Kenyon College - Reveille Yearbook (Gambier, OH)

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October 17. 1962 Moving Cromwell House to make room for the new library from the 1966 REVEILLE 13

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1885 1911 Kenyon’s first separate library building, Hubbard Hall, at upper left, was built in 1885, on the present site of Ransom Hall. In 1902 the completely fireproof Stephens Stack Room, now Stephens Hall, was added, and proved a godsend when Hubbard burned to the ground on New Year's Day of 1910. The loss included reference books, paintings, and valuable documents including some of Philander Chase's letters; but the bulk of the collection had fortunately been removed to Stephens, and survived unscathed. Hubbard was replaced by the Alumni Library, now Ransom Hall, shown above under construction. The handsome Norton Room, now the scene of nail-biting and thumb-twiddling by nervous pros- pective freshmen, was the main reading room of this library, opened in 1912. It served for fifty years, but had clearly become inadequate after thirty-five of them. In the late forties part of the collection was moved to a temporary, and highly flammable, frame building located immediately south of Rosse Hall, and plans for a new library were drawn, an artist’s conception of which ap| ears at left. This library would have been built on the site of the present one and might have been completed around 1953; but when Old Kenyon burned, its reconstruction of course, became the top priority, and the library proj- ect was postponed. Finally, on October 17.” 1962, students pitched in with the tremendous job of moving thousands of books; and the Gordon Keith Chalmers Memorial Library, named for Kenyon’s president from 1937 to 1956, became a reality. The Alumni Library was remodeled to house college offices, and renamed in 1964 to honor one of Ken- yon's most distinguished faculty members, poet John Crowe Ransom. 12 1946

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At right, an architect’s conception of Bexley Hall; below, the faculty and student body of the Seminary; and at lower right, faculty and students of the Kenyon Art Department. Bexley was begun in 18.39 to house the theo- logical seminary and was substantially com- pleted in 1843. though, as with Old Kenyon, parts of the interior remained in a rather rough condition for some years to come. Ex- cept for a lapse during the 1870’s, when a shortage of students forced closing, and a two-year move to Virginia during the Second World War, the seminary operated here con- tinuously until 1968. when it moved to Roches- ter. New York. The building was then Occupied by the accounting and alumni offices until 1972, when it was completely remodeled to house the Art Department. Colburn Hall, now known as Colburn Gallery, was added in 1904 to house the seminary library. Shortly after the completion of Bexley some- one apparently became convinced that it was out of place in a campus whose other principal buildings (all two of them at that time) were of stone; so for many years, in an effort to imi- tate stone, Bexley wore a coat of either stucco or whitewash which was not finally dispensed with until the 1960’s. 1839 1882 1973 14