The purpose of this project was to interview as many of the former occupants or those with relationships to the Lloyd-Ricks-Watson building as possible and to record their stories concerning their experiences and the personalities that occupied the building from its original opening in 1929 through its current remodeling and renaming in October 23, 2010.
The original Lloyd-Ricks-Watson building was designed by architect C. H. Lindsley and built in 1929 by contractor I. C. Garber at a cost of $210,000. An addition was built in 1939, at a cost of $162,000.The building has been home to research on a multitude of topics, including agriculture, economics, sociology, chemistry, animal husbandry, entomology, bacteriology, plant pathology, horticulture, forestry, and veterinary medicine.
Academic/administrative units in the Lloyd-Ricks-Watson Building since 1929 include:
- School of Agriculture
- College of Agriculture
- College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
- Agricultural Administration
- Agricultural and Experimental Statistics
- College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
- Agricultural Economics
- Agricultural Economics and Administration
- Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness
- Agricultural Engineering
- Agricultural Extension
- Agricultural Information Science and Education
- Agronomy
- Animal Husbandry
- Child and Family Development Specialist
- Child Development and Family Center
- Dairy Husbandry
- Extension Education
- Family Life and Public Policy
- Family Resource and Management Specialist
- Forestry
- General Agriculture
- Home Economics
- Horticulture
- School of Human Sciences
- Human Sciences Teaching, Research, and Extension
- Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station (Main Office)
- Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service (Main Office)
- Plant Pathology and Weed Science
- Poultry Husbandry
- Rural Education
- Sociology
- Sociology and Anthropology
- Sociology and Rural Life
- Student Support Services
- Textile Research Laboratory
- Veterinary Medicine
- Veterinary Science
For more information on the history of the Lloyd-Ricks-Watson building, please consult the following sources:
- A & M to MSU: 100 Years of Agricultural Research and Education by H. R. Denison et al., 2003
- True Tales from the Mississippi State University Extension Service by Vance H. Watson & Glynda C. Fulce, 2008
- An Abbreviated History of the Agronomy Department: From its Inception until the Late 1960s edited by Vance H. Watson & Lisa Noffsinger, 2011
- A History of the Missisippi State University Extension Service by Vance H. Watson & Glynda C. Fulce, 2009