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�鶹��Ѱ�����Boulder’s��red clay roof tiles are iconic.��

More than a century ago, however, other roof tiles — made from glass — could be spotted on campus.��

In 1990, Dennis Scheel was selling tools to the �鶹��Ѱ�����Boulder maintenance department when he noticed two unique roof tiles stacked under a workbench. The foreman explained that they once belonged to a campus engineering building before the university eventually replaced them with clay. The foreman offered him the pair as a campus storage facility contained more of them.��

“I did take them,” said Scheel, who lives in Centennial, Colorado. “I was cu - curious when these were used. I assumed before 1921.”��

Scheel donated the tiles to the �鶹��Ѱ�����Heritage Center in July. Mona Lambrecht, Heritage Center interim director and curator, researched the tiles and discovered they had been used to create a 4-foot-long by 60-foot-wide skylight for the Engineering Shops building, which opened in 1908 and was later known as Hunter Sciences until it was demolished in 2002. The skylight illuminated a second-floor drafting room with 100 drawing desks and several geometry models.��

“The interlocking design of the glass allowed the tiles to link to each other and the surrounding clay tiles, stay waterproof, and offer natural light,” said Lambrecht.��

Sunlight reacting with a manganese additive in the once-clear glass caused the tiles to develop a purple hue over time.��

The tile’s German designer, Wilhelm Ludowici, was part of a family-run, Chicago-based roofing tile manufacturer prominent in the U.S. starting in the late 1800s.��

The Hunter Sciences Building��
Previously the Engineering Shops building, which opened in 1908, was demolished in 2002.

We want to know! Do you remember these roof tiles or the drawing room?��

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Photo by Mona Lambrecht (roof tile)