At its June 1880 meeting, the board of trustees authorized the construction of a new building on the southeast corner of the campus (South of Science Hall) called Agricultural Hall to replace the White House (named for UT Trustee Moses White) in which the Preparatory Department had been located. Agricultural Hall was a two-story, 30-foot by 60-foot brick building. The first floor had a lecture hall and a laboratory for the professor of Agriculture, Horticulture and Botany. The second floor was to serve as an agricultural museum. The cost of construction was $3,278.10.
Agricultural Hall was expanded in 1888 with a two-story, 40-foot by 60-foot addition over a large basement to serve as the headquarters of the Agricultural Experiment Station. The addition was paid with $3,000 of the experiment station’s first year’s appropriation and an additional $3,800 allocated by the university. The East Tennessee Farmers Convention, which was meeting in Knoxville, participated in the laying of the cornerstone for the addition, which was designed by Charles L. Carson of Baltimore, architect of several Johns Hopkins University buildings. Directly behind the hall was a 1,200-square-foot greenhouse with an attached 260-square-foot propagating room.
Agricultural Hall was named Morrill Hall, and its name was changed to Carrick Hall in 1908 when a new agricultural building was named Morrill Hall. The 1880 building with its 1888 expansion was still being used by the College of Engineering in December 1942 when it was destroyed by fire as a result of faulty wiring. It was on the present-day site of Perkins Hall.