HOG HOUSES
The need for a hog-house was expressed in the First Annual Report for 1858-59. Over the years a number of different hog pens, houses and barns were built. These are not adequately documented, in most cases, and locations cannot always be determined.
Apparently the first housing for hogs was erected in 1865, as reported by the farm superintendent: “Mr. Graves, the farmer, reported that he tore down the shanty and built a hog pen.”1 Where that hog pen was located is unknown.
At that March 1865 Board meeting it was recommended that “a first class hog pen” be built. That was accomplished during 1866 and 1867. In January 1867 Supt. Robinson was able to report:
A hog pen was also partly built 24 x 24 feet square, with a passage or feed room through the center 4 feet in width, with six apartments capable of each containing 10 grown hogs, with shingle roof, and the upper part capable of housing 1,000 bushels of corn, nearly completed and would have been done if hands could have been procured. Cost $39.75. Estimated cost $60.00. Agreeable to directions the old Brickyard shanty lumber was used wherever it was suitable for the construction of the pens the estimate of which is not taken into this account.
The following year the Superintendent reported that the building had been completed at a cost of $85.87 ½, and that “I have had open yards made to four of the pens at odd times by hands on the farm using old timber.” 2
This was the “Piggery” pictured on page 39 of Earle Ross’ “The Land Grant Idea at Iowa State College”. It appears on the 1883 map, located at approximately the northwest corner of today’s addition to the Women’s Gym.
In 1880 it was recorded that $760.88 had been expended for a swine house built by day labor. This was undoubtedly an addition to the existing Piggery.
The Piggery was destroyed by fire in 1885 and a request for $2000 was made to permit new quarters to be built.3 Those funds were not immediately forthcoming. In 1886 the Professor of Agriculture was directed “to move the hen house and rearrange and repair the same in such a manner as to fit it for use as a swine house.”4
It was 1891 before a new piggery could be built. In that year $1500 was allocated and the hog house was erected in a location that is now the parking lot west of the original Women’s Gym. This building became known as the Hog Barn. It burned on January 10, 1922.
The building lists from 1899 through 1922 include 15 Movable Hog Houses, with valuations ranging, in different years, from $150.00 to $500.00.