Chemical bonds

  Photos from UCLA Archives California Hall, which served
as the chemistry building at the old southern branch on Vermont
Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, burnt down mysteriously in
1929.

By Stella Chu
Daily Bruin Contributor

According to the California Daily Bruin, students rejoiced when
California Hall, the chemistry building on the old Vermont Avenue
campus near Santa Monica Boulevard, burned to the ground one early
morning in January 1929.

“It was an old building to begin with,” said Sherman
Grancell, a 1930 political science alumnus. “It was
weak-looking and it smelled.”

Perhaps they celebrated because they thought grade records had
been destroyed along with the fire.

Or perhaps it stemmed from knowing that they could now move to
the new chemistry building on the Westwood campus ahead of
schedule.

But, as it turned out, the students only got one of their
wishes.

According to the chemistry department publication “History
of the Chemistry Department, University of California Los
Angeles,” two students inadvertently saved the grade records
prior to the fire.

The two students reportedly sneaked into the faculty office and
copied the entire class grade record for the semester, trying to
figure out whether or not they would pass their chemistry
course.

“(It) was revealed when two sheepish maidens, enrolled in
one course, after due private conference decided to reveal the
illicit trick they had pulled just before the fire,” stated
the chemistry department publication.

  Haines Hall became the new chemistry building, housing
the first classes ever at the Westwood campus.

Despite this disappointment of having their grades preserved,
university officials allowed all chemistry students to take classes
at the new campus as registered students.

On March 18, 1929, Hosmer W. Stone administered the first class
taught here at UCLA, a section of Chemistry 1A.

And officials at the then-infant university tried to accommodate
the great change and probable commuter problems faced by
students.

“A bus service was inaugurated to allow students to study
on Vermont Avenue in the morning, and on the western campus in the
afternoon,” according to the chemistry department
publication.

Although the transition from the old campus to the new appeared
to have been smooth, some bumps, especially concerning the causes
of the fiery accident, still irked inter-faculty members.

Scandals concerning the fire ran rampant during that winter.

Suspicion especially shifted to Professor William Morgan, then
chairman of the chemistry department, because the timing of the
fire appeared to be so beneficial to the chemistry department.

Not only did the fire mean the replacement of aging equipment,
but it also meant that the construction of the new chemistry
building on today’s Westwood campus would speed up.

“The History of the Chemistry Department” also noted
that the fire began just under Professor Morgan’s
second-story office.

Nevertheless, Morgan escaped any official blame, and some
students attending the university at the time only heard of the
professor’s good name.

“I never heard of any rumors like that surfacing,”
said Dr. Harry Zide, who graduated in 1930 and took chemistry
classes at the old campus. “As far as I know, he was a very
nice person, all my experiences with him were good.”

Conflicting testimony, however, still remains. On the same
morning, a night watchman found a theatrical stage curtain
smoldering in another building.

Because of the unlikeliness of two fires starting on the same
day in two different buildings, the fire chief assumed the one at
the chemistry building was started by an arsonist, according to the
chemistry department publication.

But authorities could only conclude that the fire resulted from
an explosion involving a five-gallon can nearly full of ether or
acetone.

Nonetheless, some students who took classes at the old chemistry
building believe the fire could not have started without some
outside source.

“Unless there was a spark, I don’t think it would
burn,” Zide said. “Something needed to be used to
ignite it.”

As the fire scandal slowly died down, the excitement over the
new campus increased as it neared completion.

Students who came in later that year shared the same joy,
despite having to deal with the new campus’s rough edges.

“We were all so excited,” said Ethel Coplen, a 1932
alumna. “Sure you had to walk knee deep in mud for a while,
but it was great to be there.”

At that time, the campus was composed of only four buildings
““ the College Library, Royce Hall, the Physics-Biology
Building (now Kinsey Hall), and the Chemistry Building (now Haines
Hall).

“It was great knowing the people that now have buildings
named after them,”Coplen said. “We knew Mr. Moore, even
Mr. Haines.”

Other students, however, still have fond memories of the old
campus.

Zide, who never attended the new campus, spent his Chemistry 1A
class in California Hall.

One day in class, his mistake of mixing fuming nitric acid and
sulfuric acid caused a near disaster, according to Zide.

“Even before the actual fire, I almost burned the place
down,” he said. “Not on purpose of course.”