Look how much bigger it was than The Perry which seems to be huge even today. Ignore the dates, those were the dates they were downloaded and saved.
65 years ago today Old Main burned
- Thread starter The Peeper
- Start date
Look how much bigger it was than The Perry which seems to be huge even today. Ignore the dates, those were the dates they were downloaded and saved.
My grandfather went out to fight it as a volunteer fire fighter. I'm told there's a display in the Starkville (or maybe Oktibbeha County) Museum on that crew. Alas, the place is only open from Tuesday noon until Thursday at 10 am, or some other such inconvenient time frame, so I've never seent it with my own eyes.
Got a link on that? I have never heard that one, and my Dad lived in it at one time and was still a student when it burned.
Two of my uncles were living there when it burned. They're both gone now, but they had some wild stories about life in that building.
Was it on the drill field, or am I looking at that pic wrong? I know it was somewhere over there, but was never sure exactly where it sat.
Was it on the drill field, or am I looking at that pic wrong? I know it was somewhere over there, but was never sure exactly where it sat.
It sat where the Union and McCool are now.
I think campus as a whole would look a lot different if Old Main had not burned down. Even if it didn't remain dorms at some point, I believe it would have been a central part of campus. A focal point type building that State lacks. I think the other buildings would have taken on style and architectural cues from that time frame and become a more cohesive look across campus as well.
My old boss (who has since passed on) lived in Old Main when he was at State.
He had quite a few stories to tell.
mainly after all the GIs who enrolled after the war. Racing motorcycles down the halls
He had quite a few stories to tell.
mainly after all the GIs who enrolled after the war. Racing motorcycles down the halls
It definitely would have been a focal point and likely saved us the architectural abomination that is McCool....
But, there was no holding back the wave of atrocities committed by architects in the 1960s and 1970s. Their brutalistic and modernist fervor overtook every college campus and public facility space in the country. MSU actually has done a pretty good job in revising some of that with the remodel of the Union and the library and adding Swalm to help mask the visual torture of Allen Hall.
I think this has been posted here before, but here it is again: https://films.msstate.edu/episodes/old-main.html
My mother’s brother lived there after the war in the 40’s. The stories he told me were crazy. Like… instant expulsion these days.
My father’s brother was living there when it burned. He stayed in his smoke filled room throwing books, bedding and other personal belongings out the window because he knew his mother and father couldn’t afford to buy more.
Man, those were different times…
My father’s brother was living there when it burned. He stayed in his smoke filled room throwing books, bedding and other personal belongings out the window because he knew his mother and father couldn’t afford to buy more.
Man, those were different times…
I had an old boss that lived there too, he said they called it "pole cat alley" back then. He talked about how you could just about go from one end to the other and never go out of a door because they had built holes in the walls so they could go from room to room after curfew (yeah they had that back then) to visit friends. He said you could be asleep and people would come through the hole from the room on one side of you and go through the hole in the other side of your room and you wouldn't have a clue who it was. I never knew it but there were women that lived in at least parts of it too, my wife's grandmother lived there.
Oh so that's Perry Cafeteria to the right, correct? Or rather The Marketplace?
Always thought/wished they had rebuilt it. It was such a staple, and the largest dorm in the country at one time. Would've definitely changed the landscape of the university, and would be such a point of pride still today.
Yep that's Perry on the right in the 2022 photo, looks like Main is almost triple the size of Perry
From what I’ve heard, it was almost like a tinder box inside…. Which makes sense how it burned down so fully.
My uncle lived there when it burned. All he could salvage of his was his marine uniform!
The morning after it burned our family was on the way to see my Grandparents over in Attala County and we drove through campus on the way. I was only 4 but seeing the remains of the building with smoke still rolling out of it must have made a real impression on me. I still remember the image of the rubble and men still digging through it looking for I presume bodies.
Dad said a favorite prank in that dorm was to pile garbage against someone's door and set it on fire.
Dad graduated in 53 and that was the story he always told me. Lit the fire to cover a murder.
One activity I heard about was for somebody sitting on the floor in a room to holler "Pull," like in skeet. Somebody would roll an LP in front of the door, and dude in the room would shotgun it as it rolled by.
My pops stayed there too. He talked about setting fires in the hallways. He graduated in 51ish and headed to Korea.
I don’t know if he reads SixPack and can confirm, but last I heard he was alive and living in Huntsville.
My uncle that lived there circa 1947 told me a story about this huge pile of army surplus stuff lying somewhere on campus.
A bunch of the engineering students nicked a pallet of empty sand bags and a shitload of canvas tarp. They spent the weekend filling the sand bags and laid the tarps in the bottom floor of one of the long hallways. Stacked the sand bags against the walls, filled it with water and had canoe races.
A bunch of the engineering students nicked a pallet of empty sand bags and a shitload of canvas tarp. They spent the weekend filling the sand bags and laid the tarps in the bottom floor of one of the long hallways. Stacked the sand bags against the walls, filled it with water and had canoe races.
I wonder the same, I always thought it looked good, especially compared to Dorman, Allen, McComas, Hunter Henry, etc
I first learned about it from a survivor of the fire. He was hospitalized and has burn scars on his head and feet to this day. He knew both the suspect and the deceased. He was called out of class and interviewed by the police after the murder in Columbus. He believed that it was arson to cover the murder. And in his mind there is little doubt.
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