#colleges

Did you know that The University of Idaho’s Administration Building as it stands today is actually a replacement of the original? Here’s a bit of the story, taken from our UI Campus Photography Collection:

“In the very early morning of March 30, 1906, the Administration building at the University of Idaho was fully engulfed in flames. Through the combined efforts of administration, faculty, staff, and students, some small pieces of the University of Idaho’s beginnings were saved. Dean Jay Glover Eldridge climbed a ladder into his office and threw entire drawers of documents to Judge Roland Hodgins (pioneer and proprietor of Hodgins’ Drug Store) who then gathered them from where they fluttered. Students managed to save the "Silver and Gold Book” (a jeweled box gifted to the University from the women of Moscow) and a stuffed mountain goat.

The university library was housed in the Old Admin and the majority of the books Miss Belle Sweet, the University Librarian, had managed to organize were lost. President James A. MacLean, a volunteer with the West Side Hose Company No. 4, could do nothing but watch as the heart of the UI campus was lost. As light came the next day, the once attractive edifice of education was nothing more than blackened skeletal walls and wet rubble. A feeling of mourning descended on the UI campus. Although arson was suspected nothing was ever proven.“

Learn more about our beautiful campus’ history via our UI Campus Photography Collection!