W. O. Hedrick House, 220 Oakhill Ave. (1909)

W. O. Hedrick House, February 1992. Photo Credit: Kevin S. Forsyth.

Wilbur Olin Hedrick (1868–1954, M.A.C. ’91) was Professor of English 1891–93, Assistant Professor of History and Political Economy 1893–1906, Head of the Department of History and Economics 1906–1916, Head of the Department of Economics 1916–1930, and retired in 1938. He initiated the first classes in agricultural economics at M.A.C. in 1911. He was an early member of the East Lansing school board, and was married to Lu Baker, of the large Baker family of East Lansing. They had four daughters, all of whom were graduates of the College.

W. O. Hedrick. Photo Credit: Beal, p. 455, where his name is given as “William.”

Professor Hedrick was a vocal proponent of the cooperative movement, teaching a course in its principles and publishing two bulletins on Michigan cooperatives, one on grain elevators and the other on creameries. He organized the Cooperative Book Buying Association in 1896, the forerunner of the M.S.U. Bookstore. “The first student housing cooperative in the United States to own its own building” was founded in 1939 at M.S.C. and was named for him. Having moved several times, Hedrick Cooperative built its current house on Collingwood Avenue (then known as Haslett Street) in the 1950s. Over the years the co-op gradually expanded into two adjacent houses; these split in the 1980s to become the co-ops known today as Ferency and Miles Davis.[Hedrick website]