College Hall

During the month after the devastating fire on February 3rd, 1914 destroyed Old Main, the Board of Trustees and the Church perfected all necessary legal points for rebuilding. The Board met in a special session on February 17-18, two weeks after the fire, and resolved officially to rebuild the College and appointed a building committee: Rev. T. D. Scott, W. E. Barkman, R. B. F. Key, C. C. Henderson, R. W. Huie, J. H. Hinemon, and Dr. Crowell. Chairman Henderson attended neither this special meeting nor the one on April 7, 1914.

A Campaign Committee, composed of T. D. Scott, J. E. Callaway, and R. W. Huie, Jr., proclaimed that “Henderson-Brown must be rebuilt” and that to retain Arkadelphia's great reputation as an educational center, citizens should see that the College remained in Arkadelphia. To do so, however, “Arkadelphia will have to take the lead”. Coming to the rescue, Arkadelphia subscribed $40,000. Others contributed 13 carloads of lumber, 200,000 bricks, and numerous gifts and pledges. Over 260,000 bricks were cleaned from the old building and stacked nearby; the old foundation was ready for the contractor in May.

In addition to tending to the affairs of the College and campaigning for subscriptions and funds, President Crowell had to contend also with nagging critics: “Two or three good fellows could not do anything but talk and criticize and lie down across my path, seeking to entangle my feet every way I turned". Fortunately for the College, the critics did not predominate; but they were ever on hand in the “doom-and-gloom” shadows. The students remained loyal to Henderson and Crowell, however. On March 9, 1914, to demonstrate their love for the College, the students pledged over $1,000 at a mass meeting toward the rebuilding program. As each representative came forward to announce the amount pledged by his group, the audience responded with hearty applause.

According to the Oracle, when Malachi Smith, the head cook, “came forward to report the contribution of the kitchen staff, and, in a most suave manner, and with a few well-chosen words, announced their collection of $25.00, the applause was long and loud. (Mal and his force have been here for years and are held in great esteem)”.

Meanwhile, in all of the activity to rebuild the College, the Trustees were consulting with architects and projecting an ambitious construction program for a “bigger and better Henderson-Brown.” They decided to include four projects, in this order of importance: “the Administration Building and the Girls' Dormitory, all in one,”; the kitchen-dining halls and the heating plant; Key Hall to be finished; and a Boys' Dormitory on the old Alumni foundation.

The Board awarded the contract for the Administration Building-Girls' Dormitory on June 13, 1914, upon Dr. Crowell's suggestion, to A. O. Campbell of Little Rock, formerly of Oklahoma City. Campbell was “a great builder” and promised “to push the building to completion this fall.” The first estimate for the cost of the building was $60,000.

The building was scheduled to be ready for the opening of the College on September 17. But the weather did not cooperate. “It rained and it rained all the month of August.” Because the building would not be ready on time, Dr. Crowell recalled, “the calamity howlers had another opportunity: 'He will never get it ready. He cannot open school this fall. He had better waited for a year, as we thought. If he opens, he won't have a corporal's guard.’ They had agreed, mind you, that it would be wise to open, even if we had only fifty students”.

However, rainy weather caused only one of the delays in construction. Another postponement resulted from the institution's lifelong problem: lack of funds. Consequently, as had been true in 1891-92, the contractor at some time during construction stopped the work. A. O. Campbell stated that he would need at least $40,000 to complete the half-finished structure, since the new estimate for its cost was now $80,000.

But Campbell was willing to work out an agreement with four of the Trustees on a plan to complete the building. According to in the College Bulletin for 1922-23, “in a philanthropic and magnanimous spirit,” Campbell offered to finance one-half of the construction costs if the Trustees would assume the responsibility for the other half. As a result, four Trustees—R. W. Huie Sr., C. C. Henderson, R.B.F. Key, and W. E. Barkman—underwrote the 50 per cent of the construction funds so that work could proceed.

Clark County records reveal some of the legal transactions effected after the College had moved into the buildings in February, 1915. Campbell imposed a mechanic's lien against the College on April 5, 1915, for $42,096.01 for “work and materials furnished”.

On June 3, 1915, the College mortgaged for $42,000 all of Block Four of the Maddox Addition—the site of the new building— to help cover debts. The promissory note was due in 90 days at 8 per cent interest. On June 3, 1915, the College mortgaged three tracts of land for $7,000. The promissory note due in six months, on December 3, 1915, at 8 per cent interest.

Since the use of this $7,000 is not specified in the deed, presumably the money was used to pay off those who had filed mechanic's liens against the College. Each of these deeds of trust was satisfied in full on April 9, 1920, as certified by W. E. Barkman, cashier of the Elk Horn Bank and Trust Company.

