For Whom the Buildings Are Named- The North Country Roots of Selected Campus Landmarks

Today's St. Lawrence campus combines spacious open and wooded areas with short distances between buildings and proximity to the village of Canton. From 20 acres (donated by the citizens of Canton) and one building 150 years ago, to 1,000 acres and over 70 major structures in 2005, the physical plant has grown as enrollment, teaching methods and student life needs have evolved.

Many of the building names have North Country ties:

Dean-Eaton Hall, the first women's residence, and Gunnison Memorial Chapel were named for three families with distinctive North Country connections. Between them in this view from approximately 1930 is the tower of WCAD, one of the first radio stations in the country.

Hepburn Hall (1926), the government and economics building, is named for Colton-born entrepreneur and philanthropist A. Barton Hepburn (1846-1922), whose name also graces the hospital in Ogdensburg and several local libraries.

Dean-Eaton Hall (1926; renovated in 2000) was provided for by Hepburn's wife, Emily Eaton Hepburn, Class of 1887, and two close friends of hers, Gouverneur sisters Jennie and Cora Dean, as the first residence hall for women.

Homer A. Vilas Hall (1965) contains administrative offices and is named in honor of 1913 graduate Homer A. Vilas, an Ogdensburg "local boy who made good" on Wall Street and was chairman of the St. Lawrence Board of Trustees 1955-68.

Noble Center (1962), the "student union" before the current Student Center was opened in 2004 and now providing space for arts facility expansion, is named for Edward John Noble, Gouverneur native who made his fortune marketing Life Savers candies. His name also appears on the E.J. Noble Medical Building, on campus land along East Main Street in Canton; this former Canton hospital houses several doctors' offices as well as the studios of North Country Public Radio, a charter member of National Public Radio.

When it was built in 1931, Sykes Residence, named for Canton native and the ninth president of St. Lawrence Richard Eddy Sykes, was the first dormitory for men.

Sykes Residence (1931; renovated in 1981) is named for Richard Eddy Sykes, an 1883 graduate of St. Lawrence and the University's ninth president (1919-35), who was born on the family farm near Canton and as his first employment at the University took ashes out of the woodstoves used for heating Richardson Hall when he was 9 years old.

Augsbury Physical Education Center (1970) and Newell Field House (2001) contain facilities for the University's athletics, intramurals and recreation and fitness programs as well as its sports studies and exercise science academic program, and are named for Ogdensburg-area businessmen Frank A. Augsbury and Allan P. Newell respectively. One feature of the complex is the 133-station Stafford Fitness Center, named in honor of the late Ronald B. Stafford, Class of 1957, a Plattsburgh-area native who rose to high rank in the New York State Senate.  

Augsbury Physical Education Center, foreground, is named for Ogdensburg businessman Frank A. Augsbury.

Winning Health Center (1960) is named for longtime Ogdensburg physician Stuart A. Winning, a 1922 graduate of St. Lawrence. He also provided for the Potsdam sandstone gate that marks the pedestrian entrance to campus at the corner of Park Street and University Avenue in Canton and, although his name is not formally associated with them, played a key role in the addition of many of the stained glass windows that adorn Gunnison Memorial Chapel.

When the Diana B. Torrey'82 Health and Counseling Center opens in 2006, the Wining name will live on within the Center's clinic.

Another building with Ogdensburg connections in its name is Madill Hall (1941). Named for Dr. Grant C. Madill, head surgeon at A. Barton Hepburn Hospital in Ogdensburg, it was the State School of Agriculture (today's SUNY Canton) gymnasium. St. Lawrence acquired the "Ag School" campus in 1962 when that institution moved to its current site across the Grass River; Madill Hall was thoroughly renovated in 1993-94 to house the J. Harold and Ruth C. Launders Science Library and Computing Center and the division of information technology.

Also acquired in the "Ag School" transaction was Cook Hall, named for Herbert E. Cook, a successful farmer from Denmark, N.Y., who had been president of the New York State Dairymen's League and was dean of the school 1908-17. The building was later renamed Piskor Hall in honor of Frank P. Piskor, St. Lawrence president 1969-81, who retired to a life of community involvement in Canton.

Carnegie Hall.

Payson Hall (1909) was renovated in 1993 to provide accommodations for the admissions and financial aid offices. Originally the Agricultural School's Horticultural Building, it was renamed for James Payson, whom historians have called one of the North Country's most respected citizens. A St. Lawrence Theological School graduate of 1874 and a Canton pastor for many years, he taught "humanistic subjects" in the "Ag School" for a long period until his retirement in 1929.

MacAllaster House, the president's home (given to the University in 1927), is named in recognition of generous gifts toward its 1998-99 renovation by the Torrey-MacAllaster family, including Gouverneur native Archie F. MacAllaster.

Gunnison Memorial Chapel (built in 1926): five generations of the Gunnison family have been affiliated with St. Lawrence and Canton in one way or another. The chapel is the source of a favorite campus tradition that ties the campus to the town through sound: the playing of its bells every weekday at 5 p.m. when classes are in session.

Hepburn Hall was dedicated in 1929 by one of the world's most famous women, double Nobel Prize winner Mme. Marie Curie (center on landing).

Carnegie Hall (1906) is named for industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who has no connection to the North Country, but a famous North Country native persuaded him to pay for the building.   Irving Bacheller of Pierrepont, an 1882 St. Lawrence graduate and a widely-known journalist and novelist, visited Carnegie at his castle in Scotland and convinced the steel magnate to help St. Lawrence erect a science building, despite Carnegie's worries that to help St. Lawrence would bring down upon him "the whole ravenous pack of colleges," according to the St. Lawrence history book A Candle in the Wilderness.