The Daily Star reported Feb. 12 how a record $16 million worth of building and renovation projects was slated for the next two years at Hartwick College. The main project is construction of Golisano Hall.

Forty years ago, news about Hartwick College was very similar with the opening of the Willard Yager Library-Museum. We know it today as the Yager Museum of Art and Culture and the Stevens-German Library.

"Hartwick College, a private institution, still evidences a tremendous growth pattern," said the Aug. 24, 1967, edition of The Oneonta Star.

The day before the Oneonta Kiwanis Club toured the $2.1 million library-museum, Hartwick College President Frederick Binder told members, "This is building number nine since 1960."

Binder also pointed out that building number 10 was under construction. The steel skeleton of the physical education building was visible high on Oyaron Hill. Eventually, that building was named after Binder.

The 1960s saw a tremendous growth spurt at Hartwick. By 1967, enrollment had jumped from 535 around 1960 to 1,550. Faculty had increased from 31 to 100.

Binder said that the library-museum was almost entirely financed by residents in the Oneonta area. Private subscriptions amounted to $1.07 million, there was a $530,000 government gift grant, and the other $500,000 came from earned income on the Yager Estate.

When the building opened that autumn semester, the museum occupied the fourth and fifth floors. The main floor of the library was on the third floor. Now, the Yager Museum of Art and Culture is on the first floor and the library on the top three floors. The fourth floor initially accommodated the president’s offices and the 357-seat Lillian Slade Auditorium.

When it came time to move the books out of the old library in Arnold Hall to the new one, there were 70,000 volumes in the collection. The moving task was held Friday, April 7, 1967. According to the college publication, Hilltops, the move began under gray skies at 8 a.m. and proceeded until late afternoon. It continued into Saturday, when the weather was nicer. The "book brigade" had cartons of books passed out into a moving van and transported to the new library, and they were unloaded and stacked onto shelves.

A majority of seniors helped in the process, although other classes participated. Even Binder and Wallace Klinger, dean of students, dressed in jeans and sweatshirts that day to pitch in on the move.

The new museum contained one of the largest American Indian artifact collections in the Northeast, featuring the "Upper Susquehanna Collection," presented by Willard E. Yager. Before this location, the collection had been in a building behind Yager’s home on Ford Avenue.

Ethelwyn Doolittle was also a large contributor to the library. During the 1960s, she gave the music department a collection of records and texts, and to the museum, a large display of items given to her by the famed naturalist John Burroughs. Although Burroughs had his home in Roxbury, he would spend summers in Oneonta at a special garden village in the backyard of Doolittle’s home on Irving Place.

Other notable donations to the building included a fountain by the Hartwick College Women’s Club and a statue by Paul Manship, "The Indian Hunter and His Dog," left to the college in the art collection of the late Louis Van Ess. The original bell cast in 1815 and used at the former Hartwick Seminary near Cooperstown was placed in the tower of the library-museum building.

This weekend: The story of the Harpers of Harpersfield.

City Historian Mark Simonson’s column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com.