Many events in UCLA’s history are overlooked. Below is a look at some interesting UCLA facts:
1927 – The Arroyo Bridge was built in 1927, connecting Hilgard Avenue to the main campus quadrangle. It provided shelter for poor students during the Great Depression and stacks of food were stored beneath it in case of attack during wartime. In 1947 after World War II, the gully over which the bridge passed was filled to increase the amount of functional property on the campus. Today, the bridge’s arches remain hidden underground at Dickson Plaza in the secret tunnels.
[Related: Underground history]
1929 – When UCLA moved its campus site to Westwood, the current Humanities Building served as the former Physics-Biology Building and Haines Hall was the Chemistry Building.
1931 – William Kerckhoff was a lumber and energy tycoon who built the Pasadena, the first ocean-going vessel to use oil for fuel. The Kerckhoffs visited the Westwood campus under construction in early 1929 and learned UCLA needed a student union. On his deathbed a month later, Kerckhoff told his wife that he wanted to fund the building. Kerckhoff’s widowed wife, Louisa Kerckhoff, spent $815,000 to fulfill her husband’s death wish.
1932 – The UCLA campus has experienced snow only twice in its 97 years – 82 years ago in January 1932 and again, in January 1949.
1968 – Between 1968 to 1978, claims of ghosts, hauntings and extrasensory perception were being studied at the parapsychology lab at UCLA. The lab helped develop research into unexplainable forces that play a role in our conscious and subconscious minds. However, the UCLA board did not want to be publicly associated with parapsychological research, so in 1978, the lab shut down.
[Related: UCLA lab researched parapsychology in the ’70s]
1984 – UCLA’s 6-mile network of steam tunnels is said to connect to all major buildings on campus. But these tunnels were sealed up for security reasons when UCLA’s dorms served as the Olympic Village during the 1984 Summer Olympics.
2001 – The film Legally Blonde, which released in 2001, featured many scenes shot at UCLA. The scene where Elle, played by Reese Witherspoon, picks up her class schedule at Harvard, was shot on the Kerckhoff Hall patio. The orientation scene was shot on the lawn in front of Kerckhoff.