Fernald Hall

Fernald Hall
The front entrance to Fernald Hall.
General information
Type	Academic offices, classrooms, and research laboratories
Architectural style	Classical revival
Current tenants	Dept. of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences Entomology Plant Pathology
Construction started	1909
Completed	1911
Technical details
Floor count	4
Design and construction
Architect	Clarence P. Hoyt, Boston
Main contractor	Allen Brothers, Amherst

Fernald Hall is the primary lecture hall and laboratory used by the entomology program of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The building also contains the main office of the Department of Plant, Soil & Insect Sciences, and houses the university's extensive collection of domestic and foreign insects.

In the early days of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, there were relatively few places to house the college's new aspiring science departments. Many of the earliest homes to the natural science programs and their collections were small wooden buildings that were notorious for catching fire. In the spring of 1907 it was decided that a natural sciences building should be conceived rather than an additional agricultural building as the trustees were concerned about safely storing the college's growing collections. In the fall of 1908, five architect's proposal's were presented to the president and department heads of the time, who decided on a design by Clarence P. Hoyt of Boston. In the following year, a total of $80,000 was appropriated for the construction of the new building.

Built in 1910 as this biological sciences building, Fernald Hall would become the permanent home for the Massachusetts Agricultural College's expanding entomology department. The hall was dedicated to longtime faculty member and economic entomologist Charles H. Fernald in March 1921, even though the college had a rule that no buildings were to be named for a person until after their death; on January 7, 1921, President Kenyon L. Butterfield and the trustees of the college waived that rule in order to tell Fernald, who was in very poor health at the time, about the future naming of the building. His son, Henry T. Fernald, also served as a professor and the department head between 1899 and 1930.

Within the year of the building's completion, the college constructed the apiary to serve as a laboratory where bees could be raised without causing the potential problem of stings and swarming. Over the years several other bug species would be raised in Fernald for class demonstrations and research purposes.

At some point since its construction the building underwent an expansion with the addition of a third floor, the installation of several new hallway skylights, and the expansion of its main lecture hall. These additions appear to have been sometime prior to a renovation in 1979.