If not for the quick thinking and actions of a group of five freshmen in 1938, Old Main may have been lost. On September 18, 1938, while walking about campus at about 10:25 p.m., the five freshmen heard a window break in the Little Country Theatre seminar room and saw flames in the interior. Three of the freshmen rushed over to Ceres Hall, where they notified Catherine Brandes, Ceres Hall Club President, who turned in the alarm. The other two climbed a fire escape, broke another window, and held the fire in check until the firemen arrived. Paint soaked rags, left in the seminar room, may have started the fire, either by spontaneous combustion or through contact with a hot radiator, firemen believe. Damage was estimated at $300. (The Spectrum, September 23, 1938, p. 1)
***************************************************************************************************On one morning in the early 1960s, the phones began to ring in Old Main and wouldn't stop. Earlier in the day, someone at the downtown offices of Bell Telephone found a bag hanging from the building's front door. The bag contained plastic disks from the receivers of telephones. Apparently the night before, a group of pranksters removed the disks from all of the phones in Old Main. It was thought that they might have entered the building through a ventilator. (Courtesy of Jerry Richardson, former Director of University Relations and Professor Emeritus of Mass Communications, NDSU)
***************************************************************************************************In the course of renovations in Old Main during the early 1970s, an elderly Scandinavian cabinet maker was employed to make the new counters in the Registrar's Office and the Business Office. He did meticulous work, and on the day of the open house for the newly renovated Old Main, this gentleman took his wife, who was blind, on a tour of the new offices so that she could run her fingers over her husband's fine cabinetry. (Courtesy of Jerry Richardson)
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University Archives, 701-231-8914 Published by the University Archives, NDSU Last Updated: 8/27/04 |