By Jeff Hunter ’96

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After emerging victorious in World War II, Americans were riding high with confidence and optimism about the future. And many of the young men and women who had stood up to tyranny elected to take advantage of the G.I. Bill and further their education at institutions of higher learning. 

At what was then known as Utah State Agricultural College, enrollment swelled from just 861 in the fall of 1944, to 4,488 by the 1946–47 school year. With space on campus at a premium, the young Aggies craved the addition of a student-centered building they could call their own. 

The answer, rather ironically considering how many had just served in the military, was a repurposed mess hall that had previously accommodated soldiers training to serve in Europe and the Pacific during the war. The Temporary Union Building — quickly dubbed “The TUB” — was an unflattering structure located just northeast of the old Merrill Library that included a snack bar, a jukebox and just enough room for some dancing. 

The hope was that something better would come along soon, but hundreds of students came and went without every experiencing the reality of a student union building. The year after World War II ended, the USAC course catalog proclaimed: “Anticipating a permanent Union Building, students began in 1946 to enjoy the recreational facilities of a temporary Union Building east of the library. A structure formerly used for military training was converted for this use.”

The USAC catalog stated the exact same thing in 1947, ’48, and ’49. And the catalog made the same proclamation just as the United States was getting involved in another war on the Korean Peninsula in 1950. “Anticipating …” even maintained it’s same place in the catalog in 1951 and ’52, until finally a change came in 1953 just as the Korean War was coming to an end. 

While the first two sentences remained the same, a third sentence was added in the listing: “The new Union Building will be at least partially occupied during the present school year.”

The culmination of a lot of dreams, planning and fundraising finally came to fruition when the ballroom of the new Union Building was opened in December 1952 to accommodate a Christmas dance. The structure was completed entirely that winter and spring, leading to the dedication of the entire building on May 2, 1953. 

Dr. Edgar B. Brossard, a 1911 Utah State graduate and then chairman of the U.S. Tariff Commission, offered the dedicatory address:

This building, the hearthstone or center of campus life, is a new education unit. It is the college laboratory for the improvement of human relations and as such is not surpassed in importance by any other education facility on campus. In it, democratic principles and procedures, student self-expression, and student management will be learned and demonstrated. It is a center where students and faculty will play, work, and play together and thus it will make for happy and desirable student-faculty relations.

Meet Me in the TUB

What is now known as the Glen L. Taggart Student Center is closing in on its 72nd anniversary.  

That means just about any student who enjoyed the college experience at Utah State University — the institution underwent a slight name change in 1957 — is likely now in their 90s if they’re still alive. And it also means that most of us have a very difficult time envisioning a USU that doesn’t include the large brick-and-glass structure at the western edge of campus that seemingly houses a little bit of everything, from admissions and financial aid offices to stores and several dining options. 

The Taggart Student Center or TSC is arguably the crossroads of the Logan campus, where every student, faculty and staff member is likely to visit sooner or later for food, books and apparel, or campus events and entertainment. 

And considering what Utah State students had at their disposal prior to the construction of the Union Building, it’s easy to see why they were excited about the building’s completion in 1953.

“The Utah State Agricultural College now has the most modern student union building in America,” a listing in the 1953–54 USAC catalog proclaimed. “The structure has excellent recreational and other facilities, including dancing space for 3,000 persons, lounges, bowling alleys, a skyroom with dance floor and cafeteria, book store, billiards and table tennis, barber shop, health center, radio-television studios, publications offices, dining halls, browsing libraries, and rooms for various social gatherings.”

Prior to 1935, most of Utah State’s student amenities were housed in Old Main. But when the Home Economics and Commons Building — later re-christened the Family Life Building — was finished, most of them were relocated to the Art Deco-style structure located near the southeastern edge of The Quad. The school cafeteria was moved there due to fire hazards in Old Main, while a bookstore, outdoor eating area, and the offices for many student activities, including the Buzzer yearbook and Student Life newspaper, were also placed there. 

