union Building. Renovation closed the CUB for two years, starting in fall 2006.
WSU’s renowned Edward R. Murrow School of Communication was strengthened by the opening of a 24,000-square-foot building, now known as Goertzen Hall, that includes communication research and teaching labs, TV news studio, faculty offices, and an auditorium.
Construction began on the new Plant Biosciences Building, the first of several new buildings that will create a new research and education complex along Stadium Way. The building was dedicated on October 14, 2005 and named for wheat researcher Orville Vogel in 2007.
The remodeled Carpenter Hall opens as home to the School of Architecture, now the School of Design and Construction. The cost of renovation was $9 million.
The facility, a five-story brick-and-wood building vilified by President Bryan for its lack of looks and efficiency, burns after a kitchen fire spreads out of control.
In 1900, the new Ferry residence hall opens. A four-story brick structure topped with a four-sided cupola, it houses between 100 and 180 students. Ferry serves as the only men’s residence hall on campus for three decades. The hall also houses the first campus fraternity, which starts as a club before moving off campus.
Despite an effort by alumni, students, and staff to preserve it, Ferry is demolished in the late-1960s—but not before the cupola was saved. In 1975 it’s relocated to the Glenn Terrell Friendship Mall, near Murrow Hall. Construction in the Murrow Yard in 2008 sparks the cupola’s relocation to its present site in the new arboretum near the Lewis Alumni Center.
Famed “Agony Hall” (Music Conservatory) is torn down to make way for the new Kimbrough Music Building.
The Alumni Centre opens in the name of benefactors Jack and Ann Lewis. It was part of a $50 million construction initiative on the Pullman campus, which included the Chemistry Building and the Food Science and Human Nutrition Building.
In 1985, Jack and Ann Lewis pledged $1 million toward the new facility. In 1991, the Lewis Alumni Centre dedicates a library in honor of Phillip and June Lighty, the Past President’s Room in honor of Henry and Anna Magnuson Reaugh, and the Reception Gallery for Weldon “Hoot” Gibson. In 1994, the Lewis Alumni Center completes its fifth year of operation and hosts 150,000 visitors and 1,500 meetings.
The recently constructed Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum opened for hosting the 1973 commencement ceremonies. In previous years, commencement ceremonies had been held either in Bohler Gym or, weather permitting, at Rogers Field (now Martin Stadium).
The National Park Service designated Thompson Hall (formerly the administration building) for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.
Post-WWII construction at WSC was marked by the importing of many temporary buildings to handle the boom of returning soldier students. Many of these buildings came from the Farragut Naval Training Station near Coeur d’Alene, ID while others came from Vancouver, WA. These buildings were torn down by the mid 1990s.
Construction begins on the Women’s Gym, now known as Smith Gym, and on Davis and Wilmer residence halls.
A fondly remembered place on campus, Silver Lake, also known as Lake de Puddle, was drained in summer of 1927. This made way for Hollingbery Fieldhouse and Mooberry Track. The manmade lake became part of the college in 1899, and shortly after the creation of the 1.6-acre lake, Professor Balmer from the School of Forestry directed the transplanting to the site of some 6,000 trees and shrubs to create “The Tanglewood”, a dense thicket offering a private retreat for students.
Students and faculty replace wooden walkways with paved sidewalks during the first Campus Day event. On this day each spring for about 20 years, classes are canceled and the entire student body forms work parties to improve the physical appearance of campus.
The dedication of the Administration Building, known today as Thompson Hall, serves as a tangible sign of the college’s growth under President Bryan’s leadership. The regents describe the building as ”an excellent piece of work and one that in point of convenience, strength, and architectural beauty compares with any state building.” Built with granite quarried from Spokane and brick from clay deposits near Stevens Hall, the building’s two large contrasting towers make it one of the campus’s most distinctive landmarks.
The one story brick structure (located where the Terrell Library now sits) houses agricultural and biology laboratories and a museum. The facility is absorbed as part of a new gymnasium, later known as the Temporary Union Building, or TUB, in 1901.
The first “skyscraper dorms,” Orton Hall and Rogers Hall, are built to accommodate the Baby Boom generation.
The Washington Legislature creates the office of State Veterinarian specifying that they also be the Professor of Veterinary Science at the college and a member of the State Board of Health. Sofus Bertelson Nelson, a native of Denmark, an Iowa State College graduate, and Spokane practitioner, is appointed to the post by the Board of Regents. Nelson later serves as Dean of the College of Veterinary Science and in 1919 he resigns to assume the post of Director of Agricultural Extension. In 18 years of service, records show he personally examined 149,182 animals. Cost of the services rendered is $45,000 total. The initial curriculum consists of a series of courses intended to supplement agriculture classes and to provide initial training to students who intend to transfer to another school. The veterinary labs are housed in (old) College Hall and a shed is constructed for $60 on the south end of campus to house the operating rooms.
