Editor’s note: During a period of 12 years beginning in 1983, local historian Ken Munford wrote 561 columns for the Gazette-Times. As part of the city’s 150th anniversary, the newspaper will publish a selection of these columns each Saturday. This one was originally printed on Oct. 5, 1992.

At one time Oregon Agricultural School in Corvallis had a school of mines. It survived for 19 years.

In the early 20th century, Oregonians became aware that mines bolstered the economies of Idaho, Utah and other Western states. Early mining successes in the Cascade Range and in eastern Oregon suggested that Oregon had hidden mineral treasures that could be put to use.

The college began teaching mines-related courses in 1900. Professor John Fulton in chemistry and Professor Gordon V. Skelton in engineering taught mineralogy and mining engineering. A four-year curriculum soon developed.

The new president of the college, W.J. Kerr, who arrived in 1907, was from Utah. He helped members of the Legislature realize that Oregon should investigate its mineral wealth and prepare young men to know how to funnel it into industry.

In 1913 the Legislature authorized OAC to establish a school of mines. It also appropriated $40,000 for an Oregon Bureau of Mines to do research and placed it under the direction of the dean of the OAC School of Mines.

The new Mines Building had been completed in the fall of 1912. The first floor contained the crushing and sampling room, the ceramic laboratory and the stockrooms. The second floor housed the Bureau of Mines laboratory and classrooms. A new geological museum in 12 glass-covered cases was displayed on the third floor near the mineralogical and petrological laboratories.

The school had four departments. Three of them — mining engineering, ceramic engineering and chemical engineering — offered Bachelor of Science degrees. The geology department had the greatest teaching load because it provided service courses for schools across the campus but did not offer a degree.

In ceramic engineering, chemistry and engineering were applied to nonmetallic mineral industries such as clay-working, glass manufacture and cement manufacture. The war in Europe disrupted the normal flow of chinaware, glassware and clay products from overseas and encouraged the expansion of this industry in America. The department had some success but was later dropped, partly because the University of Washington had developed a good program in this field.

In World War I, the School of Mines provided courses for the Student Army Training Corps in handling and use of explosives and in mining engineering. To comply with the War Department request, it reorganized the school year from two semesters to three quarters.

Qualified faculty were in short supply and a good deal of turnover occurred. Henry M. Parks was the first dean and the first director of the Bureau of Mines and Geology. Those who followed him in those offices were E.K. Soper, Charles E. Newton and James H. Nance.

In the budget squeeze of the early 1930s, the State Board of Higher Education, looking for places to save money, closed the School of Mines on June 30, 1932. In the reorganization, Oregon State College gained a new School of Science, which took over the major work in geology from the University of Oregon. Chemical engineering became a new department in the School of Engineering. Mining engineering classes also went to Engineering.

Faculty left the School of Mines one by one until only Professor James H. Batcheller, a mining engineer who had joined the school in 1919, remained. He had spent many years in mines and ore mills and he and his family had no desire to leave Corvallis. One of his duties was to care for, distribute or dispose of materials, equipment and machinery from the School of Mines and from the discontinued department of geology in Eugene. In recognition of his service, the Mines building was eventually renamed Batcheller Hall.

In 1928, Physics (now Covell Hall) was built adjacent to the east side of the Mines building. In 1949, Dearborn Hall for electrical engineering arose on the west side. Old Mines, now Batcheller, sits at the center of a three-unit complex in the Engineering Quadrangle.