Brown and White Vol. 67 No. 23

              lehigh university brown and white volume 67—number 23 tuesday january 10,1956 university 6-0331 badly damaged williams hall may be usable in two weeks metallurgy lab may be found origin of fire a hope that williams hall badly damaged by a spectacular fire satur day morning will be opened in part in a couple of weeks was expressed sunday afternoon by dr e kenneth smiley vice president of the uni versity smiley told the brown and white that it was too early to say whether the damaged portions would be rebuilt or replaced and noted that such information would be approved by the trustees before pub lic announcement the general-alarm fire which gutted a third-floor metallurgy lab and caused extensive water and smoke damage throughout the 53-year-old structure caused damage estimated by elmer w glick treasurer at 100,000 damages to personal effects and equipment have not yet been determined years of research work by faculty members and graduate students were lost dr george p conard 11 assistant professor of metallurgy said a magnetic project now in its sixth year of development was lost but added that many records for tunately were kept in other files undamaged throughout the build ing the magnetic library was re duced to a rubble metallurgy graduate students who lost all or part of their work include ernest f costello jr instructor in physics ar nold h holtzman research as sistant in metallurgy roger h richman joseph c danko in structor of metallurgy who re cently was awarded his master's degree and clarence m way man others are bernardo jaramillo lawrence lewis stephen g cup schalk research assistant t albert hamilius william d w mcmullen research assistant and than maung geology students whose work was daring intelligence the heartfelt thanks of the entire lehigh family go out to fire chief john l schweder and the bethlehem fire department for the stupendous job they did in keeping the williams hall blaze confined the reputation the bethlehem fire-fighters enjoy as one of the finest in the nation was borne out by the courageous way in which the firemen conducted them selves while bringing the flames which on arrival were completely out of control under substantial con trol in only 90 minutes many of the 50 men fighting the pre-dawn inferno risked their lives climbing to the icy ledges of the east wing of williams to insure control of the flames an eye-witness prof lawrence whitcomb termed their performance perfectly magnificent and president martin d whitaker stated it is difficult to express adequately our appreciation to chief john schweder and his men it is indeed up she goes—firefighters are shown struggling with the stubborn early-morning fire in williams hall after this photo was taken the blazing roof caved in ! ' i profs to decide action on grads theses and disertation research lost in last weekend's williams hall blaze will be the subject of a dis cussion by department heads pre liminary to working out a program for completion of this graduate work private property of faculty and staff members is covered under the university's insurance policy elmer w glick univer sity treasurer will provide in formation for those concerned those suffering such loss are ad vised to itemize lost articles students who lost property should check with parents insurance car rier for possible extended coverage blaze had its amusing heroic aspect too by nick la para while icicles clung like crystal webs to the exterior of willaims hall in the chill of saturday's early morning the searing heat of a blaze that grew sullenly in the wee hours raped the upper east wing into char red fallen beams and great draper ies of metal lath while the alarm of that disas ter spread and the flames ex pended themselves under the onslaught of the fire-fighters events grew around the people that clustered at the scene — events amusing heroic and moving a lehigh student called his pro fessor-father to tell him that his building was burning down another professor long a witness at every fire in this region failed to hear the whistle signaling the inferno in his own building a professor of ecology crawled through soot and hot smok ing ruins to capture a rattlesnake from its broken cage and geology graduate students volunteered to guard the semi-gutted building by night to prevent looting so the episodes grew as the night and the fire waned and dawn washed pale into the win ter sky early saturday morning alan par ker 59 son of pro basil w parker head of the biology department was aroused by the calls of jack fran cisco 56 in price hall investigating he saw from a window the east wing of williams in the grasp of towering phi gam chi psi fire-gutted once as the campus recovers from its fifth fire since the turn of the cen tury the older members of the bethlehem community have to re flect back to 1900 to recall a more devastating fire than the blaze which occurred saturday morning in williams hall three years before williams hall had been constructed stu dents going to their 8 ajn class es were startled by the first equipment this section where the fire apparently started was completely wrecked and graduates theses housed in what were offices at the left were lost the metallurgy library badly damaged by a fallen ceiling and water is shown at right photos by whitaker after the fire—in the picture at the left a workman sweeps water from a flooded classroom in williams hall the center picture shows george r jenkins assistant pro fessor of geology in dark coat viewing the remains of what was his laboratory on the third floor of williams an unidentified student examines the twisted wreckage of lab see williams page 6 see price's page 7 see wagner page 6