Treasures from the Archives
This is a story about a headless skeleton, old pictures and a theory

(Click photo for enlargement) Related link: Manchester College Archives

This photo is of a biology class about 98 years ago. Or, maybe it was 117 years ago. That’s when the class met in Bumgerdner Hall, what now is the west end of the
Administration Building. Or, maybe this photograph was taken in 1915, when Manchester dedicated its Science Hall – what later became the Library, and then the Communications Building.

A 1914 photograph of a biology room depicts a skeleton (with its head) just like the one on the left edge of this photo. The head in this photo is atop a filing cabinet. To date the photograph, MU Archivist Jeanine M. Wine ’76 turned to MU physical plant sleuths for help.

”It appears to be Room 310 in the Ad Building,” says Chris Garber ’77, director of MU operations, who used telltale signs – molding on the doors and the configuration of the doors – to identify what now is a tired, empty classroom of tiered seating. “That back door was filled in and covered with a bulletin board,” he adds.

“This was fun, kinda like a scavenger hunt,” says Garber. Archivist Wine agrees.

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