Northern Michigan University's original twenty-acre site was donated to the State Board of Education by John M. Longyear and Frederick Ayer in 1899. The first dormitory, used from 1900 to 1917, stood to the south across Kaye Avenue. D. F. Charleton designed the complex that developed there, and the site served as the center of the campus for its first fifty years. South Hall, the first building, was dedicated on July 3, 1900, destroyed by fire in December 1905, rebuilt two years later, and renamed Longyear Hall. It was followed by Peter White Hall of Science in 1902 and by library and gym annexes in 1904 and 1906. The complex was completed with Kaye Hall in 1915, known for its atrium lobby, and the Lydia Olson Library was dedicated in October 1951. Most of these structures were removed in 1972 and 1973 and replaced with the Cohodas Administration Building in 1975, while Longyear Hall remained until 1993. Connected to this complex was the John D. Pierce School, named for Michigan's first Superintendent of Public Instruction and occupied in April 1925. Serving grades K through 12, it functioned as Northern's laboratory school for teacher training. In 1961 the State Legislature closed the high school, and that same year the basketball team coached by Vic Hurst won the state class D championship. The elementary grades ended in 1971, and the building continued in use by Northern until its demolition in 1991.