A Hall By Any Other Name

Middle College. Smith Hall. Middle Hall. Smith Hall. So what’s its name today?

This summer, the college’s second oldest building, originally known as Middle College, was renamed Smith Hall, the name it held from 1903-71. The “new” Smith Hall, which serves as the main administration building on campus, was originally constructed in 1857 and had been known as Middle Hall since 1971.

The return to its roots for Smith Hall was precipitated by the renaming of the former Smith Hall, one of the Quad residence halls, to Anderson Hall in recognition of a $2 million gift from Don and Marilyn Anderson ’42/’45. The gift has been used to renovate two of the four Quad residence facilities.

The Smith Hall name was removed from Middle Hall in 1971 and attached to the northernmost residence facility in the Quads to assure that Elisha Smith’s philanthropy would continue to be recognized on campus and that the historical name of Middle Hall would persist.

The story of Middle and Smith halls, now one and the same, started more than a century ago. In 1903, the College opted to rename Middle College as Smith Hall to honor Smith’s philanthropy. Elisha D. Smith, a trustee of the College from 1889 until his death in 1899, was founder and president of Menasha Wooden Ware, which is known today as Menasha Corporation. Menasha Corp., based in Neenah, Wis., is the third oldest private manufacturing company in the U.S. The $1.1 billion business employs more than 5,000 people in 60 facilities in 17 states and nine other countries and serves the packaging, material handling, plastics, promotions and printing industries. The company, which is listed by Forbes magazine as one of America’s largest private companies, is still owned by descendants of founder Elisha D. Smith.

In a story “A Friend of Ripon College” edited by Attorney S.M. Pedrick, class of 1891, in about 1940, Smith was referred to as a trustee who was “deeply interested in the college’s upbuilding.” Smith, the story says, had built up Menasha Wooden so that it employed 1,800 men who made pails and tubs and “fine things of wood.”

After the death of Elisha Smith in 1899 at age 72, the Menasha business was taken over by his son, Charles, who didn’t share his father’s interest in educational and church activities, according to James L. Stone, who was president of First National Bank of Ripon and who was a Trustee from 1908-70.

Elisha Smith, Pedrick says, “was a deeply religious the missionary activities of the denomination and his local church.”

Charles Smith took over the management of the company and also, according to the college archives, became a trustee of the College, succeeding his father on that board. He was approved by a 9-0 vote at a board of trustees meeting on Jan. 16, 1900, to “serve for the balance of the unexpired term of the late E.D. Smith.”

The bequest from Elisha D. Smith to Ripon College stipulated that a large block of stock in the Menasha Woodenware Co. be placed in trust with directions to pay from such income certain annuities to each of the named institutions and causes.

Charles Smith, however, objected to the will’s wording and said that his father “had had an unjustified hopeful attitude in relation to the ability of the company to earn in the future as it had in the past, and that Ripon College and other beneficiaries under his father’s will could not expect anything for a good many years, if ever,” Pedrick said in a document outlining Elisha Smith’s association with the College.

While the will’s directives and the son’s objections could have been challenged in the courts, the College and other beneficiaries eventually settled on an agreement whereby they gave up their rights to the share of stock in the trust in exchange for a specific sum of money. For Ripon College, the $7,000 it received was to be used “in the reconstruction and furnishing of old Middle College as a dormitory, to be named Smith Hall.” Had the directions of Elisha Smith’s will been followed, Ripon College could today be one of the shareholders of Menasha Corporation.

Elisha Smith is also a well-known benefactor in the Fox Valley. Among the Menasha landmarks which have carried the Elisha Smith name are a 25-acre park and the Elisha D. Smith Free Public Library. r

Loren J. Boone