It was early 1964 when Lois Schoemehl enrolled at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. It was an unlikely landing spot for someone who'd just six months earlier passed up Washington University in favor of a smaller private college in Springfield.

The fledgling UMSL was just a few years removed from its life as the Bellerive Country Club golf course. The school touted a small selection of degrees, 26 faculty members, fewer than 700 students and a single building.

But Schoemehl, then 18, was a refugee of sorts. She'd started her college life at Drury College only to realize she wasn't ready to be so far from St. Louis.

It was in the fall that John Kennedy was assassinated, Schoemehl said. I just wanted to be home.

So she parked herself at UMSL, thinking she'd stay for a semester and then switch to Washington U. to start her sophomore year.

But she quickly became attached to the makeshift school.

The book, The Emerging University by former UMSL Chancellor Blanche Touhill describes the early years encountered by Schoemehl and her classmates.

Classrooms and office spaces were carved here and there out of the golf course's former club house. A ballroom dance floor was covered with carpet and converted to a library, featuring a meager offering of some 3,000 books. A cafeteria in the basement was lined with vending machines along the walls. Off to one side, a cold-storage room was converted to a conference room. Tennis courts and volleyball courts sat off in the distance.

The first-floor hallway was lined with hooks, for students to store their jackets and lunch bags. Faculty offices had steam pipes overhead. One still had the drain left from its days as a shower stall.

Schoemehl, who would later serve as the school's first alumni association director, remembers the quirkiness of those early days: One classroom had a fireplace and french doors.

Read more from the original source:
From country club to university, UMSL marks a milestone