Old Main Hall, Cottey College

Originally a Georgian-style building in 1884, the administrative home of Cottey College has undergone many changes. It started as a two-story plain front building with a basement. It was the only building on campus for many years and housed all activities and even some boarding students. It was expanded up with an additional floor as well as out with additional wings over the years. It was also embellished with a bell tower, a fancy porch, and decorations. As campus expanded, many of the functions of Main Hall moved to new buildings. It remains the home of administrative offices and the center of campus.

Virginia Alice Cottey was born on a Missouri farm in 1848. Her parents struggled to provide educations for her and her sisters. When Cottey read a book about Mary Lyons, founder of Mt. Holyoke, she knew she too would found a school to provide access to education to young women. Cottey taught school before she had enough funds to put her dream onto action. She considered many towns before deciding on Nevada. She was given six acres there for her school. With her own funds and money borrowed from her sisters Mary and Dora, in 1884, she opened Vernon Seminary for Young Ladies. It was named after the county in which it is located, but the school quickly became known as Cottey College.

That first fall, the enrollment stood at just twenty-eight students (aged from kindergarten to college) and Main Hall was the only building on campus. It was a 46 by 40 foot brick building with two floors and a full basement. It had taken seven months to build and cost Cottey $7,000. It served a variety of purposes as twelve of the students lived there but all learned, studied, socialized, and perfected their music skills within its walls. When enrollment reached one hundred students in 1888, Cottey had another wing added to the building so more students could board at the school. In 1899 she commissioned a third story, a porch, and a tower, which gave the building the look it still has today.

Main Hall continued to be the center of campus, but as other buildings appeared, it lost its all-purpose status. Boarding students moved into adjacent Rosemary Hall when it was completed in 1904 and then also lived in P.E.O. Hall after 1939. Science classes relocated to the top floor of Neale Hall, which was the gymnasium finished in 1922. Books and journals received a new home with the building of the Ross Memorial Library in 1963. By 1974, when classrooms became available in the new Alumnae Hall, Main Hall had largely become an administration building, which it remains today.

Campbell, Elizabeth McClure. The Cottey Sisters of Missouri. Parkville, MO. Park College Press, 1970.

Stockard, Orpha. The First 75 Years: Cottey College. Nevada, MO. Cottey College, 1961.

Troesch, Helen. The Life of Virginia Alice Cottey Stockard. Nevada, MO. Cottey College, 1955.