In 1999 the newly constructed Ethan A.H. Shepley House opened on the South 40.
This new structure replaced the older Shepley Hall, a highrise building that opened in 1964 as a women’s residence.
Ethan A.H. Shepley
Ethan A.H. Shepley was born in St. Louis on May 3, 1896 and graduated from Yale University in 1918. He spent the following two years at Harvard Law School, and then transferred to Washington University School of Law, where he graduated in 1922.
Incidentally, he is the only Washington University in St. Louis chancellor who was also a university alumnus.
From 1921 to 1930 he was an associate in the firm of Nagel and Kirby, and was made a partner of the firm in 1930, where he worked until 1954. After leaving the firm, he served as a member of the Washington University Board of Trustees, and then was made chairman and served until he was made chancellor three years later. After seven years as chancellor (1953-61), he once again served as chairman of the Board of Trustees until his death in June 1975. In 1964 he ran unsuccessfully for governor of Missouri, and in 1972 he was named Distinguished Law Alumnus of the university.