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n the days when trips to Cleburne were a big deal, one could find a “majestic” and “grand” building known as Old North Hall. Today on the Southwestern campus the school’s first residence hall can’t be found. In fact, the Chan Shun Centennial Library now stands where it used to be. Completed in December, 1894, Heritage Hall was the first residence hall on the campus of Keene Industrial Academy. Students at that time dubbed the residence hall, “The Home.” “The Home” was a four-story, 32- by 64- foot structure that could accommodate 60 students. The construction of “The Home” was funded by early Adventists in north Texas. Sixteen students and five teachers moved into the residence hall that first year, but eventually “The Home” became so crowded that administration bought a building in 1908 and moved it onto the campus to serve as the men’s residence hall. The new building was referred to as West Hall, and “The Home” was renamed North Hall. Whether viewed from the perspective of a little boy playing in the building, a former resident when it was the girl’s residence hall, or a department chair when it was the music building, Heritage Hall served as a multipurpose building for decades and became the stuff of memories for thousands of students, faculty and staff. Jere “Bugger” Putnam ’57, longtime Keene resident, remembers riding his tricycle up and down the halls of North Hall when he was five years old. His father, Ben Putnam, did maintenance for the building, so he grew up with some pretty interesting memories. One of them includes his dog, Woofles, which is now buried underneath the 18th Century Japanese horse statue outside the Mabee Center. Ben Putnam helped with the refrigeration in the kitchen of North Hall and made trap doors on the sinks in the kitchen where all the rats would go. “There were two sinks back to back. They washed all the dishes by hand and they’d shut those trap doors and keep all the rats in there.
North Hall was a ma estic building to me where I made lifelong decisions...I would not take anything away from my experience being here. Woofles would go in there and kill and swallow those rats whole,” recalls Bugger Putnam. Over time, Old North Hall had to accommodate the influx of more students and it eventually became the girl’s residence hall with the cafeteria in the basement. Jean Peterson ’46, came to live in North Hall in 1942. “The first year I was there, I was a janitor in the dorms and I had to keep all the hallways clean. They were stained dark colored wood and that was my pride and joy,” says Peterson. “It was a three-story building, so that gave me a few hours of work.” To many people, the North Hall was their home. It was where they grew up and made many lifelong friends. It was where they met their sweethearts.
It was a place filled with memories. “North Hall was a majestic building to me where I made lifelong decisions,” says Peterson. “I would not take anything away from my experience being here at what was then Southwestern Junior College. It was a real blessing.” In later years, North Hall became the music hall where John Read, former chair of the music department, came to teach choir and music in 1961. At that time, the building went through some redecorating, and Read remembers a rivalry between Leroy Leiske, president of the college, and Ben Leach, president of the Southwestern Union, regarding how the interior should look. “When we started decorating the building, my brother came up from Miami and oversaw the decorations,” remembers Read. “It was just hilarious. Leroy and Ben competed to see who could be the most involved in getting this music building fixed the way they wanted it.” One of the things Read remembers most is the orange shag carpet that was laid in the front hall and his office. “It was pretty cool back in those days,” says Read. According to Read, the music department then had the largest percentage of music majors per capita of any Adventist college in North America. Read was always in a hurry with such a busy program. “The building had big high steps going out the front door,” he remembers. “One time I went running down
North Hall was home to many, such as these students in
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