Prior to the early 1960s, LSU, like most American universities, had no dedicated “student union” where all students could congregate. The closest thing to a union was instead the combination of the Huey P. Long Fieldhouse and the Gym Armory, the hub of student life in the first decades after LSU was relocated in the 1920s from downtown Baton Rouge to its current location. The campus post office was inside the Fieldhouse, and student organizations held events and activities, including dances, in the gymnasium. The Olympic-size pool on the lower level of the Fieldhouse also drew students.

Bright Journey: A Pictorial History of the LSU Union (Louisiana State University Union, 1993), attributes the roots of this trend to the “debating societies and ‘general clubs’ founded at Cambridge and Oxford in the nineteenth century” and points out that “‘commons areas’ reserved for student activity” began to take hold in some parts of the U. S. as early as the 1890s.

This trend, however, was late in coming to southern universities, with several unsuccessful attempts at LSU throughout the early years of the new campus, according to Soderbergh. Then, in an article appearing in the April 17, 1956, edition of The Daily Reveille, a student once again raised the issue of creating a union at LSU. A student referendum had already passed in 1955 to raise funds for the facility, and students were anxious to see progress on its construction. Three years later, in 1958, the LSU Board of Supervisors approved the concept of a student union on campus, and on October 21, 1961, LSU officials gathered in the Memorial Oak Grove to break ground for the new facility. The new building was supposed to be finished by June 10, 1963, but several delays intervened. On January 6, 1964, LSU officially opened the completed facility with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

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