Hale Hall - The First Union at a State University
Photo: East of the Mississippi, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
A stop on Ohio State University Campus Walk, a free self-guided tour.
This handsome Jacobethan Revival building was built between 1909 and 1911 as the original Ohio Union. Designed by George S. Mills, it was the fourth student union in the United States and the first at a state university, a place for students to eat, meet and hold dances.
When the new union opened in 1951, this building was converted for student services and later took other names, including Enarson Hall after a university president. In 1979 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, one of only a handful of campus buildings to be listed.
It now honors Frank W. Hale Jr., an educator and civil rights advocate who became Ohio State's vice provost for minority affairs and spent his career opening doors for students of color. The Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center was created in 1989 after students pressed for a space of their own, and it has long been linked to this building.
Getting here: Walk west along 12th Avenue from the Ohio Union for about 4 minutes to Hale Hall, at 154 West 12th Avenue near the South Oval.
Did you know?: The Ohio General Assembly provided $75,000 to build the original union.
Photo op: Step back across the walk to fit the whole facade in one frame, with its rows of tall windows.
More on Wikipedia: Hale Hall · Ohio Union
Stops on this tour
- The Oval - Where Desire Paths Became Sidewalks
- University Hall - The First Building, Rebuilt
- Wexner Center for the Arts - A Building That Looks Unfinished
- Ohio Union - Campus Living Room
- Hale Hall - The First Union at a State University
- Orton Hall - A Building Made of Ohio
- Browning Amphitheatre - Shakespeare in the Ravine
- Mirror Lake - A Spring, a Legend and a Retired Tradition
- Ohio Stadium - Welcome to the Horseshoe
- Buckeye Grove - A Tree for Every All-American
- Thompson Library - Back to the Oval