This School Complex was Built to Train Teachers for State Public Schools

Albion Normal School Campus, Albion Idaho

Date added: September 29, 2024

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Both Normal Schools in Idaho, at Albion and Lewiston, in the north, were founded in the same year, 1893, by legislative act. The Albion Normal School opened in 1894 and served as a state institution until 1949. In that year the school was closed by the Idaho Legislature after a decade of legislative debate over retaining the Albion campus as a normal school. The legislators later rejected an attempt to reinstate the normal school, but the state continued to maintain the property until 1957, when the Church of Christ leased the campus for the Magic Valley Christian College, which opened the following year. The campus has had various uses since 1971 under the ownership of the City of Albion.

Once established in 1893, with the land donated and the Rock Building built by the town of Albion, the Normal School entered into six decades of training teachers, most of whom went on to serve in Idaho schools. Although offering a curriculum similar to most liberal arts colleges, normal school classes were designed to support the idea that "teachers must be educated and trained to teach."

The campus is particularly impressive because it reflects clearly a belief in the value of an aesthetically pleasing environment for educational pursuits. A number of the state's most prominent architects were repeatedly chosen to contribute building to the developing school. Working often in brick and locally-obtained sandstone, Campbell, Tourtellotte, Hummel, Wayland, Fennel, and Morse created some of the most worthy examples of academic architecture in Idaho.

In dates from 1897 to 1929, these buildings offer various institutional versions of an ample range of styles: Queen Anne-going-classical in Swanger Hall and Miller Hall; Colonial Revival in Hansen Hall, Comish Hall, and in a minimal way, McMurray Hall; eclectic Victorian Romanesque Revival in Axline Gymnasium; highly schematic neo-classicism in Bocock Memorial Hall; stylish utilitarian in the central heating plant; bungalcid in the president's residence; and even a hint of Prairie in the Training School. Most significantly, these architects all seemed to have demonstrated a sensitivity to the campus plan as a whole and to the compatibility of style, placement, and materials of each new building to its predecessor.

Site Description

The Albion Normal School consists of eight buildings situated within the boundaries of the campus at the west end of the town of Albion. The campus is met by open land to the west and nudges the last rise of hills toward Burley on the north. Two buildings, the first administration building, and a women's dormitory, have been lost.

The eight buildings range in construction date from 1901 to 1930. With the exception of the heating plant and the president's home, they are all made of brick. Local stone is a significant secondary material on the gymnasium and women's dormitory. The buildings were plotted to encompass two quadrangles and the spacious academic fields are still clearly felt between the building faces. These quadrangles have not been intruded upon, but several temporary classroom buildings stand just beyond the road marking the western campus boundary. These structures probably date from the use of the site by the Magic Valley Christian College in the late 1950s and 1960s. There are also miscellaneous utilitarian structures to the west, which cannot be dated.

The grounds are presently overgrown, though still resplendent with aging evergreen and deciduous trees, and classicized lampposts. The buildings endure in varying states of disrepair but there is active local interest in reusing more than one of them, with special attention being given the gymnasium.

The Swanger Hall rock building dates from 1894 and was the first structure built on campus.

Swanger Hall proper was burned in 1947. This brick and sandstone structure was attached to the rock building. It was constructed in 1897 as the first administration building, from plans by Boise architect W.S. Campbell.

Miller Hall was built in 1901 as a men's dormitory and was designed by J.E. Tourtellotte of Boise. In its original form, this rectangular, two-story brick building was embellished with pinnacled dormers and an octagonal turret embedded into a steep, flared, hipped roof. In 1938, the building was "completely modernized." The roofline was stripped of ornament but fortunately, the substantial bracketed cornice was left unchanged. The distinctive parapeted front portico survived with minor alterations: a compatible second story was added to it, topped with a pedimented extension. The classicizing rhythm of the slightly inset window bays and the fairly low and solid proportions give Miller Hall continued visual stature in its simplified state.

Hansen Hall, a dormitory for women has been demolished. It was built in 1905 by the Boise firm of Wayland and Fennel. It was a two-and-a-half story, brick and stone, U-shaped building which was distinguished by apsidal bays on the sides and rear.

The Training or "model" school was built to house grade school classes which would provide practice in teaching for Normal School students. It was designed by Wayland and Fennel and built in 1907 by Ernest White. The one-story building with a full basement has a flared hip-and-ridge roof with wide, filled eaves, an arched entrance on the north side, and a single shingled dormer over the doorway. Ells extend on both sides and to the front. It was constructed in brick and was said to have a "picturesque exterior." The main level has been stuccoed to resemble half-timbering, but the original fabric is visible on the west side and rear. This building is being restored by the Albion Senior Citizens.

