Residence halls are a near-timeless aspect of any college experience. In the beginning, these buildings represented a conservative, single-sex living arrangement, and the storied inception of residence hall life at San Diego State closely mirrors that buttoned-up behavior.
According to “San Diego State University: A History in Word and Image,” by Raymond Starr, the first one was erected at SDSU in 1931 and opened in 1937. Fashioned in an art-deco style and dubbed Quetzal Hall, it was located near campus on College Avenue.
Quetzal Hall was a privately run, female-only residence hall monitored by a woman named Mary Southworth. Acting as Quetzal Hall’s house mother, Southworth worked closely with SDSU’s Dean of Women to establish acceptable practices and standards for the new housing option.
Even though SDSU was, even then, a majority commuter school – according to a 1935 study, 90 percent of students lived within 16 miles of the campus and therefore commuted — the residence hall was a success. Quetzal Hall boasted an occupancy rate of more than 40 “Quetzalites,” as the residents were often referred to.
During World War II, Quetzal Hall garnered recognition when it cancelled its annual dance social and opted instead, to offer the diverted funds to the operation of a first-aid station in the College Area.
The residence hall again made headlines when, in 1952, approximately 50 SDSU students carried out a raid on the “unmentionables” and other various belongings of the residents of the women’s dorm. More than $1,000 in damage was reported because of the incident, and 13 students were arrested.
The Quetzal Hall panty raid was immortalized in an issue of The Aztec with the unforgettable moniker, “pantymonium.”
Despite the incident, Quetzal Hall continued to be a sought-after option for campus housing . After a name-change to Aztec Hall and a shift to use as a sorority house, the hall finally closed its doors as an all-female dorm in 1960.
According to The Journal of San Diego History, the building later served as the headquarters of Bell-Lloyd, and was the only building of the planned Mission Palisades development ever completed.
The Quetzal Hall building was demolished in 1995.
Today, residence halls have evolved to be known as steadfast pillars of college students’ debauchery and mischief: a far cry from Southworth’s Quetzal Hall of 1937.
