Snow Hall

State Architect Charles Cuthbert and H.H. Lane of the zoology department collaborated to design this Indiana limestone building in a modified Collegiate Gothic style.

It housed the departments of botany, zoology, entomology, and bacteriology; the renowned entomological collection of natural history professor and chancellor Francis H. Snow; the botanical collection; classrooms; and labs. 



Wings were added on the north in 1950 and 1958; a major renovation in 1989-90 converted the 1958 addition to classrooms and offices and added new space for the Snow Entomological Museum. The entomology collections have been moved to the Public Safety Building, and many of the science divisions moved to Haworth Hall.

Snow now houses the departments of mathematics and economics and architecture studios, faculty offices, craft shop, and jury rooms. 

When it opened in 1930, “new” Snow Hall replaced the limestone building of 1886 designed by John G. Haskell and named for Snow, one of three original KU faculty members and the fifth chancellor (1890-1901).

The building had seriously deteriorated by 1915 -- it was said to display "quivering tendencies" in a brisk wind -- and was a lethal risk by the mid-1920s, when funds were finally approved for a new science building.

“Old Snow,” whose site was the northwest corner of the Watson Library lawn, was demolished in 1934. Salvaged stone was used to face the Military Science Building.