Old Shop Photos From Oregon Agricultural College (Now Oregon State University)

[gtermini]

This is the building (Merryfield Hall) where I ran the Engineering Support Shop until it's close in 2020. It had been a shop space since being built around 1906. It is the back building in these pictures. The building in the foreground was a fully equipped iron foundry that was demolished in the 1970s.

The portion of the rear building running right-left (along the street) is/was the machine shop and the portion coming in-up of the picture was the wood shop (dissolved in maybe the 1960s)

[gtermini]

The space I occupied was originally set up as a blacksmithing and farriers school.





Here is the woodshop in the other half.













I believe there was a large teaching machine shop in the foundry building shown here

[gtermini]

Here are some shots from the foundry operation. I spoke to some guys that had worked there as students and all of them talked about how the guy that run the foundry in the 50/60s would throw all sorts of nasty scrap in the pot and the metal was always miserable to machine. They called it something like "MartinMetal" after him.











These shots are from the late 50s in the room I occupied. I laughed when I saw them because the light fixtures and a bunch of little background details were unchanged 60+ years later.







There was a different Industrial Arts building about 50 yards away that burned down just before the turn of the century.

[coolmercury]

Great pictures----Brings back many memories.  I graduated from high school in 1952 with a diploma in manual arts.  I had one year of metal shop and three years of wood shop. I still have many of the projects from that time in my home and they are still in use.  My whole life I have done my own maintenance.  It is a shame that those in charge of the schools came to the incorrect conclusion that everyone needed to go to college.  It is rare now that high schools teach shop, but some still teach agriculture.

[john k]

Great pictures from a great time that taught valuable skills.  Graduated from a tech school 50 years ago this week.  Even though so many things changed on cars knowing the basics I have found to be darn important.  Thanks for posting.   The shop scene with the blacksmith forges, was curious why there was no smoke.   Coal smoke ought to show up,  then it dawned on me they were using "coke".   Coal once it is cooked for awhile becomes coked, and the heavy smoke is gone.  Worked with both  but took a minute to sink in.