Our May 2023 article introduced the origins of Bozeman’s university now known as Montana State University (MSU), which will be referenced as such throughout this edition, which continues the story as MSU entered a period of immense growth after the second World War. Pent up demand for education, financial support from the GI bill (to educate and house returning veterans and their families), and the increased number of female students were the trifecta that created the need MSU President Roland Renne responded to. When Renne took the helm in 1943, he followed in the footsteps of Presidents Atkinson and Strand, who were trained agriculturalists with a knack for administration.

According to historian Merrill Burlingame, President Alfred Atkinson’s 1919 through 1937 term was one of “comparative calm and steady progress.” He brought his vast experience in agriculture and agronomy to push for growth of the experiment stations and their support role within the agriculture industry, most notably visible in the form of Experiment Station Bulletins. The bulletins often addressed how to deal with the widespread drought throughout Montana in the 1920s and 1930s. The information helped some farmers weather the Great Depression, epitomizing the role the land-grant institution was established to play. Decreases in available funding, and therefore teachers, were incompatible with the increase in students during the Depression. Job placement of graduates was dismally low. President Atkinson worked with others to save the Experiment Stations and Extension Service from legislative elimination. Perhaps his support, during and after the Depression, convinced most of the faculty to stay at MSU, despite the allure of substantial salary increases offered by schools in other states. Atkinson attributed this faithfulness to the appeal of the Montana way of life.

In 1937, after employing perseverance and patience to pull MSU out of the Depression years, Atkinson left MSU for the presidency of the University of Arizona. Augustus L. Strand became MSU’s fifth president. Like his predecessor, Strand was an agricultural scientist who had studied, worked in, and taught entomology. The emphasis on research, improved land (i.e., ending of the drought) and crop conditions, and long-sought increased funding from the state placed the university in a minor growth mode. Both an addition to Ryon Labs and erection of the Student Union building (now Strand Union) were built in 1939 and 1940, respectively. With the onset of World War II, MSU modified the education to include classes in military training. Instructors shifted curricula to include navigation, meteorology, pilot training, and technical skills. When the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, the male students prepared to enlist. In October 1942, Strand left to lead Oregon State College and 70 year-old engineering professor William Cobleigh stepped in as interim president. Cobleigh oversaw this quiet period of reduced enrollment and concentration on military classes until Roland Renne took charge in September 1943, a few months after the school’s fiftieth anniversary. Renne recharged the school, somehow staying ahead of what was equivalent to a mid-life crisis. Not fully reinventing MSU, Renne guided the University to a solid fulfillment of its obligations.

Roland Renne also had an academic agricultural background, having served most recently as the head of MSU’s Department of Agricultural Economics. When appointed president (first, as acting, then as full president in 1945), Renne, only 37 years-old, was a strong advocate for the research arm of the institution. The nadir of student enrollment – only 1,155 in 1944 to 1945 – was a blip that Renne saw in the distance, as the numbers dramatically increased after WWII. With returning veterans and increasing numbers of female students, enrollment increased to 3,664 in 1947-1948, and continued to climb. Renne foresaw the unrelenting increase as a challenge for the state to rise to. Many of the veterans were married, which necessitated a new type of housing. Women needed female dormitories; new instructors needed to be hired and housed, new classrooms provided, and the library expanded – the demands were manifold.

Merrill Burlingame’s A History of Montana State University summarized what Renne did with surplus funds the state and MSU found available after the war years of reduced spending:
“Several large frame buildings from the deactivated federal chrome project [Benbow Mine] south of Columbus were moved to the campus to provide the classroom space. One of the buildings was located just east of Montana Hall to serve the physics department, and another on the lower campus housed nursing, education and psychology. Two structures were placed west of the chemistry building, one for chemistry laboratories and another for a music building. A smaller building was used for engineering, and a short time later, a frame building was erected for a wool laboratory.” 

