Situated near the current location of the Mathematical Sciences Building, Purdue Hall was the sole men’s dormitory until 1902. The four-story brick structure, one of Purdue’s original three buildings, was completed in 1873, a year before the University’s first classes began. Initially called Men’s Dormitory and the Old Dorm, Purdue Hall was also the site of the first campus library — a collection of books, worth $180, was donated by Purdue’s first president, Richard Owen. The hall later served as a recitation building and housed chemical engineering laboratories, classrooms for various departments, and YMCA and YWCA offices. After years of renovations, Purdue Hall was deemed unsafe and demolished in 1961.

One of the first traditions to arise on campus originated with the Ancient Order of Dormitory Devils, as the students residing in the Old Dorm were called. Not content with merely deriding any late arrival to the residence, the group drenched all visitors, whether students or faculty, with buckets of water. “Water scraps” were a common occurrence in the dormitory, even amongst friendly boarders, according to William T. Berkshire (ECE’1902). 

Not all Purdue men were permitted to live in the dorm; Berkshire attended classes for several weeks before receiving a rooming appointment from the University. In an interview with a Purdue history professor in 1970, Berkshire described the campus living situation in the early 1900s as “very primitive,” but he still recalled his three years in the hall with fondness. “I never experienced such camaraderie in all my life as I did in the dormitory,” he said.

There were no toilets in the building at that time, so students resorted to using slop buckets or a large communal lavatory nearby, and the “so-called” bathroom held one wooden, zinc-lined bathtub. Despite its lack of charm, the bathtub did come in handy for parties. “There used to be a brewery across the river, and somebody would go and get a keg of beer,” Berkshire said. “We’d also get a lot of weiners, put them in the bathtub, turn on the steaming hot water, and cook them a little.”

When it was announced that the dormitory would become classrooms following the 1902 school year, residents penned these words in the Debris yearbook: “Although the Old Dorm is soon to be only a memory, it is a memory that we are grateful to possess. It is one that will always stand out as the brightest star in the firmament of the past.

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