The Experiment Station (1888) and Station Terrace (1892–1924)

Experimentation was a fundamental part of the Michigan Agricultural College from its founding, even more so when the Reorganization of 1861 “expressly provide[d] for agricultural experiments and for reports concerning them.” Subsequent legislation built on this premise: the Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862 provided “for the purchase of experimental farms, and for reports of experiments,” and in 1885 an act of the state Legislature formally authorized M.A.C. to issue and distribute bulletins that reported the results of its experiments.

But it was the federal Hatch Act of 1887 that shifted agricultural research in the United States into high gear, when it provided $15,000 per year to each state that would create an agricultural experiment station as an adjunct to its land-grant agricultural college. On February 26, 1888, “the experiment station at the Michigan Agricultural College was organized under the provisions of the Hatch bill. Since then the experiment work which had been carried on by the College, has been conducted by the station.” In addition to its on-campus work, the Experiment Station operated numerous test sites around the state including substations at Grayling and South Haven, among others.¹

Thanks to its newfound funding and more unified status within the College, it became possible for the Experiment Station to provide housing for its research assistants. The result, Station Terrace, was designed by Edwyn Bowd—one of his earliest creations for the college, along with Old Botany—and built in 1892 at a cost of $3,500 in Experiment Station funds. It stood in the midst of Faculty Row between the homes of the Professor of English (№ 6) and the Professor of Agriculture (№ 8), about where the southern end of the Abbot Entrance median is today.²

Station Terrace had eight single rooms for its residents. As the majority of the researchers were unmarried men, the house was frequently referred to—in print, at least—as the “bachelors’ hall.” In conversation it was often known by its nickname: the “Bull Pen.”³

On January 24, 1903, Station Terrace was severely damaged by fire caused by a defective chimney on the west end of the building. No one was injured, and although most of the damage was contained in the attic and the framing adjacent to the chimney, the building required extensive renovation. At the next meeting of the Board, Secretary A. M. Brown recommended conversion to a family house, and was tasked with investigating “the feasibility of fitting up Station Terrace so that it could be used by two families.” The Board “went as far as to have the college architect [Bowd] prepare a sketch for the remodeling, but ultimately decided that they would derive more revenue and benefit from restoring the building to its former state with several apartments.”⁴

In the summer of 1910 a new addition was added to the west side of Station Terrace, and later that year the U.S. Post Office moved from quarters in the nearby trolley station and rented the entire first floor. This provided ample space for up to seven hundred post boxes, four customer service windows, and a separate sorting room to handle distribution of Experiment Station bulletins and other bulk mail. Upstairs, the Professor of Military Science and Tactics was assigned a pair of rooms, and the remainder were available to rent. At this point, given its main floor usage and that its upstairs residents were no longer exclusive to the Experiment Station, Station Terrace lost its original moniker and began to be known as “the post office.”⁵

In 1923 the Post Office’s lease expired and it moved to a storefront at 211 E. Grand River Avenue, where it remained until the Old Post Office on Abbot Road was built. This was in anticipation of a major campus beautification project the following year, when boulevards along the main highway (see “The Elms”) and a new, formal north entrance (now Abbot Entrance) were constructed. Along with the campus streetcar spur, built in 1897, several frame buildings stood in the path of progress including:

• the old hospital, by then in use by the Y.M.C.A.;
• the Music Center, a reuse of Faculty Row № 9;
• the trolley station of 1902;
• the “old post office,” i.e. Station Terrace, by then “used for but one office, that of the department of publications.”⁶

The old hospital and № 9 were moved off campus. The trolley station was torn down. Yet in the whirlwind of demolition and construction, it is not clear just what happened to Station Terrace. An M.A.C. Record article from July 1924 states, “the old car station has given way to the efforts of the wreckers, the music center and Y.M.C.A. have been dismantled and the old post office is next in line.” It is open to interpretation whether the author meant “next in line” to mean it was dismantled, or demolished.⁷

At the Campus Gate and the East Lansing historic commission both contend that Station Terrace was moved to 291 Durand Street but for several reasons (discussed here) this author is skeptical.

1. 31st AR (1892), pp. 168–170. ↩︎
2. Minutes, 6 Apr 1892, p. 620. 33rd AR (1894), p. 19. MSU CAP Blog, 8 Sep 2016. ↩︎
3. Lautner, p. 81. MSU CAP Blog, 8 Sep 2016. ↩︎
4. Minutes, 2 Feb 1903, pp. 116, 122, 127. MSU CAP Blog, 8 Sep 2016. ↩︎
5. MAC Record, 16(1), 20 Sep 1910, p. 2. Minutes, 8 Mar 1911, p. 71. ↩︎
6. MAC Record, 29(12), 10 Dec 1923, p. 4. ↩︎
7. MAC Record, 29(34), 28 Jul 1924, p. 22. ↩︎