Oneida Hall was a campus building of Juniata College, built in the spring of 1898, just after the construction of the Students Hall. According to The Echo: "It received the appellation partly in honor of a neighboring township and valley by that name, and partly because the street on which it stands is called Oneida street; but most of all, it was named in honor of a famous tribe of Indians that long ago hunted over these hills and valleys." The four-story brick building was built and joined to Brumbaugh Hall in 1895. It was 40′ x 80′, like the Students Hall, and abutted the south end of the Ladies Hall. The Oneida Hall was demolished to make way for the William J. Von Liebig Center for Science, which opened in 2002.
Before the construction of Oneida Hall, students and faculty ate in a basement cafeteria in the original Founders Hall, and Oneida Hall solved the problem. The entire main floor of Oneida Hall occupied as the new campus refectory with thirty-two tables and could serve 269 people at one time. With high ceilings and large windows, the refectory in the Oneida Hall was much brighter and airier, compared to the Founders dining hall. As David Emmert remembered in his book Reminiscences of Juniata College, Quarter Century. 1876-1901: “It was like coming from a dark cave into the open light of day.” The basement contained the kitchen and pantries, and food was sent up to the main floor on a large dumbwaiter. The second and third floors served as a women’s dormitory, which was another major concern within the campus.
Although Oneida Hall played an important role in dining and as a dormitory for women at that particular time, it was later replaced by other buildings as more students enrolled at Juniata College. Since 1946, because there were not enough seats for all the students in the first floor of the Oneida Hall, the school decided to use a two-platoon system to solve the over-crowded dining situation. In 1950, the Postwar Planning Commission became a student center with a refectory in addition to Oneida Hall. The new refectory could seat all resident students, which meant that all the students enrolled at that time, over 470, could be served at one time. The construction of Sherwood Hall and a L-shaped South Hall, which are still being using today, were completed respectively in 1961 and 1962, ultimately replaced the dormitories in Founders Hall and Oneida Hall. Interestingly, all the women’s dormitory buildings, including Lesher, South, and Brumbaugh-Oneida Halls, had residence directors as “mother confessors” and guardians with a “sign in and sign out” system, which men’s dormitories did not have. This system persisted until the end of the Ellis administration.
In April 2000, President Thomas Kepple announced the "Campaign for Uncommon Outcomes." The Campaign planned to use thirty-six million dollars on five construction or renovation projects. The planned von Liebig Center intended to occupy a prime site on the campus quadrangle, meaning that Oneida Hall was demolished. By 2000, the function of Oneida Hall was weak in value to campus. The once-revolutionary dining hall had been replaced by Ellis Hall, which was built in 1969. Only the Financial Office and Human Resources employees still made their homes in Oneida Hall. They relocated to the college owned houses at the junction of Moore Street and Cold Springs Road. All apparent signs of Oneida’s existence were razed.
Xiaoyu Mao
Bibliography
Ellis, C.C.. Juniata College: The History of Seventy Years 1876-1946. Elgin: Brethren Publishing House, 1947.
Emmert, David. Reminiscences of Juniata College, Quarter Century, 1876-1901.. The author, Huntingdon: 1901.
Juniata Echo. April 1898.
Kaylor, Eric C. Juniata College: Uncommon Vision, Uncommon Loyalty: The History of an Independent College in Pennsylvania Founded by the Brethren 1876-2001. Huntingdon: Juniata College Press, 2001.