page_title: Fisher Hall (Miami University)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Fisher Hall (Miami University) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Fisher Hall
context_page_description: Fisher Hall was a building at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Originally the Oxford Female College, the building was later used as a sanitarium and was purchased by Miami in 1925. It served as a first-year men's residence hall, Naval training school, and theatre. The building remained in use as a dormitory until 1958, when the upper floors were condemned and the theatre remained the only part of the building still in use. With the construction of Miami's Center for Performing Arts in 1968, the theatre became unused and the building turned into a storage facility. After a push to save the building in the mid-1970s, the hall was razed because the cost of renovating the building was identical to the costs of with new construction. Miami University's hotel, The Marcum, was built in 1982 on the former site of Fisher Hall.
  Fisher Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, but delisted that same year.
context_section_description: Fisher Hall was dedicated on September 3, 1856 as the Oxford Female College. It was founded and constructed under the leadership of Reverend Dr. John Witherspoon Scott, a pioneer educator and father-in-law of President Benjamin Harrison. Ebenezer Lane, a Cincinnati judge, donated 44 acres of land on the northeast edge of Oxford as well as a substantial amount of money. The building was designed by James K. Wilson, who was a charter member of the Cincinnati Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Fisher Hall stayed a part of the women's college until 1882. Eric Johannesen, writer of Ohio College Architecture Before 1870, called the building "one of the finest examples of institutional architecture from this period in the Midwest".
  In 1867, in an attempt to preserve the school, President Robert D. Morris combined it with the Oxford Female Institute, another women's school across town. The building was to serve as a boarding institution. After Morris’ death in 1882, the old college building was sold to George F. Cook, founder of the Oxford Retreat Company, for $45,000 and used as a sanitarium by Dr. Cook until the mid-1920s.
  Miami purchased the building on August 15, 1925 and remodeled it as a freshman men's residence hall from 1926–1941. Then it became a Naval training school from 1941–1944. The radio school trained 5,854 men and women (WAVES). The U.S. Navy established officer-training units across the nation, and this helped to develop Miami's present Navy ROTC program. It later became a women's residence hall from 1944–1945 and then once again, a men's residence hall until 1958. In 1958 the upper floors were declared unsafe, and were abandoned. The first floor became the Miami University Theatre until the construction of Miami's Center for Performing Arts was completed in 1968. With the construction of a new theatre in CPA, Fisher Hall became a storage repository.
  Despite efforts to renovate the building, it was destroyed because the calculated cost of restoration was roughly comparable to the cost of new construction.
caption: Fisher Hall as Oxford Female College c1860
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