(Editor’s note: The Old Gold series provides a look at University of Iowa history and tradition through materials housed in University Archives, Department of Special Collections.)

Old Gold’s job description includes the enjoyable task of telling tales of campus history, stories supported by evidence in the University Archives. The details may be murky, incomplete, or even a source of contention. In essence, though, the stories are verifiable to some degree.

Then there are the stories of mystery, stories whose facts elude us and cause frustration for researchers and archivists alike. This month’s column is about one of those instances. Old Gold turns to his readers for their thoughts, ideas, even speculation about a nagging mystery, a long-gone building that once occupied a prominent place in downtown Iowa City, not far from the Old Capitol.

The Fine Arts Building, as it was known, stood on the north side of the 100 block of Iowa Avenue between Clinton and Dubuque streets, wedged between Close Hall to the east and a sidewalk leading to the anatomy building (now the Sciences Library) to the west. (Close Hall was demolished in 1970 to eventually make way for the present-day Biology Building West.)

Our one-level mystery building features a brick facade, a trio of arched windows that were apparently blocked by what appears to be poured concrete, and, from front to back, a series of five roof ridges. Viewed from the side, the building’s profile resembles this morning’s Dow Jones Industrial Average.

At the time the photograph above was taken, in April 1922, the university was home to a department of graphic and plastic arts, boasting a faculty of 11 and offering a dozen courses, including drawing and lettering, painting, and clay modeling. In addition, History of Art, a small program staffed by two instructors, offered a half dozen courses in the study of art, according to the 1923 university general catalog.

The building, however, is not listed on any campus maps of the time, nor is it mentioned in the university directories of 1920 to 1925. Faculty associated with the department were housed in the Physics Building (now MacLean Hall), and not in the Iowa Avenue building. A bird’s-eye view of the anatomy building taken in 1935 indicates that the Fine Arts Building was demolished by that time, perhaps in anticipation of development of the fine arts campus west of the river. If still standing, it would have been located in the lower right portion of the accompanying photograph.

Any ideas, Hawkeyes? If so, Old Gold will consider printing them in a future column.