Agnes Howard Hall (Ladies Hall)

Agnes Howard Hall (Ladies Hall)

Agnes Howard Hall (Ladies Hall) West Virginia Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
1895, Millard F. Giesey. 1929, Carl Reger. South of the Administration Building at the southern edge of the campus

Now the oldest building on campus, this unabashedly plain dormitory, first known as Ladies Hall, but currently referred to as Aggie, still serves its original purpose. According to a college history, the president “prepared a plan embodying largely the plan and arrangement of one of the early dormitories of Goucher College” in Baltimore, Maryland, before giving the commission to Wheeling architect Giesey. The large, four-story, L-shaped brick building has a few arched windows, a bracketed cornice, and a tower or two. Although it may have been modeled on a Goucher College building, it also resembles a typical nineteenth-century industrial mill. Morgantown architect Reger adhered to the “fortitude-enhancing character of the original building” (as the National Register nomination form terms it) in his rear addition.

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