In the program of construction in 1914, as had been true in 1890 with President George Childs Jones, the new building would not be ready in September as planned. President Crowell had to make adjustments to accommodate students who would be arriving on or before September 17, the scheduled date for the College to open. Like Jones, Crowell proved equal to the task.

Because the contractor had promised to have the building ready by November 12, the College had planned a dedicatory service on that date. Though the building was not completed, the College held the dedicatory service that morning as planned. Again, “the knockers had a field day: ‘We told you he would not have it ready!’” But, Crowell recalled, “they enjoyed the feast” furnished by the College and the ladies of Arkadelphia and served in the dining hall, still a board-and-batten temporary building.

Again, the contractor promised to have the building completed after Christmas. Again: delay. During Christmas time "everything was so frozen up that scarcely anything towards putting in the heating plant could be done, and the knockers knocked on. The students understood the situation and returned” after the holidays.

Finally, on February 3, 1915, from 8 p.m. to midnight, on the anniversary of the fire, the College celebrated “the entrance into the new building, complete in every department, which has arisen from ashes of the old.” A reporter noted: “Impressions made upon visitors when entering from the front doors are imposing, indeed. There is an air of dignity and fitness about the entire building, which cannot fail to impress the visitors”. About a thousand attended the Grand Reception.

The new building, 166 feet by 112 feet, was a three-story structure of dark red brick with gray stone trim, representing an investment of $90,000. On the first floor were recitation rooms for the High School Department; boys' study hall; science department, consisting of chemical, physics, and biological laboratories, and lecture rooms; business department; and, finally, domestic science and art. On this floor was the entrance to the lower-depth gymnasium, a spacious room with ample floor space for any games played there and a balcony with a seating capacity for 150.

On the second floor were the administrative offices, library, recitation rooms, girls' study hall, Y.W.C.A. room, reception halls, drawing room, parlor, and auditorium, which could seat about 1,000. On the third floor, housing only the girls' dormitory, were 65 double rooms, each room complete with oak furniture, iron beds, and lavatories supplied with hot and cold water.

Throughout the building were excellent facilities for fire protection. Each hall in the dormitory had an exit on a fire escape and reels of fire hose placed conveniently on each floor. Special attention had been paid to ventilation and sanitation.

That “so magnificent a building could have been erected and equipped within the time, and in spite of the money stringency occasioned by a great European war” was indeed a miracle. That such had been accomplished in a year's time was due in a large measure to the “untiring energy and consecrated devotion" of the president, Dr. George H. Crowell. “When many of the friends of the institution felt that the undertaking was an impossible one, Crowell's faith never wavered. He always insisted that it could and must be done, and this magnificent building stands as a monument to his faith and determination”.

However, Crowell's calamity critics had continued: “He will never finish it and furnish it. It would have been better never to have begun.” They criticized the modern building mercilessly. But Crowell kept his eyes on the vision that he had followed all along.

The months of March and April soon passed. College Hall had been wholly completed at $75,000, or $15,000 more than originally estimated. The furniture and equipment were brand new; most had been “secured by donation in memorial”.

In November of 1922, as basketball season approached, the gymnasium received renovations and upgrades. In the 1930s, several projects improved the exterior of College Hall. In 1934, as a project of the Civil Works Administration, workers installed a new roof on the building. Other remodeling projects improved the interior. After the girls moved from the rooms on the third floor to Mooney Hall in 1933, the third floor of College Hall was remodeled for faculty offices, classrooms, and other uses. Before the completion of Womack Hall in 1936, some girls had to live in a few of the rooms in the old dormitory. For several years, some of the women faculty and staff members occupied some of the rooms. The College made good use of the space on the third floor as long as College Hall stood.

In February, 1935, student workers removed the balcony around the old gymnasium wall as part of a project to convert the gymnasium into a practice basketball court and physical education classroom. Once the pride of the College, the balcony had extended about eight feet from the wall and added to the seating capacity of the gymnasium. The old Auditorium stage floor was replaced with a new one in February, 1934. In 1935, the Auditorium displayed a new maroon velvet curtain trimmed with gold braid. Installed by B. W. McCormick, local merchant, the beautiful new curtain was "fronted with an apron of similar material.” In the center of the apron was “a large gold letter 'H,' with an appropriate surrounding leaf design.” Arranged on sliding rollers, the new curtain opened from the center; it replaced the canvas drop curtain used for the past few years. At some point in the early 1940s, the Bulletin began to refer to a renovated Gymnasium on the first floor, which became home to the bookstore and a Student Center.

Finally, in 1964, after McBrien Hall and the Fine Arts Center were ready to occupy, the college awarded a contract on June 17 to Burke's House Wrecking Company for $4,366 to raze both College Hall and Key Hall.