Seven

Keuka College

Keuka College was founded in 1888 by the cooperative efforts of the Free Baptist Church, the Ball family, and local interests. The 160-acre Ketchum farm, 5 miles from Penn Yan on Keuka Lake, was purchased, lots were surveyed, and streets laid out. In 1891 the first building, later named Ball Hall, was dedicated and the Reverend George Ball was named president. Ball Hall was built from bricks made of clay found on the property.

The Crooked Lake Navigation Company assisted in establishing the college on Keuka Lake. The steamboat schedules included regular stops at Keuka College, as did the schedules of the P.Y., K.P. & B. Railway. Keuka Institute held Chautauqua-like gatherings that drew large crowds, making reliable transportation essential.

By 1925 Keuka College had added two major buildings, a dormitory (Richardson Hall) to the left of Ball Hall, and an administrative building (Hegeman Hall) on the right. This photograph shows the location that the college’s founders sought, a rural setting along the lake amid vineyards, orchards, and woods.

The Halsey scheduled stops at the Keuka College dock. This picture was apparently taken on a Sunday, judging from the number of passengers on the boat. The Halsey was rated for 850 passengers. It appears to be unloading at least that many in this photograph taken prior to 1905. A private steamer is also shown at the dock.

This Burnell photograph from the early 1930s focuses on the row of elms that lined the walk from Ball Hall to the lake. Today the elms are gone, victims of Dutch Elm disease. Richardson Hall and Hegeman Hall have been beautifully refurbished, but look the same from this angle.

The two canoes representing two of the classes race to the finish line on “Moving-up Day.” Dr. Norton started the tradition in 1919 when he named members of the incoming class “Senecas.” All classes were given the name of an Iroquois Indian tribe in their freshman year and kept this name throughout their four years.

May Day in Sylvan Theater was another Keuka College tradition. Everyone dressed in their best spring whites, picked bouquets of flowers, put flowers in their hair, and danced around the May Pole. This 1913 photograph is one of the most beautiful in the Keuka College archives.

The Assembly Grounds, an arena that was used in the Keuka Institute days because of its natural amphitheater shape, is the setting for this c. 1914 baseball game. Cars, as in this scene, were considered a bad influence on the students and were discouraged.

“A student’s study and bed room” was the title of this late 1920s photograph, which received wide circulation in the school’s publications. Because of the room’s neatness, this was obviously a planned picture. Note the commode and washstand in the back room.

Bill Potts took this 1950s photograph of two students looking out of Ball Hall down the rows of elms that lined the walk to the lake. This is the reverse scene of the photograph at the bottom of p. 81. Norton Chapel now sits at the end of the walk next to the lake.

During World War II, the nursing undergraduate degree program was expanded to meet war needs. The Keuka College Division of Nursing emerged from the war able to supply professionally trained nurses to rural hospitals. Keuka also had a program that combined academic study in the classroom with clinical work at the hospital.

The water tower was the “ladder” used to get this unusual photograph. The students spell out Keuka in front of Hegeman Hall on what appears to be a very cold winter day. The east branch of Keuka is reasonably shallow and usually freezes even if the rest of the lake does not.

Prior to the groundbreaking for Richardson Hall in March 1924, faculty, board members, and students formed the outline of the building. They also outlined the extension to the building to be the swimming pool, but the pool and a gymnasium were instead included in Hegeman Hall for which ground was also broken in 1924.

The second water tower at Keuka College is pictured in this mid-1950s photograph. The first tower was replaced in 1929 by this one, which in turn came down in 1980. A favorite daredevil stunt was to put your name on the water tower to prove that you had climbed it.

The barn at Keuka College was converted for the production of summer plays in the early 1950s. In this picture the cast is rehearsing one of their scenes. The barn, located on land that was purchased to start the college, was used by the college in the 1920s as part of a working farm.