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Building History

The First American Congress of Road Builders met here 07/04/1909. This congress and the Good Roads Movement in the Pacific Northwest was led by the railroad and utility executive, Samuel Hill (1857-1931). Hill lobbied the Regents of the University of Washington to start a program in Highway Engineering, the first in the U.S. The Good Roads Building became after the exposition, housed this highway engineering department at UW.

In 1961, the building served the UW's Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program.

Demolition

The AYPE Good Roads Building, aka the UW Air Science Building, was destroyed by fire during the night between 03/31/1961 and 04/01/1961. This fire also destroyed three wood-frame buildings that housed UW maintenance shops. An article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported: "Fire inspectors, still seeking the cause of the three-alarm fire at the University of Washington Friday night, and early yesterday, estimated the loss to the four burned buildings and their contents at $650,000. University administrators were faced with the immediate problem of locating temporary classroom space for some 2,200 Air Force ROTC cadets who were made 'homeless' by the fast-moving fire that attracted a huge crowd of onlookers. The Air Science building, a frame structure built in 1909, was virtually destroyed along with three wooden shop buildings. UW officials said they also will be hard pressed to find space for the badly needed maintenance buildings which housed the campus paint, machine, glass and plumbing shops. By the time they brought the inferno under control about 1:15 a.m., only the walls of the Air Science building and disjointed beams of the shop structure remained standing. University Business Manager Ernest Conrad said replacement value for the 31,000 square feet of space will be about $500,000. An additional $100,000 in equipment and $50,000 worth of Air cadet uniforms, owned by the University, were destroyed, Conrad said. The University carried no insurance covering the loss. Like other schools and school districts operating a large number of buildings, the UW has found the high total cost of premiums on all its buildings to be prohibitive." (See Tim Bauman, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 03/31/1961, p. S17.)

PCAD id: 8166