Looking east from the roof of the Chemistry Building at proposed site. Campus buildings (l to r): Veterinary Building, Engineering Building, Field Husbandry Building (Crop Science), Livestock Pavilion, Physics Building, College Building.

Bio/Historical Note: In the immediate post-World War II period construction was centred on what was called the “Agriculture Group” of buildings including the Virus Laboratory, School of Agriculture and the Soils and Dairy Laboratories. All three were built between 1948 and 1949, all were flat-roofed structures and all of them would be named after prominent members of the College of Agriculture’s faculty. They also introduced a fourth major building material to campus, yellow brick, which was chosen when the preferred greystone was unavailable. The campus was now colour coded: Engineering, red brick; Agriculture, yellow brick; and the Arts and the Sciences, stone. The main portion of the Soils and Dairy Science Building was divided more or less equally between the two departments. Greenhouses attached to the south end of the building were occupied by Field Husbandry and Forage Crops. The new Dairy Laboratory housed the latest equipment to process milk and milk products and supplied the University with all its milk, cheese and cream needs. In 1957, the building was renamed the John Mitchell Building after the professor and head of the Soils Department and director of the Saskatchewan Soil Survey who had died two years earlier. With the opening of the College of Agriculture Building, the John Mitchell Building became vacant in 1991. It was decided that Drama should move out of the Hangar Building and fill the space. After several renovations, including the conversion of the two large cheese and soil laboratories into theatre space, The Drama Department took up residence in September 1993.

Foundation being laid for the Physics Building; two workers standing on top of wall.

Bio/Historical Note: The Physics Building was constructed by Smith Bros. & Wilson General Contractors from 1919 to 1921 for $437,000, and was designed by D. R. Brown and H. Vallance. It was officially opened in 1922. The building originally housed the Departments of Physics, Botany and Zoology, the Plant-pathology section of the Dominion Department of Agriculture, as well as the soils branch of the Canadian Department of the Interior. The Physics Building possessed non-vibratory walls, laboratories for Electricity and Magnetism, Light, Electron Physics, wireless work, a number of smaller research rooms, a dark room and a large lecture theatre, which was quickly put to use by many different colleges. The attic of the building was used as a temporary museum, with meteorological recording equipment situated on the roof. The basement was fitted with offices and classrooms, as well as with two fireproofed rooms containing the Shortt Library of Canadiana.

View from northwest across the Bowl with buildings (l to r): Thorvaldson, Biology, Physics and Administration. Students walking on grass in foreground.