Introduction

Origins

The City

Collegeville (1887, 1895)
College Delta (1898, 1899)
Oakwood (1899)
Cedar Banks (1900)
College Grove (1903)
Fairview (1904, 1905)
College Heights (1904)

Charter of 1907

Avondale (1913)
Bungalow Knolls (1916)
Chesterfield Hills (1916)
Ardson (1919)
Ridgeley Park (1921)
Strathmore (1925)
Glen Cairn (1926)
Bailey (1927)
Touraine (1927)

The Campus

Chronology

Interactive Map

Sites on the National and State Historic Registers

Complete list of
Significant Structures

Sources

The Three Wells Halls

All three versions of Wells Hall were named for Judge Hezekiah Griffith Wells (1812-1885), the first President of the State Board of Agriculture.

Judge H.G. Wells. Photo Credit: Beal, p.342.

Wells Hall the First (1877 — 1905)

First Wells Hall. Photo Credit: M.S.U. Archives.

After Saints' Rest was destroyed in late 1876, the State Legislature granted a $25,000 appropriation to replace it. The result was this larger and much more elaborate design by architects Watkins & Arnold. The first Wells Hall was built in 1877 and was located to the south of College Hall, on a site now occupied by the east wing of the Main Library. Like the building it replaced, the first Wells Hall burned down on February 11, 1905.[Lautner, p.46. Beal, p. 270]

First Wells Hall burns, 11 February 1905. Photo Credit: M.S.U. Archives.

Wells Hall the Second (1907 — 1966)

Second Wells Hall. Photo Credit: M.S.U. Physical Plant.

The second Wells Hall began construction the following year and was completed in 1907. It too was a student dormitory and stood on the site of its predecessor. It consisted of six units, or wards, separated by brick partition walls that were intended as a means of fire prevention — a design that might have saved the building when nearby Engineering caught fire in 1916. Until the 1920s the dormitory lacked hot water, and men "warmed their shaving water by conducting steam through a rubber tube from the radiator."[Kuhn, p.325] Second Wells lasted until 1966, when it was demolished to make room for the new East Wing of the Main Library.

Second Wells Hall smolders next to ruins of Engineering, 5 March 1916. Photo Credit: M.S.U. Archives.

Wells Hall the Third (1968)

Today's Wells Hall is an office, classroom, and lecture hall building in the Brutalist style. It will not win any awards for design, but B-108 Wells is said to be the largest lecture hall on campus.

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