The Axline Gymnasium is the most impressive building on the Normal School campus, both in terms of its scale and detail, and in the attention given to its planning. The design for the combination gym and armory was by J. E. Tourtellotte and Company. R.C. Alloway of Twin Falls was awarded the general contract, in 1909, for $25,000. The three-story building has a base, arched doorways, and trim of locally quarried ruddy sandstone and a body of red brick fired on the site. The overall massing of the structure can be reduced to a broad gabled block with two hip-and-ridge wings crossing it at the ends. The parapeted outset "dormers," sword-like niches, and attenuated stone keystones above the arched windows are elements distinctive of Tourtellotte and relate this design closely to his women's gymnasium commission at the University of Idaho at Moscow (1903). A Boise newspaper commented, "the general appearance of the structure when finished will be one of rough beauty exhibiting crude strength in keeping with its purpose. The style will be what is known as the early frontier post style and will be in harmony with the rest of the buildings."

The interior includes a second-floor athletic floor, 101x54, which also served as a drillroom, auditorium, and roller skating rink. A balcony rings this lofty space and once featured a "saucer-shaped" running track with composition cork floor and "easy curves," 23 laps to the mile. The room is extremely well-lit. The first floor contained locker and shower rooms for women and men and held the gymnasium equipment which President William Axline personally bought in Chicago for $4000. Axline boasted that the gymnasium was fireproof and "panic-proof," with numerous exits and "no balustrades to fall."

The building has been abandoned for some time, but the structure seems sound. Local efforts to restore the space are with the intention of making recreation facilities for Albion.

Hannah Comish Hall, a residence for women students and faculty bears some similarities to Hansen Hall. It is also C-shaped and sits on a stone base. Comish Hall was constructed in two stages, in 1918 and 1926. The center block was designed by Tourtellotte and Hummel of Boise and executed by W. G. Reed of Twin Falls. It has a hip-and-ridge main roofline and hipped, multi-light dormers. The first level is brick, but the upper story of this middle portion simulates half-timbering around pairs of rectangular windows. There were wooden balustraded outset porches in the Tuscan order on three sides; one remains on the south elevation as the main entrance. Two outset brick chimneys also survive on this side. The hip-and-ridge wings that frame this block are similar to the earlier structure, though fully in brick. Dormers facing front and side on the ells are shingled, with a single arched window framed by Tuscan pilasters. There is a brick portico on the east side. There is no documentation to the effect that Tourtellotte and Hummel were responsible for the additions but they do closely resemble aspects of institutional commissions done by the firm in the 'twenties at Gooding and St. Anthony.

The central heating plant was added to the campus in 1925 at a cost of $50,000. The structure is built on a slope near the east entrance to the school. It is constructed of concrete block sheathed in a layer of cement stucco in which indentions have been cast to form simple geometric patterns. Parapeted gable ends mark the roofline on the east, above a two-vehicle garage at highway level and on the west, over-looking a concrete loading platform. A tall and elegantly-topped smokestack surmounts this utilitarian building.

Bocock Memorial Hall was constructed in 1927 to replace Swanger Hall as the administration building. The architects were Wayland and Fennell and Bird Findlayson of Pocatello was the contractor. The building was funded as a public works project for $83,000. The structure is basically H-shaped with a two-story laterally disposed forewing. This area contained offices on the first floor and the main library occupied the entire second floor. Extending north from this block is an auditorium, with 650 seats. Behind the playhouse is a two-story scene house which provided the stage and dressing rooms. The exterior is distinguished by inventive brick patterning and by a "wealth of big windows" which allowed the high-ceiling-ed upper reading room to be "flooded with daylight." The auditorium has three large arched windows on each side. According to a Twin Falls paper, Bocock Hall is utilitarian in style, "plain and modern with no cornices or ornamentation." The base of this building is the familiar brown Sandstone and the trim and slender dropped cornice is of grey cast stone.

McMurray Hall, a dormitory for men, was built in 1928-29 from plans by Twin Falls architect Burton E. Morse. It is a two-story structure C-shaped of brick and reinforced concrete whose facade is well-hidden by trees. The main block has a hipped roof, with filled eaves, pierced by semi-circular louvered vents. There are two hipped, shingled dormers on each side wing. The ornament is limited to an applied wooden neo-Colonial doorway, featuring a broken segmental pediment sans urn supported by fluted Tuscan pilasters. The double front doors are multi-light. The foundation is of sandstone, capped with an outset sill of cast concrete.

The residence for Normal School presidents was completed in 1930. It was built, with state funds, for $10,000 and designed by Wayland and Fennell. The house sits on the southeastern edge of the campus, near, the entrance road. It is vaguely T-shaped, a complex of gable roofs, with the entrance facing north across a spacious lawn toward the academic buildings. Its style is both "modified Spanish" and bungaloid, evident in the use of stucco over hollow tile walls, the tile roof, and the overall horizontal profile. There is a matching garage to the left of the house.