A MONUMENT TO 43 YEARS’ SERVICE TO AGRICULTURE
By Harry Barger

(caption) Front view of Munford Hall on the University White Campus.  After its 
construction in 1923 it became the administrative building of the College of 
Agriculture, and was named for Dean F. B. Mumford by the Board of Curators in 
1930.  Mumford Hall is the third building of the University named for a Dean of 
the College of Agriculture.  Today it serves as the center of an agricultural 
education for students from eighteen states and three foreign nations.

The finest structure on the White Campus was named for Dean F.B. Mumford in 
order that it may stand as a monument for that service to agriculture that has 
brought fame to him and to the University of Missouri.  After 35 years of 
diligent service, Dean Mumford was honored by the Board of Curators on March 18, 
1930, when they named the new west Agricultural Building, Mumford Hall.

Mumford Hall was completed and first occupied on November 1, 1923.  The contract 
of its construction was let April 10, 1022, to Collins Brothers of Kansas City, 
and the actual work began immediately after that date.

It is built of native Missouri limestone with Bedford (Indiana) stone.  The 
architecture of the building is modified tudor in harmony with all of the 
buildings on the White Campus.  The total cost of construction was about 
$200,000.

The structure was four floors, including a total floor space of nearly one acre.  
The building is occupied by the offices of the Dean and Director, by classrooms 
and laboratories of the departments of soils, agricultural economics, rural 
sociology and animal husbandry; by the Agricultural Library, the experiment 
station mailing rooms, and the office of the agricultural editor, The College 
Farmer and the University Photographer.

And so that the name of Mumford, which is familiar to our present generation of 
Missourians for the development of agriculture in this state, might be 
remembered throughout posterity, the Board of Curators moved to perpetuate it by 
naming Mumford Hall for our present Dean of Agriculture.