Montana politicians used their connections and bargaining power to fill the campus with the needed buildings. U.S. Representative Mike Mansfield wrote letters requesting surplus government buildings. Not all his outreach was successful, yet he was able to ensure, in April 1946, that the Federal Public Housing Authority allot 200 temporary family units to MSU. He was also instrumental in finding 106 trailer house units from Pasco and Kennewick, Washington.

The August 9, 1946 issue of The Montana Standard summarized the need that pummeled MSU even harder than the other five state universities, reporting a survey showing that: “MSC at Bozeman had the worst anticipated housing shortage, despite the erection this summer of additional units for hundreds of war veterans and their families… The State college expected 3,097 to register, including more than 1,600 veterans, but saw housing accommodations for only 2,621 at winter quarter’s opening. Efforts were continuing, however, the survey said, to obtain a dormitory from Vancouver, B.C, which would house 386 single men students.” State University Chancellor George A. Selke aided President Renne in the successful transfer – including parts shipped by rail - of this “Hudson House” dormitory from Vancouver to MSU. This 2½-story ten-wing wooden building housed male students for thirty years, until the Animal and Plant Bioscience buildings were erected in its place. 

While President Renne exercised great aplomb and inventiveness in using federal funding to both move and construct temporary buildings on(to) campus, he also imported 23 Men’s Quonset hut dormitories, 18 Women’s Quonset hut dormitories, temporary dwelling units, barracks (from the Mouat Mine near Columbus), and more. Campus maps and records portray MSU’s massive efforts to accommodate the influx of students and faculty after the war.

MSU was just one of many campuses that housed post war students and classes in Quonset huts. MSU acquired Quonset huts for dormitories for both men and women, as well as ancillary laboratory, storage, and classroom space for different departments across campus. This was at a time when the women had access to only two dormitories on campus – the Quadrangles, and Hamilton Hall (which intermittently was used as a men’s dorm instead, depending on need). The men’s Quonsets were located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Grant Street and 11th Avenue. The women were housed in 19 Quonsets “…on the block west of the Quadrangle, our Women’s upper class dormitory. These huts are the kind our soldiers used in the Aleutians and the South Pacific and we are assured they are so well insulated that they will be both warm in winter and cool in summer. They are in units of three huts, which are divided into sleeping quarters and study rooms. There will be two students studying in each study room. Each unit has a lounge for recreation and entertaining callers.”

The Quonset dormitories for both genders were used less once new dormitories were constructed, at a fairly fast clip. Two men’s dormitories were completed in 1955 and 1960 (Lewis & Clark, and Langford Halls) and two women’s dormitories were completed in 1955 and 1959 (Hannon and Hapner Halls), into which students from the Quonsets were relocated. Three of the women’s Quonsets were drafted into service for the fledging Museum of the Rockies, which vacated in 1958, as Hapner Hall was constructed on the site. At this point, the museum relocated to the Dairy Barn across 11th Avenue from the west termination of Garfield Street (now known as Centennial Mall). During the 1973-1974 construction of the Creative Arts Complex (Howard, Cheever, and Haynes Halls), the museum moved to its new location on Kagy Boulevard.

Understandably, Roland Renne is better known for the permanent buildings erected during his tenure, such as the dormitories noted above, the 1952 Math-Physics Building (AJM Johnson), the sizeable library addition and Reid Hall in 1959-1960, Cooley Lab in 1960, and Gaines Hall in 1961-1967. Renne’s grand achievement – over rival University of Montana and, seemingly, the world – was the 1957 completion of the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. When completed, the 300’-diameter wood dome was considered the largest in the world.

Renne’s departure in 1964 preceded the 1965 renaming of MCS into MSU. Subsequent presidents have veered from the agriculture background and come instead with chemistry and science, history, and communications degrees. These successors led MSU through years of increased student awareness and more vocal activism, constant growth, and a changing world. The required resilience and flexibility of the administration and staff during the last decades of the 20th century resulted in a stronger institution.