Agriculture Hall (Madison, Wisconsin)

Agriculture Hall is a Beaux Arts-style building on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison built in 1903. In 1985 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its architecture and because it housed the first Department of Agricultural Economics in the U.S. and the first department of genetics. The UW started its College of Agriculture in 1889. Early buildings were the 1892 Hiram Smith Hall, the 1894 King Hall, the 1897 Dairy Barn, and others. Between 1886 and 1901 the enrollment in the agricultural short course had multiplied ten-fold to 196, and the existing ag buildings were out of space. Dean William Henry pitched the need for another building and in 1901 the state legislature appropriated $150,000. J. T. W. Jennings, the UW's Supervising Architect at the time, designed the building and T.C. McCarthy supervised construction, which began in 1901. The building is three stories tall, with a symmetric facade 200 feet wide, in Beaux Arts style, with a raised basement of limestone and the upper floors clad in red brick. The central entrance is shaded by a projecting 2-story portico with an entablature supported by four fluted Ionic columns, and the door is flanked on each side by a marble medallion in a fruit-and-vegetable wreath. Quoins decorate the ends of the front and a limestone cornice trims the top of the wall, which is sheltered by a red tile hip

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