McElhannon Hall

The last structure completed during the 1930s was a science building, “the one unit lacking in making our plant complete as a liberal arts college,” according to President Womack in 1937. The College filed an application in March, 1937, with the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works for a loan and a grant to aid in financing the construction of a Science Building at a cost of about $82,000, according to the first estimates. But the loan application was slow in being processed by Federal officials. Over a year later, in June, 1938, H.S.T.C. received official approval of the application; and, on August 29, 1938, the College received the formal approval of the contract by the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works.

Located a short distance northwest of College Hall, the new science hall was a three-story red brick, 115 feet by 58 feet; it had white stone trim and a tile roof; it was similar in architectural design to the other new buildings on campus. The building cost $125,454 for the construction and fixtures. Completed in May, 1939, the building accommodated the entire Science Department, with the first floor designated for use by the Department of Physics and Mathematics. On this floor were classrooms, darkrooms, laboratories, offices, and a large lecture room with 110 seats. The second floor, for the Department of Biology, contained two large laboratories, recitation rooms, and offices, and the third floor, for the Department of Chemistry, had two laboratories, a lecture room, and offices.

Of course, the professors in the Science Department were elated with the new building that was quite a change in space and equipment in the four or five rooms allocated to the Department in the east end of the ground floor of the Administration Building. Now they could offer more courses in science and a more thorough study of each course than before; they also expected the new science facility to attract more students to their Departments.

On May 29, 1939, the Board of Trustees voted to name the science building Fletcher McElhannon Hall to honor a Trustee of the College, who served from 1929 until his death in April, 1939.

McElhannon Hall was dedicated in a special ceremony on Sunday afternoon, October 8, 1939, on the campus just in front of the building as the initial move in celebrating the Semi-Centennial of the College. The most formal dedicatory service at Henderson to date, the ceremony featured the procession of the faculty in academic regalia. Dr. Harrison Hale, Head of the Chemistry Department, University of Arkansas, spoke on the topic “Fruits of Science”.

In 1965, the General Assembly had appropriated $300,000 for renovation of McElhannon Hall. On October 5, 1966, the Board awarded the contract for the construction of an annex to the west end of McElhannon Hall for $532,200. The McElhannon Hall Annex, completed in October, 1967, provided more classroom and laboratory space for courses in the sciences to alleviate crowded conditions in old McElhannon Hall.

In 1974, as work neared completion on the renovation of Womack Hall, the Board awarded a contract on October 31 for the simultaneous renovating and equipping of McElhannon and Mooney Halls and the replacement of steam tunnels and pipes on the campus. The total project budgets for these three improvements amounted to $1,156,193 for McElhannon; $1,057,699, Mooney; and $226,445, steam tunnels and pipes. The original or “old” McElhannon Hall was refurbished for continued use by the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. It retained its basic plan of the Physics Department on the first floor, Biology on the second, and Chemistry on the third. As a result of the renovation, McElhannon acquired several new features: a freight elevator in one of the old stairwells; new desks and built-in equipment; new plumbing, wiring, and air conditioning; optics and advanced physics laboratories; an environmental room, an animal room, a plant laboratory, and a herbarium for biology; a modern laboratory and more accessible storage space for chemistry. The “new” McElhannon was ready for use for the Spring Semester, 1976.

In 1999, the building became a wing of the newly constructed Reynolds Science Center, and references to McElhannon Hall have faded away.