Inspired by today's Rundown.
Gather 'round, Yutes, and hear tales of AU's most infamous residence: Magnolia Dorm, formerly more-or-less where the Lowder business school now stands on Magnolia Ave.
"Mag" was built in 1948, and for pretty much all of its history it was the Animal House of Auburn dorms. I've been hearing Mag stories my whole life. My dad lived there in 1957, and I barely missed its clutches thanks to Mag finally being demolished (the rubble became an EPA Superfund site) in the fall of 1987, my freshman year. The actual residents will have much better stories than I do.
Mag was never co-ed (at least not officially); it was always a men's dorm. If you were going to score there, you had to sneak it in (or be a lot more "diverse" than Auburn was known for in those days, I suppose). Which is not to say it didn't happen, although I can imagine the girls who braved the place didn't do so more than once. I visited buddies of mine there a few times when I was still in high school, and the interior of Mag--mind you, after the inmates knew it was scheduled for the wrecking ball--was just about the nastiest pit I'd ever seen.
One story from those late days: Hall Wars were a common occurrence, from regular dorm pranks to full-on brawls. Late one night when a buddy of mine was (allegedly) trying to sleep, the guys in the hall above him staged an epic raid. The first two raiders ran down to the target hall's RA room, and melted his doorknob shut with a blowtorch made from a can of WD-40 and a lighter. Then the shock troops arrived, opening up with paintball guns and a bottle rocket and Roman candle barrage from the hallways at either end. That kind of thing happened all the time in Mag.
A true story about how Spartan the accommodations were at Mag: in the 60's, a couple of jailhouse lawyers took the state of Alabama to court claiming that housing two inmates together in a cell of certain dimensions constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The state's defense at trial: students at Auburn paid to live in even smaller rooms at Magnolia Dorm.
The state won.
So, Mag survivors: Let 'em rip.
Gather 'round, Yutes, and hear tales of AU's most infamous residence: Magnolia Dorm, formerly more-or-less where the Lowder business school now stands on Magnolia Ave.
"Mag" was built in 1948, and for pretty much all of its history it was the Animal House of Auburn dorms. I've been hearing Mag stories my whole life. My dad lived there in 1957, and I barely missed its clutches thanks to Mag finally being demolished (the rubble became an EPA Superfund site) in the fall of 1987, my freshman year. The actual residents will have much better stories than I do.
Mag was never co-ed (at least not officially); it was always a men's dorm. If you were going to score there, you had to sneak it in (or be a lot more "diverse" than Auburn was known for in those days, I suppose). Which is not to say it didn't happen, although I can imagine the girls who braved the place didn't do so more than once. I visited buddies of mine there a few times when I was still in high school, and the interior of Mag--mind you, after the inmates knew it was scheduled for the wrecking ball--was just about the nastiest pit I'd ever seen.
One story from those late days: Hall Wars were a common occurrence, from regular dorm pranks to full-on brawls. Late one night when a buddy of mine was (allegedly) trying to sleep, the guys in the hall above him staged an epic raid. The first two raiders ran down to the target hall's RA room, and melted his doorknob shut with a blowtorch made from a can of WD-40 and a lighter. Then the shock troops arrived, opening up with paintball guns and a bottle rocket and Roman candle barrage from the hallways at either end. That kind of thing happened all the time in Mag.
A true story about how Spartan the accommodations were at Mag: in the 60's, a couple of jailhouse lawyers took the state of Alabama to court claiming that housing two inmates together in a cell of certain dimensions constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The state's defense at trial: students at Auburn paid to live in even smaller rooms at Magnolia Dorm.
The state won.
So, Mag survivors: Let 'em rip.
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