A State of the Art Facility

When it opened, Ryerson contained four floors of laboratories. The basement and first floor labs were devoted to research, and these facilities employed the most up-to-date technologies. They included rooms held at constant temperature: high and low temperature rooms, and a 0° Fahrenheit and 0° Celsius room. Rooms were lined with four inches of cork on the floor, walls and ceiling for insulation and moisture control and featured icebox doors. The building also housed a carbon dioxide cooling plant to hold the temperatures stable.

Groundbreaking research was conducted in these labs, including Michelson’s oil drop experiments, Millikan’s work on photo-electricity and Gale’s optics research. Both Michelson’s and Millikan’s work in Ryerson contributed to their Nobel Prizes.

Instructional laboratories for upper-level students took up much of the second floor, with introductory laboratories on the third.