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CSU Archives and Special Collections

CSU Buildings and Grounds History

A history of CSU's building and grounds from 1870 to the present.

Environmental Health Building/Grasslands Ecology Research Laboratory (NREL)/Grasslands Ecology Research Laboratory, 1970-

A one-story brick building with an attached sign reading "Grasslands Laboratory".

Grasslands Ecology Research Laboratory, 1978

From CSU's Sense of Place:  A Campus History of Colorado's Land-Grant University, by James E. Hansen, Gordon A. Hazard, and Linda M. Meyer.  Fort Collins, CO:  Colorado State University, 2018.

Architects - Ingalls and Associates of Fort Collins, Randall Larsen & Associates, Davis Partnership P.C. Architects

Builder – Meline and Irelan Constructors, Inc. of Fort Collins (phases I and II)

350 West Lake Street

This building was specifically constructed to house offices and laboratories to support a Grassland-Biome Research Project being conducted at the Pawnee National Grasslands by the Department of Range Science. 

Designed by Charles S. Ingalls of Ingalls and Associates of Fort Collins and construction by the Meline and Irelan Constructors, Inc. of Fort Collins started in early February 1970 and was ready for occupancy in October 1970.  Originally it housed a staff of four along with four full-time lab technicians and two post-graduate researchers. The $165,000 building was equipped with $150,000 worth of equipment. 

Within one year, a 6,700 square-foot office wing was added onto the west side of the original building.  The Natural Resources Ecology Laboratory (NREL) moved its functions into the enlarged building in November 1971. The NREL used the building for the next 23 years and during this era it was the site of important sugar beet studies.  In 1994, the NREL moved out and into the newly opened Natural and Environmental Sciences Building on the east end of the Monfort Quadrangle.

Since 1994 it has been known as the Environmental Health Building as it then became home to the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biological Sciences.   Thirty-four people are listed as having offices in the building that houses several laboratories that includes the Advanced Systems Laboratory, the Center of Veterinary Epidemiology and Animal Disease Surveillance Systems, and the Ventilation Laboratory.

Two renovations have taken place to the building using designs by Randall Larsen & Associates and Davis Partnership P.C. Architects. 

Sources by Gordon A. Hazard

CSU Collegian, February 27, 1967, page 1, vol. LXXV, number 72.

State Board of Agriculture Minutes, October 24, 1969, page 234.

Grassland Biome U. S. International Biological Program Newsletter, December 1969, pages 4 and 5, number 5.

State Board of Agriculture Minutes, December 11, 1969, page 263.

State Board of Agriculture Minutes, January 16, 1970, page 278.

State Board of Agriculture Minutes, Februry 27, 1970, page 285.

CSU Collegian, September 23, 1970, page 7, vol. LXXIX, number 2.

State Board of Agriculture Minutes, December 9, 1970, pages 455, 457.

State Board of Agriculture Minutes, March 28, 1971, page 510.

Grassland Biome U. S. International Biological Program Newsletter, July 1971, pages 5 and 6, number 8.

Grassland Biome U. S. International Biological Program Newsletter, December 1971, page 3, number 9.

Rocky Mountain Collegian, February 22, 1973, page 3, vol. VXXI, number 88.

CSU Comments, September 13, 1973, page 2, vol. 4, number 4.

State Board of Agriculture Minutes, September 13, 1974, page 535.

“A History of Colorado State University 1870 – 1974”, by James E. Hansen II, 1974.

CSU Comments, July 10, 1975, page 6, vol. 6, number 1.

CSU Comments, August 28, 1975, page 3, col. 4, vol. 6, number 2.

Rocky Mountain Collegian, August 10, 1984, page 1, vol. 93, number 20.

Colorado State University Comment, October 2, 1986, page 2, vol. 17, number 7.

Colorado State University Comment, December 11, 1986, page 2, vol. 17, number 16.

Rocky Mountain Collegian, October 6, 1987, page 3, vol. 96, number 36.

Comment, October 23, 1997, pages 1-2, vol. 28, number 8, story by Carrie Schafer.

“Visionary Leadership, the Memoirs of William E. Morgan”, page 97, by Connie Pheiffenberger, 2005.

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