Academic Hall, the symbol of Southeast Missouri State University – a mammoth public building unprecedented by regional standards – was born, you might say, of four fathers: architect J.B. Legg, contractor Edward Regenhardt, regent Louis Houck, and president Washington Dearmont; intense personalities that together virtually willed the huge structure into existence.
Built between 1903 and 1906, Academic Hall is – by Legg’s neo-classical design – architecturally in harmony with Science Hall and Training Hall, all under construction at once.
On an acre-wide foundation, Academic is nearly 260 feet wide by 176 feet deep with imposing elements of Greek and Roman architecture highlighted by four Ionic columns dominating the façade. The basement is blue limestone with white limestone on the two upper floors, drawn from Regenhardt’s quarry near what is today Memorial Hall. The iconic copper dome, 116 feet above the ground, crowns the structure.
A grand main entrance leads into an auditorium. Originally, a library occupied the entire eastern wing of the first floor. The basement contained a gymnasium, divided for male and female, while the upper levels were broken up into twenty-seven classrooms, museum space, and student literary society rooms.
Houck acquired the grand chandeliers and mahogany mantles still adorning Academic’s corridors from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.
Just as it does today, Academic Hall dominated the landscape when it was opened in 1906. Four years earlier a fire had threatened the Normal school’s continuation in Cape Girardeau. Hereafter Academic’s magnificent dome stands as a beacon of higher education across all of southeast Missouri.
