FIELD HOUSE - PHYSICAL EDUCATION FOR WOMEN

Locations: Originally built just west of Home Economics Building (MacKay Hall). In 1926 moved to site just south of Press Building, now marked by a bronze tablet on a boulder there.

The large increase in enrollment in the Home Economics department in 1920 created an urgent need for additional space and the construction of a temporary frame building was authorized.¹ It was described in the April 28, 1920, edition of the Iowa State Student:

The new building will be a wooden structure, and the rooms extend, end to end, in a half circle, beginning on the northeast corner, thirty feet from the main building. The rooms will measure 28 feet in width. The frontage on the north road will continue 125 feet to the west, and turn south in an L, 95 feet.

Five good sized laboratories will be accommodated in the new structure. In addition, a kitchen and pantry, as well as an office for the instructing staff, will be centrally located.

Construction was completed shortly after the start of the fall term.

With completion of the new Home Economics Building in 1926 the Annex was no longer needed for laboratories and was moved to the new site to become “a girl’s fieldhouse and W.A.A. headquarters.” ²

When the Women’s Gymnasium became available in 1941 the Field House was no longer needed by the women and it became temporarily a storage building.

In 1943 two additions were constructed to make the building suitable for “the Army’s research program.” Cost of the additions was financed by that program.³

Later it became known that the “Army’s research program” was the development of a method for the preparation of pure uranium for use in the atomic bomb and for use in nuclear energy projects of various kinds. Over 2,000,000 pounds of uranium were produced there.

The annex became known as “Little Ankeny” during the war years as a comparison with the large ordnance plant then operating at Ankeny.

The building was completely dismantled and removed in the fall of 1953.