: For Students, Faculty, and Staff 
Image of 3 pieces of wood from the University of Minnesota Archives 3-D collection revealed to be post office box doors salvaged by students after the Old Main fire in September 1904.
The University of Minnesota Archives 3-D collection contains 3 small pieces of wood, 2 with hinges, 2 with tags. Each item is numbered in black paint, 1800, 519, and 540, respectively.
On the back of item 1800 is an address label with the name “C.D. Bedford.” Item 519 has a tag attached with the name “H.C. MacKall.” Handwritten on the back is the date “9/26/04,” and the notations, “H.C. MacKall P.O. Box, for 3 years,” and “Taken from the ‘Old Main’ after the fire of Sept. 24, 1904.”
Item 540 has a tag attached with the name “Dr. Carl Selvig.” Handwritten on the bottom of the item is the phrase, “‘Old Main’ burned Sept. 23rd 1904.”
These items have no donor information or details other than the address label and the description written directly on the items and attached tags. No dates of acquisition are known.
It wasn’t until reading through the pages of The Minnesota Daily, that additional information related to the provenance of these items was revealed.
In the days that followed the fire in the Main Building (Old Main) on September 24, 1904 (on which date the Daily published its first Extra! edition), the newspaper continued to cover the aftermath, which included attempts by students and faculty to recover items from the building ruins.
Image of the cover of The Minnesota Daily Fire Extra!, September 24, 1904.
On September 27, 1904, the Daily article, “Souvenir Seekers: Many Endeavor to Get Covers of Post Office Boxes,” reported that “The most official and also most historic souvenirs of the ‘Old Main’ are the post-office box doors.” The article revealed that a crowd of students assembled near the building site to attempt to recover the doors from their P.O. boxes, but that Captain Guild called off their souvenir hunt for safety reasons.
Image of the article, “Souvenir Seekers: Many Endeavor to Get Covers of Post Office Boxes,” from the September 27, 1904 issue of The Minnesota Daily student newspaper.
Captain Allen W. Guild, superintendent of buildings, had lived in a small apartment in Old Main before its destruction. On September 28, 1904, the Daily article, “Rescue Work Continues,” reported that despite the structure being deemed dangerous, students still took the risk to recover lost property.
As for the identities behind the names associated with the P.O. box doors, the University Faculty and Student List, 1903-1905, lists Clayton Delos Bedford, student, on page 13; Henry Clinton MacKall, student, on page 52; and Carlus Selvig, student, on page 70.
According to the April 9, 1907 Daily, Clayton Bedford was the Athletic Editor of that issue, which was a special Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) edition. An article on the front page of the October 21, 1905 Daily reported that Henry MacKall was an associate editor of Minnesota Magazine. Carlus Selvig is listed as a member of the Board of Editors for Volume 19 of The Gopher student yearbook in the April 25, 1905 Daily article, “‘06 Gopher Out This Morning.”
Come see the souvenirs salvaged from the Old Main fire and an original issue of The Minnesota Daily Fire Extra!, at the Open House event for the exhibit, “Beyond the Page: Preserving the Spirit of the University Through an Independent Student Press,” at Elmer L. Andersen Library on Wednesday, Oct. 15 between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
