Kenyon College - Reveille Yearbook (Gambier, OH)

Page 9 text:

I GO! GO! GO! GO! HARRIS H. KHKNCHN mvo «Tout or OAMairn! wavy nu ICE CREAM! 1C OOLO SODA WATER I iKMON A ! K. CIGARS, smoking CHEWING TWfiCCP! «mil TIIIV.» • MiKCTIUXA»l.« t»l III mu »IU. MIT 1911 c. 1874 “The village is incorporated and its population of about 1150 is governed by a Mayor and a Council. Its edu- cational facilities include the grades 1-6 and a day school. A modern san- itary disposal system is maintained and water is supplied by the College. Gambier is located on the Pennsyl- vania Railroad and on Ohio State routes 229 and 308.” — from the Mt. Vernon Telephone Directory c. 1895 7

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The earliest known view of Gambier appears at top right. Note at the center the well, the site of which is now marked by a brass tabiet in the middle oFW'iggin Street; and, above all, the absence of Middle Path. Bishop Chase had planned for the main campus to be laid out in a se- ries of squares bounded by buildings; Old Kenyon would have formed the south side of the southernmost square, Kosse Chapel probably the west side of the next one up. This phin was scrapped under Kenyon's third president, David Bates Douglass, who laid out Middle Path from Old Kenyon to Wiggin Street in 1841; the path was ex- tended to Bexley Hall around I860. The photograph at middle right was taken from the roof of Bexley just after the work was completed. In the days when access to Mount Vernon was not so easy as now. Gambier supported a flourishing business district. The two establishments represented at right on the facing page, Jacobs’ Shoe Store and Casteel’s Barber Shop, were located on the site of Farr Hall. The subject of the top photograph is identified as Harold Parker, who later worked for the College as a laboratory assistant. French’s Drug Store was the first occupant of the build- ing immediately south of the post office, now the Drama Annex, and probably the most versatile building in Gam- bier's history. Built originally around 1855, it burned and was rebuilt in 1888. It served as the College Commons from lfMl to 1929, with the kitchen downstairs and the dining room up; then, when Peirce Hall was completed, it be- came the post office. When the present post office was occupied in 1940 it was devoted to library storage, and shortly thereafter was remodeled to house the College bookstore. In 1966 the bookshop occupied its new quar- ters in Farr Hall, and the old French building became the headquarters of the Art Department, which moved to Bexley Hall in 19 2. When the Fine Arts Center is com- pleted in 19?? . . . Corner of Gaskin and Brooklyn, 1896 I. c. 1840 c. 1860 6 Canoeing on the KoKosing, c. 1885

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1965 1965 1964 The Kokosing Gift Shop operated between 1946 and 1946 in the back room of the former Hayes Grocery building, now occupied by Student Council and the Gambier Ex- perimental College. The three other photographs show buildings demolished to make way for Farr Hall. Arnold’s Kokosing Market stood where Hayes’ Grocery is now, Woolison’s Sohio station on the site of the Pizza Villa, in the former Jacobs Shoe building. The design of Farr Hall was the subject of prolonged haggling between and among the trustees, faculty, and students of Kenyon, and the townspeople of Gambier. The drawing above, which appeared in the Collegian of December 11, 1964, was the architect's third attempt to produce a design acceptable to all parties. It wasn’t. corner of Gaskin and Brooklyn, 1965 I here are no shops in the village except for two provision stores, no drugstore, no movie theater, and only one small neon sign that fee- bly says Laundry to the empty night. Gam- bier is a lonely little town after ten o’clock. 8 c. 1948 — Robert Hillyer “Gambier — Victorian Remnant in Ohio”. 1953