- City:
- Rochester, MN
- Site Type:
- Education and Health, Libraries
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Funding, Public Works Administration (PWA)
- Started:
- 1937
- Completed:
- 1938
- Designer:
- Harold Crawford
- Quality of Information:
- Moderate
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
The Mitchell Student Center at the Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota was built between 1936 and 1937 by the Public Works Administration (PWA). Designed by Harold Crawford, Rochester’s preeminent architect at the time, the building originally housed the Rochester Public Library and could hold 75,000 books. The Jacobean-style structure was built of limestone quarried in the town of Kasota, in South Central Minnesota. The PWA grant funded 45% of the total building costs, and the remainder was covered by the Library Board.
After the library moved in the early 1970s, the Mayo Clinic purchased the 1937 building. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The Student Center now offers a library, computer lab, and study space for medical school students.
Source notes
C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown. "Public Buildings: Architecture Under the Public Works Administration: 1933 To 1939" (U.S. Government Printing Office Washington: 1939), 126. https://www.mnhs.org/preserve/nrhp/nomination/80004537.pdf https://www.rochesterpubliclibrary.org/my-rpl/about-us/historySite originally submitted by Natalie Heneghan, Evan Kalish on July 20, 2015.
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Roderick Pugh
Rochester / Mayo Clinic has some sense of historical importance. Too bad that wasn’t the case with the original 1914 Mayo building