By Erik Nordberg, University Archivist
Michigan Tech Archives and
Copper Country Historical Collections

I've received a lot of wonderful feedback from my last article on Trailertown. Sometimes you touch a memory and people respond. Other times, however, I pick a topic that goes a little too far back into history to conjure up many personal recollections. That may well be the case this time.

George Koenig can rightfully be called the father of chemical education at Michigan Tech. He came to Houghton in 1892, replacing Harry Keller who (along with Edward Sharpless) had provided chemical and metallurgical lectures as resident members of the Michigan Geological Survey. Koenig stayed in Houghton for the next 20 years, fostering and mentoring the college's fledgling chemistry program.

Born in Willstatt, Germany, in 1844, George Augustus Koenig received the degree of mechanical engineer from the Polytechnikum at Karlsruhe in 1863 and his A.M and Ph.D. from Heidelburg in 1867. He also spent a postdoctoral year at the famed Freiburg School of Mines.

Crossing the Atlantic in the fall of 1868, Koenig applied his interest in chemistry and metallurgical research at a number of chemical manufacturers and mining locations in the United States and Mexico. In 1872 he began his higher education career, accepting an assistant professorship in chemistry and mineralogy at the University of Pennsylvania. Koenig remained in Philadelphia for nearly 20 years and developed a reputation as an able educator and engaging researcher.

Arriving in Houghton, Koenig found a small and still-developing campus. The Michigan Mining School consisted of only one building--Hubbell Hall was only three years old at the time, and the Mechanical Shops Engineering Building wouldn't be completed until 1894. The student body numbered fewer than 75 students, and the teaching faculty consisted of only six professors, including president M.E. Wadsworth.

Chemical education in those early days was a pretty generalized and all-encompassing endeavor. The 1892 Catalog of the Michigan Mining School included a section describing coursework in chemistry. A first-year course in "general chemistry" was described by Professor Koenig:

This course is planned from the standpoint that all engineering resolves itself ultimately into a change of matter, either in form or in substance.

Not only a knowledge of habit and experimentation, but also a love and enthusiasm for it, are to be acquired by the student. It is thought that theoretical considerations should not form the basis of such a course.

In the course of his work the student discovers everything himself, and is made to draw his conclusions from every observation he records.

In regard to apparatus, the greatest simplicity is observed, so that the students may make it themselves, even for elaborate experiments.

Everything must be for a purpose, nothing for mere show.

In addition to the general course, Koenig was responsible for a second-year qualitative analysis course, a third-year quantitative course, and a fourth-year elective course in "synthetic chemistry." On top of these, Koenig also taught separate coursework in assaying, metallurgy, metallurgical designing, and metallurgical experimentation.

It is perhaps not surprising that as the school's enrollments grew, so did its faculty and physical plant. By the time of Koenig's death in 1913, the Michigan College of Mines faculty included 11 professors and 14 instructors.

Under Koenig's leadership, the department of chemistry split off from metallurgy, and a separate building was constructed for its use in 1902. Known for many years simply as "Chemistry" and costing a whopping $23,500 to construct, Koenig helped design the building, its seven laboratories and two lecture halls.

By all accounts, Koenig was genial and charitable to his students and colleagues. His thick accent and "giant physical stature" often put people off initially, but his warmth and charm soon won over supporters. One story had Koenig chastising a group of students as "the worse class he had ever instructed" and then turning his back on them. Eventually he turned back to the class saying, "Well, I won't quit yet."

Koenig shared professional and personal interests with A.E. Seaman, Tech's esteemed professor of geology and mineralogy. "Although deeply engrossed in his own work," said Seaman of Koenig, "he still found time to scatter many brilliant gems of thought along our various pathways."

Some of these gems Koenig grew himself. His greatest original research was with laboratory-grown mineral crystals. He described at least 13 new mineral species and several of his specimens remain important pieces at MTU's Seaman Mineral Museum.

Koenig also developed his chemistry lectures into one of the campus' first published textbooks. He claimed that the book, entitled Chemistry Simplified, was designed primarily for engineers and supported his philosophy of learning through experimental discovery. "The chief tendency of this lecture course is to evoke in the student the constant though of Why? together with the love for the experiment." The text was used on campus for several decades.

During his 20 years of teaching, Koenig undertook many contracts to examine mineral occurrences and mining properties across North America. Yet, he rarely missed an assigned lecture or laboratory period on the Houghton campus. In fact, he only relinquished active charge of the department a week before his death on January 14, 1913. As then-president Fred McNair noted, "this comes nearer to dying in the harness than is permitted to most men."

Following Koenig's death, student organizations clamored for the chemistry building to be named in his honor. "We think it most fitting and appropriate that the building that was planned by him and in which he taught and labored, should be known as Koenig Hall."

Through a special appeal published in the college's first yearbook, a "George A. Koenig Memorial Fund" was established in 1916 to raise $10,000 for a new mineral testing laboratory. The laboratory would be located in Koenig Hall and would continue Koenig's vision to provide student experience and knowledge through hands-on experimentation.

Sadly, Koenig Hall burned to the ground early in 1920. Yet it was determined that a new chemistry building could be built directly on the old foundations, and a second Koenig Hall was completed in 1922. Additions to this building were made in 1931 and 1941, bringing the building to 27,000 square feet. The building also changed appearance over time, as its façade received at least two face-lifts.

Although I shouldn't expect Tech alumni to remember the unique charms of George Koenig, some will likely recall time spent in lectures and labs at the second Koenig Hall. The building housed departments of chemistry and chemical engineering and was in use until a late-1960s wave of new construction spelled the building's demise.

Unfortunately, as the wrecking ball removed the bricks and mortar, it also removed the Koenig name from the Tech campus - a name which represented the concepts of chemistry at Tech for more than 75 years.

You can contact Erik Nordberg at copper@mtu.edu