100 YEARS AGO (1906)
In June, President David Starr Jordan appointed engineering professors Charles Wing, Charles Marx and William Durand to supervise reconstruction after the earthquake. Despite a two-week labor strike, enough repairs were done for classes to begin on schedule. Encina and Roble halls were patched up, parts of the Chemistry Building were restored, and repairs were made to most Outer Quad buildings. Estimates initially put Stanford’s financial loss at $2.8 million to $4 million, but in the end the cost of restoring the buildings, except for Memorial Church, was about $650,000.
The Social Service Club and a group of faculty spouses, chaired by Jessie Knight Jordan (wife of the president), set out to raise $1,500 for Gertrude Gerdes, whose son, boiler operator Otto Gerdes (right), died in the collapse of the smokestack at the power house. He had rushed back inside and shut off electricity to campus buildings, saving the University from fire. His death left his mother without any means of support, and she was in danger of losing their College Terrace house. The group collected $1,611 for the Gerdes Fund and $350 to cover burial expenses for Junius R. Hanna, the student killed by a chimney collapse in Encina Hall.
75 YEARS AGO (1931)
A quarter century after the University entry gates were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, a new set was installed. The state paid most of the cost, as compensation for damages caused by widening El Camino Real to four lanes; the Alumni Association also contributed.
Roble Gymnasium for women was dedicated, ending nearly 40 years at the original “temporary” gym. Women students raised money for their new facility; the all-male Board of Athletic Control also contributed.
50 YEARS AGO (1956)
Alexander Kerensky, briefly president of Russia’s provisional government before the Bolsheviks took over in 1917, joined the Hoover Institution as a research associate.
During a meeting at physics professor Wolfgang Panofsky’s home, physics professor Robert Hofstadter suggested building a linear accelerator 10 to 20 times more powerful than the University’s first full-scale accelerator, the Mark III. It was nicknamed “The Monster” because it would be two miles in length. The name later was changed to “Project M” (and ultimately to SLAC—Stanford Linear Accelerator Center).
25 YEARS AGO (1981)
At the Medical Center, doctors performed the first combined heart-lung transplant in nearly 10 years, using a new antirejection drug, cyclosporin A, which had not been available earlier when operations brought only limited success. The patient recovered.
KAREN BARTHOLOMEW, ’71, writes this column on behalf of the Stanford Historical Society.
