ABSTRACT
On June 5, 1939, Harold L. Ickes, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, spoke at the commem oration ceremonies for the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the University of New Mexico. Ickes had been invited by the UNM president, James Fulton Zimmerman, because of his generosity as purveyor of federal public works projects to the nation in the depths of the Great Depression. Through a series of grants and low-interest loans, the largest of which was for 700,000 dollars, the university had built several imposing structures in the now popular architectural southwestern Pueblo style.
