1912 Precedent for Utah State University Welcome Center and Museum

The transformation of the Art Barn into the USU Welcome Center and Museum of Anthropology is a creative idea and an excellent reuse for a historic building, but we were surprised to find that campus plans from 1912 in the USU archives show that a similar idea was considered at least once before in USU's history.

The campus plans, pictured below, were drawn up while the old horse barn, or Model Barn, was still standing just to the northeast of Old Main. These plans called for the old horse barn to be replaced by new agricultural buildings, including a building called "Museum of Agriculture, etc." These campus plans were never fully realized, and the museum wasn't built, but if it had been, it would have been a focal point on the north side of the quad.

Back in those days, 400 North was a main approach to the campus, which was centered on the quad. The main entrance to the quad from 400 North would have brought students and visitors right up to the agriculture museum, and it's easy to imagine the "etc." in the museum's name meant it was going to serving as a welcome center as well because of its dominant location and size.

Though the agricultural museum wasn't built, the agricultural history of USU and Cache Valley will still be memorialized on campus through the rehabilitation of the Art Barn into the USU Welcome Center and Museum of Anthropology. During the rehabilitation project the facade of the building will be restored to the extent possible to resemble the barn its its first function as a horse barn. This will allow an important historic building on campus to find a new purpose while still serving as a reminder of USU's past. Of course, it's also fitting that the new Department of Agriculture building is being built across from Old Main on the quad, bringing agriculture full circle on campus.

The images below are renderings of the 1912 campus plans. The top sketch of the plans shows an aerial view of the quad from the south, with Old Main Hill on the left side of the picture, and 400 North and Logan's "Island" at the bottom. The agriculture museum is the large building on the north side of the quad with numerous sidewalks converging on it. The bottom image shows the landscape plans with Old Main Hill on the bottom of the image and the complex of proposed agricultural buildings on the left side.