Starkweather Hall

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Starkweather Hall, also called Starkweather Religious Center, is a two-story building at 901 West Forest Avenue on the Eastern Michigan University campus in Ypsilanti, Michigan. It’s the oldest building on campus and is a Michigan State Historic Site (1972) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1977). It’s also part of the Eastern Michigan University Historic District (1984).

Origin and history
- The Students’ Christian Association began in 1853 as the Students’ Prayer Meeting. It became the Students’ Christian Association in 1881 and had a room in the campus conservatory.
- By 1891 that room was needed for classes, leaving the group without a meeting space. They raised funds and received a $10,000 bequest from Mary Ann Starkweather to build a new center.
- Detroit architects Malcomson and Higginbotham designed the building, which was completed in 1896 for a little over $11,000 and dedicated on March 26, 1897. It was at the time the only religious center at a teacher’s college in the United States. The hall was leased to the Students’ Christian Association.
- The SCA faded in the 1920s, but Starkweather Hall continued to be used by various religious groups. It was renovated in 1961. In 1976 the Office of Religious Affairs closed, and the building was remodeled for other uses, including public relations. By 2013 it housed the Graduate Office.

Architecture
- The building is two stories, built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style with squared fieldstone, roughly 62 by 56 feet. It is asymmetrical and features an octagonal sandstone tower on one corner and a gable over the front entrance. The top parts of the other facades are finished with fishscale orange tiles.
- Inside, the first floor originally held dining/reception rooms, a kitchen, a dressing room, a library, and classrooms, with partitions that could be opened to create larger spaces. The second floor had a large assembly room and a caretaker’s room. Some original doorknobs marked “SCA” remain.