By Mark Simonson
College students across the nation in the 1950s had their share of pranks, such as finding out how many could fit into telephone booths. I'm sure some students at the Oneonta State Teachers College were up to that challenge in this city.
Back in the late 1920s students at what was then called the Oneonta Normal School were being challenged by a small space and big numbers "" but this was no prank. The school building, called Old Main, was once found at the top of Maple Street, where the Old Main Apartments are today. The building was designed for 450 students. In the autumn of 1929 there were 676. These were just the students learning to become teachers. Children from kindergarten, elementary and intermediate school grades attended classes here as well, as this was a teacher training site.
The crowded conditions had been building up over the past few years and there had been talk of adding a second building to the Normal School. The talk phase changed into action in 1929, and within a few years a new campus school was opened, known to generations of students and teachers as the Percy I. Bugbee School. The school served the community from early 1933 to 1975, and is now used for other purposes.
A few college officials and civic leaders from Oneonta had an appointment in Albany on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 1929, to make a presentation to the state Board of Regents, regarding Old Main's space issues and the need for a new building. Normal schools in Potsdam, Geneseo and New Paltz were slated for new buildings, and Oneonta wanted to get on the waiting list. Principal Percy I. Bugbee, Board of Visitors Chairman Orlando B. Rowe, Mayor Bertus C. Lauren and Republican County Committee Chairman Donald H. Grant made the trip to Albany.
Following the presentation and for the remainder of that autumn, city and college officials met with state legislators from near and far. During the first week of October. for example, Bugbee and Rowe invited state Sen. John Gates and Assemblyman Frank Smith to lunch at the Hotel Oneonta, today's 189 Main St. They then went on a tour of the crowded Old Main. The meeting was meant to urge the state Legislature to appropriate funds in the upcoming session for the second building.
According to The Oneonta Herald of Oct. 10, 1929, the state Department of Education was on record as supporting the Oneonta project. Although the stock market crashed almost three weeks later, the Legislature came through with funds, with a small amount in 1930 and much more in 1931. Construction of the building's foundation got under way in 1930. There was excitement around Old Main on Friday, Feb. 27, 1931, when the state commissioner of architecture came to Oneonta to show the tentative plans for the new training school.
Further construction got under way that year, and by mid-November a crew of 64 men had gotten the ground floor laid and was set to have the building under a roof by Jan. 1, 1932. A cornerstone ceremony was held on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 1931.
Progress was steady and school dedication ceremonies were held in the Normal School auditorium on Saturday, May 28, 1932, filling the room to capacity with townspeople, students and graduates who had returned to Oneonta for the annual alumni reunion weekend.
Dr. J. Cayce Morrison, assistant commissioner of the State Education Department, gave the main address at the ceremony.
"We are met today, not to dedicate a building," he stated, "but to dedicate ourselves to what shall transpire in that building in the years to come. We are met to "¦ guarantee that the boys and girls in the grades of that school shall have the best teaching that America can give."
The new training school was supposed to be open that September; however, furniture, cabinets and basic classroom necessities had yet to arrive. According to a short article in the Jan. 12, 1933, edition of The Oneonta Herald, the kindergarten was expected to move to the new building the next week, followed by other grades after Feb. 1.
The exact dates of the move weren't readily available in area newspapers, as that news got overshadowed by the announcement in early February that Principal Bugbee would retire at the end of June. Dr. Bugbee had been at the school since its opening in 1889, where he started as a mathematics teacher.
The new training school was named in Dr. Bugbee's honor shortly after his retirement.
On Monday: We'll move over to the Hartwick College campus, which was abuzz with activity in 1954.
City Historian Mark Simonson's column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com.
His website is
www.oneontahistorian.com.
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