EXHIBITS
Brigham Young College: The Mechanic Arts Building
The Mechanic Arts Building
In 1902 Joseph Morrell donated $1,000 to the BYC for the purposes of creating a mechanical arts laboratory. Soon thereafter, BYC purchased the property directly across the street from the East Building on which to locate a mechanical arts building. Crews demolished a former Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZMCI) building located on the property before construction could get underway. Volunteers did much of the work on the building, and Anthon Anderson, founder of Anderson Lumber Company, assisted with the financing and construction. Completed in 1906, the building measured 95 feet long by 50 feet wide and was four stories tall. It had two large rooms designated for forging and carpentry as well as fourteen classrooms for drawing and domestic science courses.
The 1913 BYC Bulletin highlights to importance of this building to the institution:
Manual training and Domestic Arts were fostered in the institution as early as 1884. The catalogue of that year has this to say about the matter of practical training: “To carry out more fully the designs of the College, arrangements will be made with different companies and artisans of Logan by which labor at some useful trade or art will be given to the male students of the College . . . The extensive grounds of the College will be utilized for landscape gardening. Arrangements will also be made to give lady students practical lessons in Domestic Economy, needlework and fitting.” The erection of the Mechanic Arts building was an outgrowth of this interest in manual training and domestic science and arts. The College is prepared to do effective work in these lines.Text on this page adapted from: Garr, Arnold K. (1973). "A history of Brigham Young College, Logan, Utah" Master’s thesis, Utah State University; The Brigham Young College Bulletin, September 1913 (USU Special Collections & Archives, MSS 1, Series 1, Box 2, Folder 4).