The Burning of Morrill Hall

(From the 1915 Redskin, p. 144)

The shrill rising scream of the fire whistle rent the warm air of the morning of August the seventh.  It was at the hour of two when the citizens of Stillwater sprang from their beds and looked toward the College Campus as the ward was blown.  A lurid glow lighted the sky.  Heavy clouds of smoke pierced by tongues of flame rolled into the quiet air.  It was Morrill Hall!

Morrill Hall! And no water!  Rain had not fallen for more than two months.  The town water supply had been exhausted for some time.  There was nothing to do but to watch the building burn.  Eagerly the crowds rushed in and out – dismantling the offices, saving all possible records.  The fire was on the third floor.  The rosy light stole into the Entomology Department and soon the “bugs of ages” were no more.  Steadily it ate its way down.  Into the registrar’s office it went.  Playfully the flames wrapped around the hard-earned credits of the students; eagerly they effaced hours and hours of “back work” from the minds of instructors.  Crossing the hall they entered the President’s office – not faltering as had so many in the days gone by, but with assurance and determination.

The flames were eager.  Very slowly, but surely, they curled through the rooms, out the windows, up through the roof.  They wrapped the structure in a flaming curtain.  The people wrung their hands.  If they could only stop the fire!  As the flames climbed higher, their hearts grew heavier.  Were there not in every nook and corner of that old Halll memories?  Memories that flitted in and out of burning Morrill on swift wings. 

Perhaps it was some spirit that caused the bursting of the water pipes in one corner of the building, saving two utterly useless rooms.  Utterly useless! – for they could be reached only by ladders. The pictures fanned by the heat waves shudderingly turned their faces to the wall.  The stairways charred and fell. The floors crashed down, bending and twisting huge steel girders.  The uncanny light flickered through those long dim halls where so many happy throngs had been.  In the class rooms the deserted chairs, desks, seats, calmly awaited their inevitable fate. To the bewailings of the people gathered about the slowly burning building were added the inaudible voices of the many who had come and gone through the years.

The darkness of the night and the lurid glare of the fire gave place to the gray of dawn.  Slowly the smoke rolled up.  Then the day came – and Morrill Hall was a mass of smoking ashes, twisted steel, and bare, smoke-grimmed walls.  She – had burned.

History Menu | Capital & Morrill Hall | Timeline | Image Gallery | Burning

English Department
College of Arts & Sciences
Oklahoma State University
205 Morrill Hall
Stillwater, OK 74078
Phone: 405-744-9474
For Information about English Programs: english.information@okstate.edu
Webmaster: engweb@okstate.edu