Veins of black ivy shroud the walls of Deady Hall, but the University’s first structure and “grand old lady” is no worse for wear. Architects said the building would stand for 1,000 years — barring earthquakes — when the University and Deady Hall opened its doors on Oct. 16, 1876. Today is the University’s birthday, and 125 years later, the architects’ prediction is standing the test of time.
Inside Deady Hall, professors are ushering students into an understanding of mathematics, just as professors before them have done for more than a century.
“It’s got a long history,” visiting math instructor Fred Hervert said from his office on Deady’s fourth floor. “I could be sitting right where someone sat one hundred-odd years ago.”
If that someone was female, you can bet her ankles weren’t showing. Women were required to use Deady’s east stairwell because administrators were concerned too much ankle flesh would attract the wrong kind of attention. Just to be sure, men scaled the stairwell on the building’s opposite end.
But all students freighted pieces of wood inside the building to feed the furnace, which has since been replaced with a central heating system.
“It has only one control for heat,” Deady Hall building manager Judy Newman said. “So rooms upstairs are absolutely cooking while the downstairs is freezing. It’s strange. In winter, people are opening windows.”
No less strange is the fact that Deady was designed as a three-story building that has been converted to five. Large, arched windows that once lit single classrooms are now shared by two floors. This is the case with the fourth and fifth floors, which both house rooms with third-level numerals.
“If you have a class in 300 Deady, you could be in more trouble than you might think (finding it),” said Dick Koch, a math professor at the University since 1966.
Koch said he arrived at the University two years after the worst non-hurricane related storm ever to hit the United States charged from the Oregon Coast up the Willamette Valley. The “Columbus Day Storm” and its gusting winds toppled trees across campus and forced University officials to close the school, Koch said.
“Several graduate students were standing on the roof when this thing hit and said the wind was gusting with incredible power,” he said. “They decided at that time it would be a good idea to get off the roof.”
Deady still buffers wind and rain, and officials are optimistic the “grand old lady” could live up to the billing of its architects. It was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places in April 1972 and was designated a historic landmark in 1977.
“Many structures in western civilization have endured for thousands of years,” Hervert said.
“I came from an institution that was more modern,” Hervert continued. “To be in a historical building such as Deady is different. It has a special quaintness you don’t get with modern buildings.”
For some, the joys of Deady are simpler, but no less satisfying.
“It’s got real blackboards,” Koch said. “And they are gigantic. Which, if you’re a math professor, is wonderful.”