Felgar Hall - University of Oklahoma - Norman, Oklahoma
Posted by: 
gparkes
N 35° 12.617 W 097° 26.613
14S E 641670 N 3897472
The Oklahoma University has an outstanding series of markers, explaining the names and events of different locations. This marker can be found on Asp Avenue.
Waymark Code: WM8AG6
Location: Oklahoma, United States
Date Posted: 02/28/2010
Views: 13
The narrative on this marker reads:
Felgar Hall
This building is named for James Houston Felgar, the first Dean of the College of Engineering. Known just as the engineering building, this structure was funded by an Oklahoma legislative appropriation in 1923. The building was completed and came to house the growing college of engineering in 1925. Originally, the building consisted only of what is now the west wing, but took its present form with the addition of the north and east wings in 1948. The name was changed to Felgar Hall in honor of Dean Felgar in 1952.
Dean Felgar gained his training Mechanical and Electrical Engineering first at Kansas University and then at Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago. IN 1906, he was hired by the University as an instructor in the school of Applied Sciences. Upon the reorganization of the University’s structure, and the resulting creation of the college of Engineering in 1909, James Felgar was named the first Dean.
During Felgar’s tenure, which stretched until 1937, important advances took place in the college. In addition to expanding the enrollment of the college from only 51 in 1909 to over 1000 upon his retirement in 1937, Felgar founded the Engineer’s Club; an organization devoted to the advancement of Engineering traditions and principles. He was also instrumental in the establishment of regulation and registration laws for professional engineers in the state.
During his years at the University Dean Felgar also had the arduous task of trying to control the now infamous rivalry between the college of engineering and the college of law. On many occasions, Dean Felgar was awakened in the middle of the night by authorities because yet another confrontation between the two schools had occurred.
James Felgar was a student-oriented Dean, and tried to know all of the students in the college personally. His leadership and guidance in the early yeasrs of the College helped lay the foundations of the current engineering program. His twenty-eight years as Dean of the college makes him the longest serving dean in the history of the College of Engineering.