Given the fact that George Edmonston Jr., the editor of E-clips and the Oregon Stater, will soon be retiring, he will close out his involvement with E-clips by sharing a list of the 20 historical events he considers to be the most important in school history. He'll cover one event each week.

#15 The legacy of Margaret Comstock Snell

When Margaret Comstock Snell passed quietly away of heart failure on Aug. 23, 1923, OSU lost a giant, one of the truly great faculty members in the history of the university.

Educated as a medical doctor and recruited to Corvallis by Board of Regents member Wallis Nash and his wife, Louisa, Dr. Snell established a record of achievement few at OSU have equaled before or since.

Margaret Snell from The Orange and Black, 1938.

Respected and admired by everyone, one of her greatest legacies was in establishing at Oregon State the first college of home economics in the West and the fifth oldest nationally. She did so with a beginning class of 24 students (second highest enrollment in the college after agriculture), no assistants, almost no budget, and having the use of a single classroom, that on the third floor in the northwest corner of what is today Benton Hall. Enrollment increased every year. For her generation and several that followed, she was an important academic role model for OSU and the state of Oregon, inspiring thousands of women to pursue a higher education and professional careers. Rather than use her medical degree to chase pain and disease, Snell embarked on a new approach to her profession. The nobler cause, she said, was to teach people how to stay well, rather than treat them once they’re sick.

During many of her years on faculty, Snell also had charge of Alpha Hall, OSU's first dorm for women. For laboratory equipment, she used a wood burning stove, a couple of sauce pans and two sewing machines. She hated greasy foods, thought that people consumed way too much of them, and was constantly encouraging women everywhere to "throw away your fry pans." If you were invited to her home for a meal, you got cookies or a fruit salad and a glass of milk.

After retiring in 1908, Snell devoted her remaining years to the study of literature and to civic affairs around Corvallis. Many of the white birch and maple trees just west of the business district downtown, particularly along the blocks surrounding the Central Park neighborhood, were all purchased, planted and cared for by Snell.

Over the years, several campus buildings have been named in her honor, the latest of which is directly west and across the street from the McAlexander Field House. It is also known as MU East.