Letter from Prof. Pugh, 1946

[Editor's note: We were pleased to receive the following letter, in May 2002, from Richard Pugh, who taught civil engineering at the School of Mines in 1946 and 1947. He has some interesting reminiscences about his time in Socorro. We print an excerpt here.

If any of his former students would like to get in touch with him, contact the Alumni Office at 1-800-428-TECH, and we will give you his address.]

Dear Editor:

When I arrived at Socorro in Jan. 1946 I was an assistant professor, the thirteenth of a faculty of thirteen. The enrollment was about 100. It was a great experience, and quite a contrast to my experience from 1943 to 1945 at Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Co., Fort Worth, Tex. There we had two main buildings, each 4000 ft. long and 200 ft. wide, with 20,000 employees total. I was in stress analysis and structural testing for the B-36, then the largest land-based plane in the world. All of the Mines campus and some of Socorro could have been placed inside the buildings at Consolidated.

Richard Reece was acting president. He had taught mathematics and physics. Pres. Reece was a very fine person. We had faculty meetings once a month in his office.

I had correspondence with him in arranging for the position. I arrived in Socorro by bus on Jan. 2, 1946. The bus stopped at the Park Hotel at the southwest corner of the Plaza. One of the other professors told me that he stayed at the Park a few days, and took a bath in an iron bathtub which had been there since 1850 - the oldest bathtub west of the Mississippi. The hotel lobby was about as big as my office at the School. I wanted to call the school, and found that there was a pay phone in the lobby, but I could find no telephone directory, so I asked the operator for the School of Mines.

A man answered, and I asked for Pres. Reece. He said, "This is Pres. Reece." He sent his son and wife to get me, and helped me carry baggage to Driscoll Hall where I was to live. I think there was one telephone on the campus, and that was in the business office. Pres. Reece happened to be near it when I called. We had no telephones in the other buildings on campus. Later I discovered that the card hanging on the outside of the phone booth at the hotel was the phone directory for Socorro and Magdalena. It was 8½ x 11 card stock, folded in half, with ads on the upper and lower third of each page.

The only sidewalks I remember were around and near the Plaza and had imprints "WPA 1938".

Dr. C.D. Crosno was the head of the Civil Engineering department, and an excellent professor. He let me sit in his thermodynamics class to observe his method of teaching.

In my three semesters I was there I taught

Engineering Drawing
Statics
Descriptive Geometry
Strength of Materials
Physics
Materials Testing
Analytical Geometry
Structural Design
Fluid Mechanics

Since I was the only faculty member who had ever had college work in economics and accounting I taught the courses in those subjects.

Time, space, faculty and supplies were in short supply. The first semester, my engineering drawing class was so large we had to meet in two rooms and the schedule was tight enough that I had three students in structural design at the same time in the back of one of the drafting rooms. Compounding this was the fact that we had no drafting instruments (compasses, scales, french curves) until the last two weeks of the semester. We did have drawing boards, T-squares triangles, pencils and erasers. In the fall of 1946, I taught first semester physics for four weeks before the textbooks arrived.

I had graduate work at the University of Michigan in the summer of 1946 and came back to Socorro in the fall.

I remember Mrs. Herkenhoff. [Lillian Herkenhoff, dorm mother at Driscoll Hall.] One of her sons was a partner in a consulting engineering firm in Santa Fe - the only consulting engineering firm in the state, I think.

I am not sure when the Gold Pan was first published. It was started, or revived in 1946 largely due to the efforts of Phil Groh, a student. Phil was quite a promoter. The paper was tabloid size and was printed at the Socorro Chieftain, I think.

I still have good memories of Socorro and the School.

Sincerely
Richard Pugh