The majority of major school balls and dances were still held at the Dansante Building in downtown Logan in the 1930s and ’40s, but according to the Encyclopedic History of Utah State History, published by longtime USU historian Robert Parson in 2009, student body officers and Dansante owner A.J. Lundahl had a falling out in 1946 and ’47, leading to a an eventual boycott by Utah State students of the building which now accommodates the Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre company. 

That made the addition of The TUB in 1946 even more important as a place for students to hold social gatherings. Harold Dance, who would become a prominent Logan businessman after graduating from Utah State and the Harvard Business School, chaired a student committee that helped convince school president Franklin Harris to let the student body take ownership of an unused mess hall located near some tennis courts, just east of The Quad. 

What Dance initially referred to as the “Aggie Club House” required a lot of work to “spruce up the drab, green military décor,” according to Parson:

(They) busied themselves with scrubbing the walls and floors … students began refurbishing the tables and chairs with bright coats of red paint, hung curtains, and decorated and painted the walls with other cheery colors and designs. A snack bar was also featured that served Cokes, hot dogs, hamburgers, hot chocolate, and ice cream. A juke box (still a curiosity) sat in a vacant corner next to a small open floor space to await the nickels of dancers. By the time of the clubhouse’s grand opening on January 4, 1946, students had already cleverly christened it the Temporary Union Building, or TUB for short.  

The name kept alive their hope that the campus would someday have the social amenities that only a permanent Student Union Building could provide. Until then, the TUB became a suitable proxy for a campus starved by the social hardships of the war.

One Aggie even composed a song entitled Meet Me at The TUB. Sung to the tune of Pistol Packin’ Mama, a song popularized by Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters a couple of years earlier, the lyrics include references to the library, Old Main, and the Bluebird Restaurant.  

On Saturdays I missed my home,
’Twas then we used to scrub.
But now when I feel lonely,
I jump into the TUB.
Oh, meet me in the TUB gang, 
Meet me in the TUB.
Leave your cares behind you, 
And meet me in the TUB.

But as fun as The TUB may have sounded on a Saturday night, it was certainly meant to be temporary. And a sign at the snack bar even suggested that the more money spent there could lead to the sooner addition of a permanent student union center. 

A Dream Come True

President Franklin Harris formed a committee in May 1947 to investigate the construction of a student union building, but according to Parson, at the time, the Alumni Association was pushing for the addition of a new dormitory instead.

“It’s something that’s way overdue on the Aggie campus,” Harris proclaimed, “and we mustn’t let anything our efforts … to see the Union Building through.”

Eight months later, the Alumni Association created the Alumni Building Fund, and it was Harris who donated a check for the first $100. The university also hired a consultant in Porter Butts, the director of the Student Union at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Butts estimated the cost of a similar building at Utah State would come in between $750,000 and $1 million. Some of that money came from Utah State Legislature raising the school’s building fees from $11 in 1946 to $20 by 1948, a certainly notable increase considering tuition for the 1948–49 school year was $51. 

Fred Markham of Provo was selected as the building’s architect, and according to Parson, Markham “designed a truly original structure, which provided ‘maximum student participation.’”

“At the center of student life on campus, the building’s most visible feature was its glass south wall. ‘Through this,’ it was noted, ‘light will pour into the building and withdraw from it every day almost as naturally as light pours in and out of the West itself.’”

Construction was slow, however, primarily due to financial limitations. After being excavated, the basement sat untouched for nearly two years and was nicknamed the “bomb shelter” by students. But eventually an $850,000 bond by the State Legislature led to the building’s completion, although a lack of funds led to the majority of it being unfurnished until the spring of 1953.

But on Dec. 12, 1952, 2,400 students were treated to a taste of what was to come when the west side of the Union Building was opened to accommodate the annual Christmas Ball. A day earlier, the Student Life newspaper — predecessor of the Utah Statesman — published a photograph of the Union Building’s exterior on its front page. The cutline beneath the photo states:

Long-awaited by Aggies, the new student union building this week will open its doors and host the first official function — the Christmas ball. The building has been ‘in the process’ for a number of years and through legality questions, bond issues, awarding of a contract, and actual constructions, the entire building with its many uses and advantages has been in the minds of students, and now stands as an actual ‘dream come true.’

