Built in 1821, South Hall is the oldest building on the Amherst campus. It was renovated in 2004. South Hall (originally "South College") is the oldest building on Amherst College's campus and the cornerstone of the institution. The cornerstone was laid on August 9, 1820 — before the college had a president, professors, students, or even an official charter (Amherst received its charter in 1825). The building was constructed via communal effort: lumber, sand, bricks, and lime were donated from across Western Massachusetts, and townspeople contributed labor. When Amherst College — then called "The Charity Institution" — opened on September 19, 1821, South was the entire campus: home to the president, the two professors, and 47 students. Until North Hall opened in January 1823, South housed all college activities. Originally it had 32 rooms (8 per floor) arranged in a "double-entryway" or "staircase plan" common at Oxford and Harvard, with four exterior entrances each accessing a four-room cluster. Major renovations: • 1892–93 — steam heat, hardwood floors, gas lighting, partial plumbing • 1915–1920 — full indoor plumbing added (toilets on first floor, bathtubs on upper floors, in arrangements that reflected very different early-1900s notions of privacy) • 1942 — fire escapes added on east and west facades when ~200 Army Air Corps Pre-Meteorology C cadets were quartered in South and North during WWII (later removed in 1953 by request) • 1953 — full second renovation by McKim, Mead & White; floor plan converted to the modern double-loaded corridor with central hallway, plus laundry room and reinforced exterior • 2004 — Sacco & McKinney redesign, adding common spaces on each floor, an elevator, and an accessibility ramp The James Turner Library (1933) on the first-floor north side was endowed by James Turner, Class of 1880, who had lived in South — he donated funds for both construction and books because his old dorm "deserved" its own library after North got one. Today South Hall is a first-year dormitory in the First-Year Quad. Across its 200+ year history it has housed an estimated 12,000+ students. Source: "South Hall Through the Ages" by Stormie King '25, The Amherst Student (Sep 20, 2023), based on archival research with visiting instructor Gretchen Rabinkin and Stanley King's book "The Consecrated Eminence: The Story of the Campus and Buildings of Amherst College."
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