WESTGATE HALL

Increasing enrollments had created a shortage of housing, especially for women, and it was decided to build a new hall in other than conventional manner. The reasons were stated by Schilletter:¹

(1) speed of construction to take care of anticipated increase in enrollment for women students and

(2) an experiment in building a non-conventional hall at a low cost per bed. The economy depended largely upon eliminating refinements and reducing room sizes including ceiling heights.

The decision to build such a structure was reached at the Board meeting of July 8-9, 1954. The architect was selected the end of that month, bids were received in October and construction began in November of that year.²

The building was of steel frame with precast exterior wall panels. Construction was completed in September 1955 when it was ready for the opening of the fall term.

Women occupied the hall from the beginning until the fall of 1957 when Linden Hall was completed. From then until the fall of 1965, when it again became a women’s hall, it was occupied by male students.