Home Away from Home

Franklin Harris, the university president when the Union Building project first got underway, left Utah State after three years when U.S. President Harry Truman tapped him as a technical advisor for his Point Four program. That paved the way for the hiring of Louis L. Madsen as the university’s eighth president in 1950.

A Utah State alum, Madsen helped facilitate the construction of the Union Building, but between the unofficial opening in December 1952 and the building’s dedication in May 1953, he was fired after clashing with the Board of Trustees. Madsen’s controversial dismissal led to protests by many Utah State students. 

“Madsen left the presidency with the adoration of the student body, which praised him for ‘the warmth and patience extended to them,’” Parson wrote. “The student body credit Madsen with completing the Union Building, and for beginning construction on the new agricultural science building (E.G. Peterson Agricultural Building).”

According to a brief article in Student Life about the Union Building’s dedication during Agathon (an educational fair that replaced A-Day festivities in the 1950s and ’60s), Madsen still attended the dedicatory event in the ballroom — and even introduced Brossard as the keynote speaker — despite being let go the previous month. And rather ironically, it was E.G. Peterson who was tabbed as an interim president after Madsen’s dismissal. The longest tenured Utah State president ever at 29 years, Peterson served from 1916 to ’45, and ended up having the university’s new agriculture building named after him in 1957.

The youngest Utah State president ever and the youngest in the country when he was first hired in 1916, Peterson came out of retirement at the age of 71 and served as “acting president” for six months before H. Aldous Dixon was tabbed late in 1953.

But despite the awkwardness of the moment, the Union Building was officially dedicated by Brossard, who was the captain of the Aggie football team in 1908–09. 

The Union Building’s deepest significance lies in its contribution to the development of a more stable and substantial character and a happier, more attractive and more magnetic personality for each man and woman who uses its facilities. … We may now look forward with confidence to the years ahead during which these new facilities will contribute to a richer social and cultural life for the institution and to even higher moral and ethical standards in student associations and to more cooperative citizenship.

At the time of its dedication, the Union Building totaled 108,000 square feet of space over its four floors with a price tag of $1.4 million. Among the original amenities were six bowling alleys, a bookstore, barber shop, camera shop, soda fountain, game rooms, health center, ballroom, cafeteria, music listening lounges, and a television lounge complete with a new General Electric TV donated by Cache Valley Electric. The new structure also accommodated offices for the student body officers, the Buzzer yearbook and Student Life staffs, and the Skyroom Lounge and Ballroom on the top floor.

The Union Building, which was constructed on land once occupied by greenhouses and corrals, was expanded on the east end a decade later and re-dedicated in December 1964. It underwent another addition and renovation in the mid-’80s, which notably led to the removal of the bowling alleys, and was named in honor of Glen L. Taggart, president of the university from 1968 to ’79. 

In recent decades, the Taggart Student Center has undergone additional changes and modifications to better serve the student body and the eight different campus entities who currently occupy its spaces. The auditorium which was part of the addition in the ’60s, was changed from theater-style seating into the Big Blue Room, creating more room for the addition of the Latinx Cultural Center and the Veterans Resource Office. The building’s dining options continue to change and evolve, the barber shop was removed two years ago and the tiny U.S. Post Office on the first floor/basement was folded into the Aggie Print Copy Center. 

But while your memories of the Taggart Student Center/Union Building might vary greatly depending on when you attended Utah State, for more than seven decades the hope has been that the structure has lived up to its original purpose. When it first opened, university administrators provided a list of 10 items entitled “Building Decorum,” which included rules such as no gambling or betting, no smoking or alcoholic beverages, as well as polite appeals such practicing “good taste in manners and dress.”

The final item was also a kind request: “Above all, relax and enjoy yourself. The Student Union is yours and we urge you to make it your ‘Home away from Home.’”