“We have lost our building. Let us stand together until we shall rear another.” – Dr. Louis E. Holden
On December 11, 1901, shortly before 3:00 AM, an explosion awoke David Gill, the janitor of the University of Wooster. Looking out from his living quarters in the basement of the University’s central academic building, he saw a glowing orange light as fire licked the western wing of the building. Old Main, the main academic building of the University of Wooster, was on fire. Gill immediately raised the alarm but, by the time the fire department arrived, they could only watch the building burn as bad water pressure and inadequate equipment rendered the firefighters useless. The fire would blaze on for hours. As dawn broke over the University, only fire-cracked brick and ruins stood where once Old Main had towered; the building was a total loss, and with it the entire academic facilities of the institution. The chapel, the recitation rooms, the lecture halls, and the laboratories – all had been destroyed.1
As the Old Main fire smoldered, the faculty of the University were already preparing for the future. They held an emergency faculty meeting that morning at 4 am, in the new library. They resolved almost immediately that they would continue and finish the current term. Louis E. Holden, president of the University, was away on a fund-raising trip. In his stead, Elias O. Compton, the Dean of the University, announced the revised schedule for the upcoming examinations, adding that the University would open for the second term of the school year as scheduled, on January 8th, 1902.2
Holden, away on business in Piqua, Ohio, was informed of the fire by a telegram from his wife. He responded immediately. Holden sent out telegrams to several benefactors, including steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, pleading for money in support of the University’s effort to stay alive. The telegrams succinctly stated, “Yesterday I was the president of a college. Today I am president of a hole in the ground.”3 The fire and subsequent ruin of Old Main was a pivotal event in the University of Wooster’s history. The main academic building had been destroyed, and the University faced significant fund-raising challenges in order to continue.
Out of the destruction of Old Main, a new campus would soon rise, as the President and Board of Trustees set out to rebuild Wooster. Together, they transformed what had once been a school comprising a single academic building, into a campus of buildings promoting higher education and learning. Tested by fire, Wooster’s phoenix would rise again with a new main academic building – Kauke Hall.4
photograph courtesy of COWSC
- The University Building Destroyed by Fire Twenty Years Ago, Old Main Clippings, B&G, COWSC. ↩
- Howard F. Lowry, “Dr Lowry Writes Account of ‘Main Fire’ Solution,” Wooster Daily Record, March 16, 1964. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- The “tested by fire, and phoenix like rebirth,” phrases and similar language have been used frequently throughout the years by Wooster students, faculty, and staff to describe the University’s struggles after the Old Main fire. See for example: Fire Destroys Entire College, Old Main Clippings, B&G, COWSC ↩