Lincoln Hall Through the Ages (2024)

One of South Dakota State University’s most beloved places on campus, Lincoln Hall has both made history and witnessed history at SDSU.

For more than 90 years, the building has served the Jackrabbit community in ever-evolving ways: first as home to the campus library, then to the SDSU music department, and, following its latest renovation, the hall will next host the School of American and Global Studies and the administrative offices for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. With construction expected to be finalized in summer of 2023 and a goal of full occupancy by the fall of that year, Lincoln Hall is embarking on the latest chapter of a storied legacy at SDSU.

Built in 1927 as Lincoln Memorial Library at what was then known as State College, the facility’s construction cost $200,000 (or the equivalent of over roughly $3 million in today’s financial worth). Dollars raised for the hall were collected from a cigarette tax fund.

Dedicated on September 10, 1927, Lincoln Hall marked the first land grant college campus in the United States to be named after President Abraham Lincoln. The naming was a nod to Lincoln’s role in the passing of the Morrill Act, which laid the groundwork for the establishment of land grant universities across the country moving forward.

The formal dedication of State College’s new library inspired national attention when President Calvin Coolidge and First Lady Grace Coolidge attended the event in person. (Coolidge remains the only sitting president to visit campus to this day.) With news spreading like wildfire of the presidential guests joining the festivities, the crowd for the dedication drew an estimated 15,000 people.

While on campus, the president also dedicated what would become the Coolidge Sylvan Theatre, ceremonially laying one of the paving stones alongside his wife.

After the fanfare of its initial dedication, Lincoln Hall held a quiet presence at the university, serving as library for the next 50 years.

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In the 1970s, campus leadership took note of the rapidly growing collection overwhelming the space, with books occupying a branch library, two storage sites, and the library itself. The library staff faced a daunting logistical challenge in transporting the volumes to what would become their new home in Hilton M. Briggs Library. While the exact number of books in need of relocation is unknown, over 30,000 volumes alone were removed from the basem*nt of Hansen Hall, where overflow storage was near bursting at the seams.

Over the course of three weeks in August of 1977, volunteer Jackrabbit students played a key role in shifting the campus library from Lincoln Hall to the Briggs Library. Along with a fleet of shopping carts packed with books and marched from building to building by undergraduates, staff developed an ingenious way to convey books into the waiting Briggs Library: a farming hay elevator was posted outside of Briggs, raising boxes of books up to the top floor and through an open window.

After the move and with Briggs Library up and running, Lincoln Hall was vacated and ready to take on a new role for SDSU. In 1979, it was converted into office and laboratory space for the music department, where the university’s best and brightest musicians filled the building with song for the next 43 years. In those years, the hall has witnessed countless concerts and performances, endless hours of talent reverberating through its practice rooms, and even the occasional social event, like the wedding reception of SDSU President Emerita Peggy Gordon Miller in 2001.