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Historic
Possibilities
By Katie Johnson, Staff Writer
In 1885, six donated acres of land,
$60,000 and a dream began what would become one of the largest universities
in the Red River Valley. Minnesota State Sen. Solomon Comstock’s
Moorhead Normal School started with 29 students and one building.
“It would be a fine thing for the Red River Country and especially
for Moorhead,” Comstock said.
The remnants of that era can be seen
at Minnesota State University Moorhead today -- but one has to look
closely.
What was once a documentary project
is now a history lesson in the architecture and people of MSUM.
Cory Ryan hoped to photograph hidden places at the college, ranging
from Roland Dille’s mysterious office to the infamous underground
tunnels. But now he is seeing what lies beneath – the past,
buried under technological advances and modern additions. His trip
back in time has involved digging through the library, searching
for old photographs and talking to people who best know MSUM.
“I need reasons for everything
I photograph,” says Ryan. “I can’t just take pictures
of everything I think is interesting.”
Ryan plans to show how modern buildings
on campus today were once other things. “There is a door in
Flora Frick [Hall] that leads up to what was once the top of a gym,”
he says. He shows a black-and-white picture of a gymnasium, with
a women’s basketball team posed in uniform for the photo. Flora
Frick Hall houses the mass communications department, and is one
of the newest add-ons to MSUM.
“I just figured that door was
storage or something,” Ryan says.
He is finding out things are not always what they seem.
“I have been in the locked basement
of Ballard,” he says of the first and only all-men’s dorm.
“It is very scary down there.”
Ryan also tells of the “fox holes”
in MacLean Hall. In the early days of the school, there were no
dorms for men, but men were allowed to stay in barrack-like rooms
in the basement.
Holding a creased, slightly blurred photo of the campus, taken from
a plane, he tells of how he hopes to replicate that picture with
a modern photo.
“I know a student who used to
go here who flies planes,” he says. “[My project] has
expanded.”
Hidden
Places Continued........
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