The Agriculture Building, built in 1927, was constructed in tandem with the Engineering Building on the southeast corner of campus, after the Arkansas Legislature passed a bill that appropriated $650,000 for their construction. This was, in actuality, a loan from the state since the $650,000 had to be paid back out of University operating funds at the rate of $50,000 per year. Nonetheless, this was a victory for the University because it had been 20 years since the state had appropriated any funds for buildings on campus.
The Agriculture and Engineering buildings were the first part of the ambitious campus plan designed by the architectural firm of Jamieson and Spearl of St. Louis in 1925, known as the "100-year plan." Although the two buildings followed the master plan closely in location, they had to be scaled back and altered somewhat. The buildings, both in Collegiate Gothic architectural style, were designed by the Jamieson and Spearl firm along with H. Ray Burkes of Little Rock.
This three-story building was constructed of reinforced concrete, surrounded by outer walls of Batesville white limestone in a variegated design. The compound Gothic central entrance tower dominates the south view and there is a three-dimensional University of Arkansas seal above the central lancet window between the towers. This was the first use of the seal on a University building after the seal’s adoption by the Board of Trustees in 1923.
Dean of Agriculture Dan T. Gray called the new Agriculture Building "As good a main building for teaching agriculture, equipped as perfectly for our work, as any in America today."
Dr. W.M. Jardine, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, gave the main dedicatory address for the new building on June 6, 1927. Part of the dedication ceremony was the depositing of items in the building’s cornerstone, located just to the east of the south entrance with the date "1926" inscribed.
Occupying the Agriculture Building initially were the departments of agronomy, horticulture, plant pathology, rural economics and sociology, and entomology; an agriculture library; an editor’s office; and the agriculture dean’s offices.
In 1978, the departments of agronomy, horticulture and plant pathology moved into the new Plant Pathology building to the northeast. Both buildings are connected by an upper-level skywalk.
During the early 1990s, the building underwent some changes to its mechanical systems and air conditioning, and the original windows were replaced by energy-saving fixed windows.
In 2001, the dean’s offices were moved from the Agriculture Building to the recently completed addition to the Agriculture, Food, and Life Sciences Building to the northwest, across Maple Street. Remaining in the Agricultural Building were agricultural business and economics, agricultural and extension education, agricultural communications, and entomology.
The Agriculture Building was accepted for listing in the National Register of Historic Places in September of 1992
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