Charles Martin Hall House

Date

1853-present

Location

64 East College Street

Architects/Collaborators

Anson Morris (builder)

Style

Italianate

History

Originally a beautiful mansion, this house is presently used by the College as Village Housing for students. It is historically significant for its association with an important American industrialist, Charles Martin Hall, and the process he discovered there. Rev. Heman B. Hall, an Oberlin graduate who returned to Oberlin to educate his children, purchased the house in 1873. His son Charles Martin Hall played an important role in the philanthropic development of both Oberlin College and the community. Hall House was listed by the City of Oberlin as an Oberlin Historic Landmark in September of 1975. In 1978 it was listed on the National Register as a structure in Oberlin College’s thematic nomination. It was listed as a National Historic Chemical Landmark on September 17, 1997; a plaque marking this designation was presented to Oberlin College on September 17, 1997. The plaque reads: “On February 23, 1886, in his woodshed laboratory at the family home on East College Street, Charles Martin Hall succeeded in producing aluminum metal by passing an electric current through a solution of aluminum oxide in molten cryolite. Aluminum was a semiprecious metal before Hall’s discovery of this economical method to release it from its ore. His invention, which made this light, lustrous, and non-rusting metal readily available, was the basis of the aluminum industry in North America."

Sources

Ohio Historic Inventory by M. Fedelchak-Harley; L. Previll; and J. Heaton, Ohio State Historic Preservation Office, August 31, 1999. Accessed from the Oberlin Heritage Center website, June 22, 2015.

Geoffrey Blodgett, Oberlin Architecture, College and Town: A Guide to Its Social History (Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, 1985).