BOTANY HALL

An appropriation of $35,000 for a new building for Agriculture, Horticulture and Veterinary Science was made early in 1892. Plans for the building were presented to the Board at their April meeting by Josselyn & Taylor. The site selected was on the knoll where Professor Kent’s house stood. (Built by Prof. Budd and later known as Mortensen Cottage.) The house was moved in July.

The construction contract was awarded to Whiting and Wood in June 1892,¹ and work was started the following month. The building was occupied in October 1893.² The building was described in the 1892-93 Biennial Report:

The new agricultural hall is one of the finest on the campus. The building is composed of stone through the basement and second floor and the rest is made of brick. The building is four stories and a basement, with a ground dimension of sixty-four feet by one hundred and six feet. The basement is devoted to horticulture. Therein the winter work in horticulture is prepared and preserved. This is constructed so as to drive in with a team on one side and out at the other, making a most convenient arrangement for the purpose. The first floor above the basement is given, in the west half, to the department of agricultural chemistry. Testing and experimental laboratories are herein provided. The east part of this floor is given to general bulletin room and grafting room of horticultural department. There also is a live stock room for class purposes in which an animal of the farm may be brought before the class adjudged according to the most recent methods of becoming acquainted with farm animals from life.

The second floor is devoted to offices for Professors Wilson, Kent, Curtiss, Hensen and Budd, and recitation rooms for agriculture and horticulture.

On the third floor there are offices for Drs. Stalker and Niles of the veterinary department, bacteriological laboratories, two recitation rooms for veterinary department and room for agricultural museum.

The fourth floor is a half story and probably these rooms will be employed for some of the literary and scientific societies of the college. The building is heated througout by steam. It has one of the most commanding locations on the campus and is in every way a credit to the State and an inspiration to our work.

By 1897 there had been noticeable floor settlement and considerable amounts of plaster cracking. George E. Hallet, architect, recommended “that a stone pier and an iron column be placed under the center of the truss above the livestock recitation room.”³

A new Farm Mechanics and Soil Physics Building was constructed as an addition on the north side of Agricultural Hall in 1903. The Biennial Report for 1902-03 reported:

The Farm Mechanics Building is strongly constructed and admirably well adapted to its purpose… It is 60 x 100 feet in size and four stories high, will be occupied by the new department of farm mechanics. The building is of brick and steel, and fire proof throughout.

On the first floor will be a private workshop for the repair of farm machinery for the College farm. There will be also a student’s blacksmith shop, and a place for study and operation of farm motors such as gas engines, steam traction engines, etc. On the balcony of this floor will be carpenter shops for students of this department.

On the second floor will be offices for the head of the department, a large lecture room, drafting room, and students’ study and reading room. The latter will contain all the periodicals on farm machinery, farm papers, etc. On this same floor will be a large machine operating room for the construction operation and testing of various kinds of farm machinery. Students are furnished practical training in setting up and adjusting farm implements, such as binders, mowers, corn planters, corn shredders, wagons, etc.

On the third floor machinery not in use will be stored. There will be on this floor photographic rooms and dark rooms for instructing students in the farm mechanics department in photography. There will also be on the third floor mailing rooms and offices for assistants in the department.

When completed it will be the finest and best equipped building in this country, or any other, erected for the purpose of teaching students farm mechanics.

Various modifications, alterations and repairs were made over the next twenty to twenty-five years. After the Agricultural Engineering department moved to its new building in 1922 the old quarters were used primarily for storage.

In 1928 the Botany department moved into the old Agricultural Hall (from Central) and the building was renamed Botany Hall. ⁴

The Botany department remained in that location until 1967 when it moved to Bessey Hall. The Seed Laboratory remained until 1977 when it, too, moved to a new building. The Psychology department was moved from Beardshear Hall to Botany Hall in early 1968.