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A year-long exhibit on "Kohler: Man, Myth, Hall" outlines the life of Kohler Hall, the oldest building on BW's campus.
Located on the first floor of Ritter Library, the exhibit showcases Kohler Hall from its construction in the 1850s to its closing in 2018. It includes articles from the archives as well as photographs and a timeline of its major changes.
Planning for the exhibit began in spring 2024 as part of an introduction to museums and archives course, which is taught by BW archivist Kieth Peppers.
"It was all student-led, student-curated, student-researched," Peppers said. "They did all the work."
Hanging in the center of the exhibit is a banner that reads "Save Kohler Hall." It originally hung from an on-campus house in 2019 after it was announced that Kohler would be closing.
The exhibit also includes a miniature wooden model of Kohler Hall (see photo above) built by retired U.S. Marine Corps veteran, senior transfer student and public history major Casey Senn '24.
The version of Kohler Hall displayed in the exhibit is different from what it looks like on campus now. The one created by Senn is modeled on how it looked during the 1890s.
Kohler has a rich history of rumors about its past uses and its ghost stories. There are legends that it was a morgue, an infirmary during the Civil War and a mental institution that Peppers said to be false. Its ghost stories include the "Blue Haze," a ghost that is said to have ripped blankets from students' beds.
The exhibit's name, "Kohler: Man, Myth, Hall," is a nod to the man the building was named after, its ghostly legends and its actual history as a Baldwin Wallace dormitory.
Content for this story originally appeared in The Exponent, BW's student newspaper. Its edited version is used here with permission.
