Defending the Campus View
Donations from local property owners at Washington Agricultural College aim to safeguard dormitory sightlines and future campus development.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Pullman—Valuable additions to the grounds of the Washington Agricultural college have recently been made by purchase and gifts of lands adjoining the college campus on both the north and south. A strip of land on the north side of the campus has been donated by N. W. Magee and Harvey Welty. This strip lies just north of the girl's dormitory, from which it is separated by a narrow street of only thirty feet. It was feared that homes might be built on this street, thus shutting off the view and crowding the dormitory, and the owners donated a strip of land which will prevent any buildings being erected within several hundred feet of the dormitory. Purchases have been made of twenty-nine lots in Mount View addition just south of the college campus. The lots were sold at reasonable prices and a strip ninety feet wide by 700 feet long is thus added to the campus, while other lots scattered through the addition give good building sites for certain buildings which will be erected for the school. Among these are the creamery, livestock pavilion and hospital for contagious diseases. All these buildings being of wood, it is desired to get them a sufficient distance from the main buildings to prevent danger of fire, and it is desired to get the hospital far enough away to prevent any danger of contagion.
“It was feared that homes might be built on this street, thus shutting off the view and crowding the dormitory.”
Long before Washington State University became the sprawling research hub it is today, the administration was already engaging in strategic land acquisition to manage density and safety. These early efforts to push hospital facilities away from main dorms while protecting open vistas mirror the perpetual tension between institutional expansion and urban planning in modern college towns.
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