The campus was prospering; its people were not. In 1903, instead of the students, it was the faculty's turn to stage a rebellion, demanding President Charles S. Palmer's resignation or the Trustees accept theirs. The Board of Trustees solved the dispute by accepting the resignations of the entire faculty and the president. In one stroke, the poisoned campus atmosphere that had been developing since the first student rebellion in 1896 was gone, with the Trustees the last men standing. Before everyone was to leave, however, the campus hit rock bottom with the tragic farewell of Professor Robert Hartman in an accident at the Laboratory in May 1903. The loss hit Mines hard, for Hartman was beloved among everyone; faculty, students and trustees lined up to accompany his body to the train station for its journey back east for burial. Later in 1904 two bronze tablets were placed on each side of the entrance to Stratton Hall, in memory of two more tragic victims, Wade L. Crowe and Raymond Bishop, graduates who had lost their lives in the Telluride snowslide of 1902.
Assay Laboratory, Power Plant and Stratton Hall
- 1912
Colorized postcard courtesy Gardner Family Collection
The summer of 1903 freed Mines from its dire straits. In June Stratton Hall was nearing completion, and Mines graduated its second woman, Grace C.U. McDermut, who was given lengthy applause and showered with flowers. Trustees Kelly and Jaffa were sent east to find a new president, who would select his own faculty. They found Victor C. Alderson of Chicago's Armour Institute of Technology. Noted chemist Dr. Herman Fleck became the first new faculty member, and he soon moved to Golden, building his own ornate little house with a Dutch gumbrel roof at the southwest corner of 16th and Maple.
The Mines campus had grown dramatically in a few short years, requiring greater amounts of energy to power it. It was decided to build a new Mediterranean-styled edifice to heat Stratton Hall. Right next to the Assay building, which had been repaired from the windstorm in Mediterranean style, yet another Mediterranean building arose looking much like it. The Power Plant, built by Denver contractor H.H. Toogood, was a two-story red brick building ending in curvilinear parapets, with walls fashioned creatively around sets of rectangular and circular multipaned windows and a projection on top. Built upon a foundation of crushed slag from the Golden Smelting Works, it was connected by an underground tunnel to Stratton Hall, including 9-inch thick concrete walls, floor and arched roof measuring 5 x 4 feet, dug by Evan Jones and built by Perre O. Unger. The tunnel housed the heating conduits between the Power Plant and Stratton Hall.
Transcript news headline showing Power Plant
nearing completion, 1904
View towards southwest from 14th Street
The School of Mines was stepping into a new era, but its shower of gifts was far from complete. Next year, the best was yet to come.