These twin buildings were designed by Place and Place, architects, and were completed in 1947 as men's residence halls at the University of Arizona.
They are one-story, modern buildings of red brick, pitched roofs with gabled ends. To a layman they look like too-soon-after-the-war architecture.
Contractor for both buildings was M. M. Sundt and the cost was $181,000 each. They are located on the east side of Highland Avenue, north of Sixth Street.
Lew Place recalls an anecdote related to the buildings:
"On one of the buildings, I forget which, there were still a few houses in the area, and I was inspecting the job. On the east wall of one of the foundations, next to a lady's residence, because of the grade level there was a stem wall about four or five feet high. All that had been built was the foundation. Bill Nauman, of the Sundt firm, was the superintendent.
"The plans called for the fill in the foundations to be put in, in six-inch layers of sand and with sand you don't have to tamp down very much. But Nauman was dumping the sand in by the big truckloads and using a bull dozer to clear it out. Nauman got a fire hose off a fire hydrant and came in there and started pouring water inside that filling area to get the stuff wet to settle. Kneeland Jenkins was our inspector there and he told me about it and I told him to tell Nauman to quit that. 'He'll get the whole thing full of water and that wall will fall down because of the hydraulic pressure inside. '
"I went out to the job to look at it and he was still doing it. I got hold of Nauman and told him to stop. Just then the whole wall fell as I was standing there looking at it. Nauman could have dampened it, but what he did was to pour the water in and he got so much in there in just a short time that the wall fell. It wasn't designed for that. It was designed for a load from above.
"The wall lay right across the lady's oleander hedge and we had to calm her down by promising we'd get everything out of there and all cleaned up and would replant her oleanders.
"We did. I guess she was satisfied."
With the completion of Papago and Hopi Lodges and the soon to be completed dormitory under the east stadium, housing for men students was increased by 362 - much needed space, since about half the students were returning World War II veterans under the G.I. Bill.
President of the university was James Byron McCormick, whose presidency began in September, 1947.
McCormick was born in Illinois and received his L.L.B. degree from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1915. He practiced law in Peoria and Emdem, Illinois, for 10 years and was director of the Farmer's State Bank at Emdem.
He came to the University of Arizona as an assistant professor of law in 1926 and continued his studies. He received his Master's Degree from USC and then a Doctor of Judicial Science from Duke University in 1933. He was advanced to full professor of law in 1933 and became dean of the College of Law in 1938.
The total enrollment at UA was 5,000 when McCormick took over the presidency and was growing. At his inauguration, McCormick said that the university was entering a "brick and mortar" period.
He resigned the presidency on October 26, 1950, saying that his first love was the law college. Richard A. Harvill was appointed by the Board of Regents to succeed McCormick on December 16, 1950, and took office on June 15, 1951.