Remember the Main Building: Located on 8th Street, the building was destroyed by fire in 1904.

Just as Rensselaer is in the midst of rebirth in the early 21st century, so a hundred years ago the Institute underwent momentous change that established the heart of its modern-day campus.

The great fire of 1904 that destroyed the university’s Main Building provided the impetus for transformation, and sparked the movement of reconstruction and remarkable growth of Rensselaer.

On June 9, 1904, a fire blazed through campus and destroyed the Main Building. The first building designed and constructed for the Institute, the Main Building on 8th Street represented the core campus. The four-story brick building was erected on land given by the family of Joseph M. Warren, a former Rensselaer trustee. It was completed in 1864 at a cost of $44,000.

The facility had a library, assembly hall, lecture and recitation rooms, drawing rooms, cabinets of natural history specimens, and laboratories. (Ironically, the Main Building was built as a result of another great fire in 1862.)

Besides the damaged Winslow Chemical Laboratory (now the home of the Junior Museum), situated next to the Main Building, four smaller buildings were left standing on the small, three-acre parcel on 8th Street.

The question of rebuilding quickly emerged. Should the Institute rebuild on the same crowded site, or move to a new location more suitable for future growth?

One proposal was to extend the campus downhill toward the city. Another option was leaving Troy altogether. Columbia University proposed that Rensselaer merge within its New York City campus.

In the end, Rensselaer set its sights uphill, at the crest of a hilltop overlooking the Hudson River Valley. For $125,000, the Institute purchased the 10-acre estate of Walter Phelps Warren just above the existing campus site.

Plans to rebuild a new Main Building in the same location as the old one were abandoned and the property was turned over to the city. The Approach, a massive granite staircase, which symbolically and physically connects the Institute with the city, was completed on the site in 1907.

On the first anniversary of the fire, Institute President P. C. Ricketts, well-known for his indefatigable efforts in reshaping the campus, reported to the trustees that 1905 had been “the most prosperous year in the history of the school.” Donations from alumni and others had more than doubled the previous value of the Institute.

Published March 1, 2004