Mostly as yet from one very fine book...
Ritz, Richard E., F.A.I.A. _A History of the Reed College Campus and its Buildings_.
First Edition.
Portland, Oregon: Reed College Office of Publications, 1990. 92 pages.
''Reed College, Portland, Oregon, Doyle, Patterson and Beach, Architects."
"...William S Ladd, father of William Mead Ladd, Reed Trustee, aquired the various parcels of land in the 1870s, reassembling the original Llewellyn claim. ..." p 11
"...A photograph in the College archives shows young President
Foster gazing at the Crystal Springs Farm, soon to become the Reed College Campus.
We don't know just what he visualized as the physical form of the college, but
we know that he saw a great university of 10 to 12 thousand students with the
highest of academic standards, forming an important part of the cultural community
of Portland and of the Northwest.
We know with great clarity, however, Albert E. Doyle's vision of the physical
form of the new college, for that vision was incorporated into numerous sketches
and renderings for the proposed ground plan and the initial buildings to be
constructed ..." p12
" ... In 1921 Richard F. Scholz was elected as the second president of Reed College. Although president for less than four years, dying suddenly in 1924, President Scholz left his mark indelibly on the College by establishing the new policy for Reed to remain a small liberal arts college to achieve the highest academic standards, thus discarding the original goal of President Foster to develop Reed into a major university. ..." p33
from pp 41-42
In 1938 the Johnson, Wallwork & Dukehart firm designed the Student Untion Building, which was constructed at the northeast corner of Eliot Hall, approximately where Vollum Center is now located. A contemporary account announcing its construction for $21,589 describes the new building as being in the "country club style", but the perspective drawing, also prepared by Elizabeth Pennock, shows close similarity of concept and detail to the infirmary building designed by the same firm two years before. The building was U-shaped, with a basement and a partial second florr. The rear windows overlooked the canyon. Its main lounge, at the center of the U, was finished in knotty pine, and a stage at one end of the lounge permitted use as a small theater. In 1965, on the completion of the new Commons and the conversion of the Old Commons to serve as a Student Union Building, this building was converted to serve as the Reed Theater. Its life as a theater was short-lived, the building being destroyed by fire in May of 1969. ( May 21, 1969 p. 73)
The orginal Student Union, later a theatre before the fire and ending up where Vollum is now.
the Commons Union building, which became the Student Union in 1965 after the new Commons building was completed
The inscription is to Dorothy Johannson makes for a very nice association, now to be found in the library.
Chapter IX A New President and Future Development, the last brave chapter?