By George P. Edmonston Jr.

OSU alumni returning to campus for reunions or sporting or cultural events often express their delight in how much the university values keeping what it has.

From Benton Hall, OSU’s first building after the school relocated from downtown Corvallis in 1889, to Milam and Waldo, Strand Ag Hall, the MU, Weatherford Hall and Fairbanks, Shepard and Apperson, and the Women’s Building, the campus remains fairly intact from a time that dates to the last few years of president B. L. Arnold, OSU’s chief executive until 1892. Nothing touches the heart and spirit of an alumnus more than a visit to old campus hangouts to see things are still the same.

This is not to suggest everything has been saved. Waldo now sits where once stood the home of T. Edgenton Hogg, Civil War veteran, railroad magnate and early benefactor to the school. Oregon Governor James Withycombe once lived in a large Victorian house that would one day give way for the space needed to build the Valley Library. Large greenhouses once occupied what is now the pay parking lot for the Memorial Union. Until it was destroyed by fire in 1898, a large power plant sat behind Benton Hall, approximately where the Milne Computer Center is today. Old dairy and livestock barns have vanished and Bell Field, the home of Beaver football for over 50 years, was demolished in 1953 to make room for what would one day be the Dixon Student Recreational Center. Today’s Gilkey Hall, OSU’s original dairy science building and known to later generations of liberal arts students as Social Sciences Hall, sits in the exact location of old Alpha Hall, the university’s first dormitory for women. Tennis courts were once in the quad directly in front of the MU and a mini-neighborhood of a dozen homes had to be moved in the 1990s to make room for the CH2M HILL Alumni Center.

Also missing are two campus landmarks that still occupy a place of prominence in the minds of alumni who retain a certain measure of institutional memory: the bandstand and the Lady of the Fountain, both gone but certainly not forgotten.

Photo from the October '52 Oregon Stater.

The Bandstand

Once the centerpiece of the old quad, the bandstand was built in the early years of president William Jasper Kerr’s tenure (1907-1932) and was the proud gift of the classes of 1908, 1909, 1910 and 1912.

Sporting a copper roof mounted atop eight classical columns and situated just in front of what is today the Valley Library, the bandstand served for generations as the focal point for band concerts, rallies, military reviews and patriotic programs. It was also a popular stopping off point for visitors to campus and is featured in literally hundreds of old photographs of the campus taken in bygone years.

The "bandstand" in 1912, soon after its construction, Left-over debris and a blank spot to the left, on ground now occupied by OSU's Valley Library, marks the spot where the James Wiythcombe house once stood.

The beginning of the end for the old landmark happened early. With the building of OSU’s first modern library in 1918, now Kidder Hall, followed by the construction of the Pharmacy Building in 1924, the quad was now enclosed and the bandstand quickly became the acoustic source of an "echo" problem, which in turn forced the school’s cadet band to seek other venues for the belting out of its melodious tones.

The band continued using the basement of the structure for a practice room, but even that fell by the wayside when the roof starting leaking and there was no money or interest to have it fixed. By the early 1950s, OSU’s alumni magazine, The Oregon Stater, reported that "...the bandstand has, during the past several decades, developed a sort of melancholy anonymity and is hardly noticed by anyone."

The bandstand, long unused, now is a collecting place for trash and much water during the winter.-Oregon Stater October '52

In the fall of 1932, orders were issued to either repair the holes in the roof, supposedly caused by woodpeckers, or tear the thing down. Not wanting to do the latter, the bandstand was saved. By the early 1950s, the structure was again in a very bad way, with students skirting around its "features of boarded windows and battered interior" without so much as a glance. The basement had been reduced to nothing more than a collecting place for trash and muddy water from winter rains.

The bandstand was torn down in September 1963 and has never been replaced.

Lady of the Fountain

Photo from the December '52 Oregon Stater.

Shortly after graduation, members of the Class of 1902 proudly show-off their class gift. This is among the earliest known photographs of the "Iron Lady."

Probably the most remembered and beloved of OSU’s lost campus landmarks, the Lady of the Fountain was a gift of the class of 1902 and constructed shortly after graduation. It was the second class gift presented to OSU in school history and was located at the intersection of where Madison Street today crosses 9th Street. The fountain had a circular basin constructed of bricks from the original Corvallis College building on 5th Street downtown. In its center stood a metal statue of Hebe in a permanent pose pouring water from a pitcher held in her right hand.

Hebe, daughter of Zeus and Hera and wife of Hercules, was the Greek goddess of youth and was believed to have the power of restoring youth and beauty. The fountain was placed amid trees, shrubs and a huge bed of flowers and looked out across "lower campus" as the original Hebe may have gazed across the vale of Tempe long ago.

According to an article on the "Lady" in the December 1952 issue of the Stater, "The Lady of the Fountain soon came to symbolize the idealism of Oregon Agriculture College, its students and graduates. It was a shrine and its site a hallowed place."

Maybe so, but the "Lady" and her fountain-home quickly became a place for mischief and destructive hoaxes. The basin was found to be convenient for immersing Rooks, tales of which can be found in OSU’s first student yearbook, The Orange, published in 1907. The pitcher, along with Hebe’s free left hand, soon became convenient resting places for that midnight deposit of an empty beer bottle, a sign that OSU’s "Iron Lady" had become more of a mascot than sacred work of art.

Such encroaching behaviors stayed fairly "junior league" until the night of Oct. 30, 1919. OAC students the next morning found the campus smeared with green and yellow paint, amidst little wonder as to who might have perpetrated such a terrible deed. To make matters worse, the Lady of the Fountain had vanished, leaving an empty basin as silent witness to the nasty hoax.

The "Lady of the Fountain" parades triumphantly before a track meet crowd in 1922, after having been stolen and lost for three years. Student body president and officers of the Class of '22 make up the entourage.

She was later discovered, and recovered, from a ditch 40 miles south of Corvallis. The next fall, she again disappeared and was found imprisoned in a dark Portland basement in the home of a University of Washington student. After almost two years, she was brought back to campus in an open car. Arriving in the middle of a track meet, OSU’s "Iron Lady" electrified the crowd and spurred the team to victory.

Steps were immediately taken to ensure she would never stray again. The statue was filled with cement. Steel rod reinforcement anchored her to a solid base of concrete. The Barometer bragged: "Nothing short of a blast of dynamite will dislodge her."

The paper’s boast last seven years.

Death scene of "Lady of the Fountain."-Oreogn Stater December '52

In the wee morning hours of Jan. 21, 1929, students found fragments of the statue scattered about the fountain basin and adjoining lawn. A sledge hammer, not dynamite, had mutilated the head and smashed the body beyond repair. The Portland Telegram reported: "The pathetic broken fragments of the ‘Lady’ that lie about her shattered fountain glow with the patina that comes with years of affectionate loyalty. Something beautiful and precious beyond the designing of the sculptor has been destroyed."

Although nothing was chosen as a replacement for the statue and basin, in 1940-41, OSU erected ornamental iron gates near the site. In the spring of 1953, these same gates were moved two blocks to the west, just inside of 11th Street, newly constructed at the time across lower campus. There the gates remain, pointing the way to the "pathway" that leads to Benton Hall, but leaving behind the spot where the "Lady" once stood and a blank place in our memories.

Construction began on Azalea House in February. These gates will be moved west to form a striking entrance to the campus.-Oregon Stater March '53

George P. Edmonston Jr. is editor of the Oregon Stater and Eclips.