Measuring 100 by 60 feet and about 10 feet deep, the pool was installed in 1897 for a practical reason. The year before, a fire had razed the former chemistry building that stood directly south of Johnston Hall. Administrators decided to install the reservoir as extra fire protection.

Surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence about three feet high, the pool also became a decorative feature, particularly when tea roses planted around it were in bloom (hence its name as the Rose Bowl).  

Besides its practical and aesthetic qualities, the Rose Bowl served as a makeshift recreational pool.  

The reservoir was used for its intended purpose more than once, including helping extinguish a blaze in the Creelman dining hall. But the pool also presented a hazard; two drownings occured: a child in 1916 and a student in 1930.

By 1956, the campus no longer needed the Rose Bowl, and it was filled in.

ON CAMPUS

• Supported by a gift from philanthropist Sir William Macdonald, Macdonald Institute opens to offer courses in home economics, nature study and manual training.
• Massey Hall library opens with just over 10,000 volumes. Built the same year, the Judging Pavilion would become known as the Bullring.
• Two years earlier, Charles Zavitz, Ontario Agricultural College grad and ultimately OAC president, releases the robust Early Yellow soybean for on-farm evaluation. By 1903, he is confident that soybeans can thrive in Ontario.  

OFF CAMPUS

• Crayola crayons are introduced with eight colours packaged in the same yellow and green box as today.
• Orville Wright makes the first documented and successful powered flight.
• Due to a severe drought, the American side of Niagara Falls runs dry, leaving only a trickle of water.  
• Winners of hockey’s Stanley Cup, the Ottawa Silver Seven team members receive silver nuggets instead of money to preserve their amateur status.  

Do you have a memory to share from your time at U of G? Email a high-resolution photo to porticomagazine@uoguelph.ca and it could appear in Time Capsule.

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