The UC Davis residence halls are grouped by their respective geographic locations into

Trivia

The first dorms on campus were North Hall, South Hall and West Hall, all adjacent to the Quad. These have been converted to other purposes, or in the case of West Hall, demolished and replaced with the Memorial Union.

The original Primero was not Primero Grove, but Primero Residence Halls. There were two buildings, each with two wings, with Beckett-Hughes facing California Avenue and Struve-Titus on the back-side. Connecting the two buildings was the D.C./Study Lounge area. The D.C. was on the second story of that building, with the Resident Director housing underneath the D.C. It was built on the site of both the current Primero Grove and Parking Lot 17.

Hughes Hall originally served as the women's dorm, while the others were occupied by men. By the 1970's the buildings were coed. Some floors were all-women or all-men, while on others women and men alternated rooms. They were first used between 1951 and 1959.(source)

One marked difference between Primero and the other dorms was the lack of air conditioning in the individual rooms. There were, however, large air conditioners in each of the floor's lounges. During extremely hot spells, the majority of the dorm's residents could be found crowding the small lounges. The heating system was a steam radiator in each room with two settings: On and Off. Each unit caused loud knocking in the walls through the building when it was turned on for the first time in the cold season. A system was adopted whereby all rooms turned on their heaters on the same day to get through the clanging sound all at once.

State Market was conveniently located directly across the street, providing Top Ramen and other necessities of student living. Alcohol was not available until 1976. There was also an elevator in each of the four halls, which students were not to use, but did anyway. (These were old-fashioned elevators, with sliding gate doors that had to be secured before it would run, and a heavy door instead of a sliding door. People could be trapped in the elevator when someone on another floor would pull open the heavy door in mid-run.)

Primero Hall closed as a dorm in June of 1991. It served as temporary offices during the 91-92 school year for various departments that had their own buildings undergoing renovations at that time. It stood empty until about 1994 when it was demolished and left as an open field. Part of the reasoning behind the demolishment was the asbestos ceilings and they thought that the buildings were not earthquake safe. Before it was demolished, the Davis Swat team used to conduct practice raids in the buildings much to the dismay of sleeping students in Regan on weekend mornings. Storming buildings and smashing open doors creates quite a commotion.

The Original Cuarto Hall is now known as Leach Hall, as Cuarto has moved north of Campus Proper.

Sometimes there is a cow in the dorms.

Footnotes

1. While many who even live here refer to the buildings collectively as re-gun the correct pronounciation is ray-gun. The pronunciation was properly dictated to 2004 Summer Advisors by the daughter of the actual William M. Regan. They pronounce their last name the same way former President Reagan did.

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