The Campus Planning Committee agreed Thursday to support a proposal to have the University’s Dads’ Gates listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The 8-foot tall wrought-iron gates are located on East 11th Avenue in front of the Robinson Theater, and they were completed in 1940 and dedicated in 1941.
In comments that will be forwarded to University President Dave Frohnmayer, the planning committee stated that while the University does not have the ability to concur with or object to a proposed listing on the register, it “does have a responsibility to play in historic preservation.”
University Historic Preservation graduate student Rachel Force initially made the proposal to have the gates listed in the National Register.
“I’m on a crusade to show that these gates are important,” Force said.
Force said the crusade started out as a simple class project in a course that teaches students about the National Register of Historic Places nomination process. However, Force said she became so interested in the life of O.B. Dawson, the blacksmith who built the gates, that she decided to submit the proposal for formal consideration.
Force is proposing the gates be listed under two National Register qualification criteria: the gates’ association with important historical events and its creation by a master craftsman.
The process of getting the gates on the register takes several steps. Force presented the proposal in front of the Eugene Historic Review Board last month to its get support. She is now scheduled to make her case in front of the State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation on Feb. 20. If this committee approves the nomination, it will then pushed forward to the Keeper of the National Register, who will make the final decision, Force said.
President Frohnmayer will send comments on the gates from the Campus Planning Committee to the state body.
The gates were created and erected as part of a University Building program, which began in 1935, according to documents from the
University archives. The University’s Dads’ club, after which the gate is named, solicited $2 donations from its members and was able to raise about $5,000, Force said. The federal government also donated $20,000 for the gate.
Work on the gates began in 1938 and Dawson was commissioned to create the gates. He also created the gates inside the Knight Library.
Force said as cars replaced horses in the early part of the 20th century, blacksmithing had become a dying art. Thus, Dawson wanted the gates to stand as a monument to the craft of blacksmithing, according to the nomination’s registration form.
“I felt that if the work of the blacksmith was to become entirely obsolete and extinct and disappear from humanity’s way of life, then I wanted these gates to be an outstanding example and tribute to the incomparable skill of that man who once down through the centuries occupied such a prominent place in mankind’s journey through the ages,” Dawson said in his unpublished autobiography, which is part of Knight Library’s Special Collections.
If Force gets her way Dawson’s wish will be fulfilled.
“I hope this nomination will really give (the gates) recognition,” she said.
She said she also hopes students will be more aware of historically significant elements on the campus. For instance, Deady and Villard halls are both on the National Register for Historic Places and are National Historic Landmarks.
“We all have these national historic buildings on campus,” she said. “How many people know that?”