This week the topic that kept coming up in my reading was heating systems. That was unexpected in the middle of June! First of all, the WVWC History class I am teaching this month was looking at original buildings on campus.
Only three years after the school opened, the March 1893 issue of The Seminary Herald indicated that the original heating system had not been a success for long.
1905
I am not sure what happened with the heating between 1893 and 1905, but on February 4, 1905 the Seminary Building was destroyed by fire. Furnaces in the basement were deemed to be the cause. Immediate plans to rebuild included a separate power plant rather than one located within the buildings.
Besides the College building, there is also being erected on our campus a power house. Heating power has been removed from all the buildings, and hereafter will be supplied from the central power house, which is located wide apart from any buildings. The power house and the installation of the Webster System of heating throughout our buildings will cost in the vicinity of 11,000. The new plant is of such character that the electric lighting of all the buildings may be installed at any time.
Warren Webster and his young company installed 75,000 of these systems in the world’s finest buildings. It was considered the standard in heating for large buildings. (His son later wrote a biography of his life and times, which can be read here.)
1920
We noted in class that the campus of 100 years ago was quite different from the campus today.
The College Catalog 1920 (100 Years Ago) included this description of the heating plant at that time:
Heating Plant: This was built in 1905 and contains the boilers, pumps and coal bins needful for heating the other buildings upon the campus. Its capacity has been nearly doubled by the addition of a new hundred horsepower boiler recently.
Other buildings in 1920 included
- College Hall (known today as the Lynch-Raine Administration Building)
- Library on 2nd floor of College Hall
- Domestic Science Equipment in 2 rooms on south end of the ground floor of College Hall
- Woman’s Hall (known today as Agnes Howard Hall)
- Haymond Science Hall
- Physical Laboratory (In Haymond Hall)
- Chemical Laboratory (In Haymond Hall)
- Music Hall (known today as the English Annex)
- Gymnasium (the Old Gym, not Rockefeller)
- President’s Residence
2020
A Facebook Post from Jim Watson (‘79) about “Old Smokey” prompted a comment about a Pharos article written by Bruce Ennis (‘63) and a wonderful photo of the power plant shared by Danny Green (‘74). I had never seen that photo before, and I also went in search of the article in the Pharos. (Smokestack’s Control Poor Says Hicks, Pharos 1962-02-06)
Here are some fun things I learned…..
- Two boilers were installed (1913 and 1925), and were not adequate by 1962
- The heat was regulated manually.
Fireman James Campbell said that he operates the amount of heat going into the Administration Building by observing how far the windows are open in the rooms facing the smokestack. Thus, one side of the building, perhaps facing the sun, may become overheated, while the opposite side remains only lukewarm”.
- Old Smokey was there until 1965 when it was razed in preparation for building Wesley Chapel.
Generations of WVWC folks experienced Old Smokey between 1905 and 1965. Many other generations of WVWC students have never heard of it before. It is fun to converse with both groups!