B. B. Comer Hall

B. B. Comer Hall

Quick Info

Building # 1043 | Abbreviation: BC
Capstone International

  • ELI (English Language Institute)
  • International Programs: Japan Program, Overseas Study
  • International Services: Scholar Services, Student Services
  • International Center for Students

College of Arts and Sciences

  • Modern Languages and Classics Language Resource Center

Division of Academic Affairs

B. B. Comer Hall is home to the Department of Modern Languages and Classics, including the Language Resource Center.

The first floor contains the offices of the English Language Institute (ELI), several classrooms, vending machines, and a large room used to host Capstone International Coffee Hour. The second floor contains faculty offices, classrooms, a small kitchen, and the Language Computer Lab and main office.

B.B. Comer Hall, named for Braxton Bragg Comer and built around the same time as Smith Hall (1907-1910), was the first home of the College of Engineering and was known simply as Comer Hall. The south wing contained the physics and electrical engineering departments on the first floor and the engineering library and dean’s office, and classrooms upstairs.

The center part of the building also held the University’s power plant which included a boiler, dynamo, heating and plumbing machinery, and coal apparatus. The smoke stack was added in 1967. However, in 1936 the College of Engineering left Comer and moved to Hardaway Hall. Finally in 1961 the building was remodeled for the College of Arts and Sciences use. In 2010-11 the exterior of the building was restored.

Information collected from The University of Alabama : a guide to the campus by Robert Oliver Mellown (Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, c1988), and The University of Alabama, a pictorial history by Suzanne Rau Wolfe (University : University of Alabama Press, c1983).