Month: December 2024

Tucker Memorial Hall was the first designated building for the Washington and Lee University School of Law. The building was dedicated to the memory of the first Dean of the law school, J. Randolph Tucker, who passed in February 1897. His son, Henry St. George Tucker, joined the faculty and took charge of a campaign to raise funds for the construction of a purpose-built law school facility. The campaign was extraordinarily successful and reached its funding goal in just two years.

Architecture

Completed in 1900, local architects William G. McDowell of Lexington and Thomas Jasper Collins of Staunton designed the building. Clad in locally quarried limestone with oak trim in the interior, the student newspaper lauded the structure as “the finest and most commodious hall for legal instruction to be found in the Southern states.” The design of the building differed from the existing style of the campus. Though this contrast was initially praised, feelings towards the building and its gray stone façade eventually soured. Described as a “bulbous, ugly gray stone lump” the facilities proved inadequate for a growing law program. Dean William Moreland lamented the challenges of the facility in his Dean’s Report: “Tucker Hall has been in use now for 32 years, and it has been, since the day of its completion, an eyesore to the campus…From faculty offices to the lighting system, the building was ill-adapted to the uses of the law school.” Faculty, alumni, and students saw it as an architectural blunder out of keeping with the rest of the campus.

The Burning of Tucker Hall

Tucker Memorial Hall was destroyed by fire in the early morning hours of December 16, 1934. The Lexington fire department, busy with another fire in a lumber yard across town, responded too late and the building was a total loss. Only a badly weakened façade remained. The papers and course notes of the law school faculty were lost as well as all the books held in the law library. Only Professor Charles McDowell was able to save the contents of his office with the assistance of some students who entered through a window. The law students were sent on their winter holiday a few days early. The faculty and university administration worked together to put together a law library and reading room in the Engineering Building on campus.

Rebuilding

An emergency meeting of the Board of Trustees was called for December 28, 1934. The Board authorized the construction of new building for the law school. Though many lamented the loss of the law library, not a single person expressed sorrow for the destruction of the building. Most saw the tragedy of the fire as a blessing in disguise. Plans were quickly announced for the construction of a new law building more in keeping with the existing architecture of the campus. The construction of “New” Tucker Hall was completed in 1936.