Mears Cottage

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Mears Cottage, also known as Mears Hall, is a historic building on the Grinnell College campus in Grinnell, Iowa. It was built in 1888–1889 to house female students, as Grinnell College (then Iowa College) was one of the first colleges west of the Mississippi to admit women, with the first woman earning a degree about ten years later. The project was funded by Edward A. Goodnow of Worcester, Massachusetts, and the building was named for Mary Grinnell Mears, wife of Reverend David O. Mears. The 1889 opening welcomed 30 women and a housemother, and each room included furniture and a private space. It was the campus’s first building with electric lights, installed in the 1890s. An expansion designed by New York City architect Charles D. Marvin was added in 1903, and by 1915 the building connected to other structures in the women’s quadrangle. The hall became coed in 1978, then closed the next year due to deterioration. Alumni John H. and Lucile Hanson Harris funded a renovation, and it reopened in 1986. Mears Cottage was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.