Miami University - Recensio Yearbook (Oxford, OH)

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Controversial Death quietly, coldly. Jeff Miller of Ohio to operate a sanitarium. It sold for $45,000. For 44 years, the building was used as a Pri- vate Institution for the Treatment of Insanity, Nervous Disorders, xInebrity, and Opium Habit, but was then sold to Miami University. After extensive interior and exterior remodel- ing, the building opened as a'residence hall for men. Dr. Upham, then president of the univer- sity, named the building Fisher Hall after Judge Elam Fisher. tThe name is especially fitting since Dr. Upham recalled Elam Fisher after being kicked out of Oxford Female College while courting a resident there.1 The building provided 78 rooms for 148 students and 4 suites for faculty members. During the Second World War, the US. Navy established a Naval Training School and offi- cially titled it The USS. Fisher Hall. The radio school trained 5,854 men and women tWAVESX The US. Navy was so impressed with Miami's contribution to the war effort, that when establishing officer-training units across the nation they developed Miami's present Navy R.O.T.C. program. During the academic year of 1945-1946, Fisher Hall was occu ied by Miami women, but in the Autumn o 1946, the building once again became a freshman residence hall for men. One of the most intriguing mysteries that en- shrouded Fisher Hall was the permanent dis- appearance of Ronald Tammen, a 19-year-old sophomore counselor. On April 19, 1953, four years before the upper floors of Fisher were condemned, Tammen vanished from his room. His roommate, Charles Findley, returned to the dorm around midnight on Sunday to find a book open on Tammen's desk and the light still on. When there was no explanation for his ab- sence, a search began which eventually became nation-wide. All possible clues were checked, but Tammen's car, his billfold, bank account, personal belongings, even. his coat, were left untouched. Since that time, the spirit of Ron Tammen was kept alive by the many accounts of mysterious figures, strange footfalls, moving pictures and the like. Although sentiments concerning the demoli- tion of Fisher Hall were varied and controver- sial, the final decision by the Board of Trustees was unavoidable, even with the proposed grant-match for $374,000 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Interior and exterior decay had become so extensive- that costs for renovation were considered un- feasible by the Board. On July 16, 1978 Acme Wrecking began de- molition of the pre-Civil War edifice that lasted through the summer. Portions of Fisher were salvaged, the cupola section of the bell tower, keystones, post supports and numerous bricks, to be used in the proposed memorial confer- ence center planned to replace the area Fisher Hall once dominated. :.-.'

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