Mackenzie Hall, OHSU

Mackenzie Hall, completed in 1919 and originally named the Medical Science Building, was the first building to be constructed on the Marquam Hill campus of University of Oregon Medical School (now OHSU). The building was designed by architect Ellis Lawrence. Later additions include a central wing addition in 1921; a west lab addition in 1939; 5th floor west wing in 1947; and a cafeteria addition in 1968. In the twenty-first century, the building houses School of Medicine academic and administrative facilities as well as the popular Mac Hall cafe.

From its founding in 1887 until 1919, the University of Oregon Medical School operated out of small single buildings in Northwest Portland, first in a two-room converted grocery store on Northwest 23rd Avenue and Marshall Street, and later in a converted Victorian building on Northwest 23rd and Lovejoy Street. In 1914, Dean Kenneth A.J. Mackenzie persuaded the Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company, for whom he served as chief surgeon, to donate twenty acres atop Marquam Hill for the medical school. The land for the campus, unusable to the railroad company, came to be known as “Mackenzie’s Folly” in reference to its location on an inaccessible hilltop, a mile and a half away from the city center. But Mackenzie saw it through a different perspective: He envisioned a medical center far away from the noise and bustle of the city, where learning and healing could carry on undisturbed.

Having secured the land, Dr. Mackenzie set about obtaining the funds to construct the new campus on the hill. University officials engaged in a concerted lobbying effort, enjoining state and city officials to support the project. In 1915, the Oregon state legislature approved an appropriation of $50,000 for construction of a new medical school building, with an additional $60,000 for maintenance, with the provision that a remaining $25,000 needed to be raised elsewhere. The City of Portland contributed the remaining sum.

The cornerstone of the first campus building, the Medical Science Building, was laid on May 1, 1918. Construction was completed in 1919 and academic activities relocated to the new Marquam Hill location for the 1919-1920 academic year.

In 1921, the state legislature approved $113,269.50 in funds for an addition to the original three-story Medical Science Building, on the condition that like funds be secured from other sources. The school secured these funds when the Rockefeller Foundation donated $163,269.50 for building construction and equipment, through the efforts of its general education fund secretary Abraham Flexner. The addition was to be named Mackenzie Hall, in honor of Kenneth A.J. Mackenzie's efforts in founding the campus. Mackenzie Hall (a name which now refers to the building in its entirety) was dedicated on January 13, 1923.

Breaking Ground: Reflections on the Building of OHSU. Historical Collections & Archives, OHSU Library. https://www.ohsu.edu/historical-collections-archives/mackenzies-folly.

Hallam, Bertha B. “Medical School on the Hill," in Land of the Multnomahs: Sketches and Stories of Early Oregon (Creative Writers of the American Association of University Women, 1973). Historical Collections & Archives, OHSU Library.

Putting Marquam Hill on the Map: Early Campus Memories, 1915-1932. June 2018. Historical Collections & Archives, OHSU Library. https://www.ohsu.edu/historical-collections-archives/putting-marquam-hill-map-early-campus-memories-1915-1932.