Phillips Hall

In the chronology

1. 1919 Phillips Hall opens, named for three Phillips family teachers Phillips Hall opened on the Chapel Hill campus in 1919, honoring three members of the Phillips family who taught at the university in the nineteenth century: James Phillips, his son Charles Phillips and his grandson William Battle Phillips. People: Charles Phillips, William Battle Phillips Carolina Story: Virtual Museum of University History: James Phillips, Charles Phillips, and William Battle Phillips and Phillips Hall
2. July 1925 University clears the last of its old power station and print shop to build the east wing of Phillips Hall Work began on a three-story east wing for Phillips Hall, for civil and electrical engineering and mathematics, and with it the last traces of the old power station built about 1895 by J. W. Gore and the old University print shop disappeared. The University Printery moved to the back of the former Strowd garage on Franklin Street. People: Joshua W. Gore, Zeb P. Council The Chapel Hill Weekly, July 17, 1925, p. 2
3. January 28, 1929 Portrait of Major William Cain is presented to the University's school of engineering On January 28, 1929, before a crowd that filled the auditorium of Phillips Hall, William Steen's portrait of Major William Cain, who had taught engineering at the University since 1889, was unveiled and accepted for the school of engineering by T. F. Hickerson. People: Thomas Felix Hickerson, Gustave M. Braune The Chapel Hill Weekly, February 1, 1929, p. 1
4. by May 24, 1929 UNC's radio station W4WE reports contacts in fifty countries The University's licensed radio station W4WE, a unit of the Naval Communication Reserve run by electrical engineering instructor T. B. Smiley from Phillips Hall, had exchanged messages with stations in 50 countries on every continent. Cards from places such as Chile, New Zealand, Finland and Palestine lined its wall. The Chapel Hill Weekly, May 24, 1929, p. 1
5. by September 8, 1933 The federal Public Works office for North Carolina opens in Phillips Hall under Herman G. Baity Herman G. Baity, on leave as dean of the University's school of engineering, set up the state engineer's office of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works in the east end of Phillips Hall and began taking applications for construction grants from counties and towns. The state advisory committee that passed on the applications held most of its sessions there, and W. J. Miller became acting dean of engineering. People: Herman G. Baity The Chapel Hill Weekly, September 8, 1933, p. 1
6. December 1934 (reported January 4, 1935) State water resources division leaves Phillips Hall for Raleigh The state Department of Conservation and Development moved its division of water resources and engineering, housed for about ten years with the University's engineering school in Phillips Hall, to Raleigh during the Christmas vacation without notice to the faculty. The division had grown out of Thorndike Saville's stream studies begun in 1919, and the Weekly linked the move to the argument over moving the engineering school to Raleigh. The Chapel Hill Weekly, January 4, 1935, p. 1
7. by September 23, 1938 The University sends its engineering equipment to State College All equipment of the University's mechanical and electrical engineering schools was transferred to State College in Raleigh, the civil engineering equipment staying for science students; the space in Phillips Hall went to mathematics, physics and public health. The Chapel Hill Weekly, September 23, 1938, p. 3
8. January 26, 1942 Would-be vegetable gardeners organize in Chapel Hill and are offered plots Faculty members and townspeople who meant to grow their own vegetables against rising food prices met in Phillips hall on January 26 to hear Lloyd R. Roof of the Mason farm nursery and W. F. Lathan, with Grover Beard leading the movement for civilian defense. W. C. Coker, Herman Baity, Francis Bradshaw, Henry M. Burlage and others offered land in six sections around the town, and in February plots were staked out on Coker land for families in the Oakwood suburb. People: William Chambers Coker, William F. Lathan The Chapel Hill Weekly, January 30, 1942, p. 2
9. November 1943 Mathematician Yue Kei Wong joins the University's mathematics staff Dr. Yue Kei Wong, a Chicago Ph.D. and member of the Academia Sinica who had lectured at the University of Peking and advised the Encyclopaedia Britannica, joined the mathematics department to teach Navy V-12 trainees. Department head Archibald Henderson wrote that, so far as was known, he was the first Chinese scholar on the University's faculty. People: Archibald Henderson The Chapel Hill Weekly, November 12, 1943, p. 4
10. June 19, 1959 The first parts of the University's Univac computer arrive at Phillips Hall Workmen unloaded the first shipment of the Consolidated University's Univac computer outside Phillips Hall, with ten more moving vans to bring the rest, while President William C. Friday and vice presidents W. M. Whyburn and William D. Carmichael Jr. looked it over. People: William C. Friday, William M. (William Marvin) Whyburn, William D. Carmichael Jr. The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), June 25, 1959, p. 8

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