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Map showing campus property acquired from 1930-1959 in pink.

 

Then, Now and Tomorrow, Campus Planning Brochure, 1946.

 

Aerial photograph of campus, 1941.

 

Missoulian, March 14, 1940.

In the early 1940s the university began planning for a post-war campus. The Campus Development Committee met in the fall of 1943 and reiterated their recommendation that an architect be hired to oversee all construction on campus and conduct a review of the Gilbert-Carsley plan. A new Planning Committee was also established to oversee the campus grounds. The committee submitted a list of recommendations to President Melby regarding grounds maintenance and echoed the call of the Campus Development Committee that the university hire an architect to review the Gilbert-Carsley plan.

James A. McCain became president of The University of Montana-Missoula in 1945. McCain worked with the Campus Development Committee and the State Board of Examiners to hire Seattle-based architect John Paul Jones, of the firm Bebb and Jones, to review and update the 1917 Gilbert-Carsley campus plan. Jones's plan included large, modern additions to existing buildings and recommended expanding the boundary of the original Gilbert-Carsley plan north to Fifth Street. The plan retained the central courtyard and grand alleyway features that were an integral part of the original Gilbert-Carsley campus plan.

In 1951 Carl McFarland became president of the university. He expanded the size of the campus in 1952 with the purchase of the forty-acre Prescott property at the base of Mount Sentinel, along with private lots on Eddy, Beckwith and University Avenues. Over the next ten years the University gradually closed off the campus from the residential neighborhood that surrounded it. By 1960 all the major streets leading in and out of campus were closed, with the exception of University Avenue from Arthur to Maurice. A public access road behind campus, called Campus Drive, was also opened.