File:Looking SE at Roberts Hall - Montana State University - Bozeman, Montana - 2013-07-09.jpg

English: Looking southeast at Roberts Hall on the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana.

Roberts Hall began construction in 1922, and was completed in 1923. It was designed by omnipresent Bozeman architect Fred Willson, and its original name was Engineering Hall. However, the name was changed during construction.

Another change during construction came because of the economic downturn that affected rural states after World War I. The steep rise in agricultural prices during the war (caused by the devastation in Europe) left Montana's state budget flush with cash. The state legislature spent $800,000 ($9.1 million in 2013 dollars) constructing the Chemistry Building (1920); Roberts Hall (1922), the Heating Plant (1922), and Engineering Shops (1922, demolished in 1995), Romney Gym (1922), and Herrick Hall (1926). But a severe depression hit the agricultural sector about 1921 as European agriculture recovered. To handle the loss of tax revenue, the state cut back on construction spending. The first and second floors of Roberts Hall were finished, but the third floor was not. Inferior and differently-colored brick, wood, and metal were used to finish the structure, and these differences are readily apparent on both the exterior and interior of the building.

The first floor, however, retains some exquisite details, such as the terra-cotta tiles surrounding the entryway (and which depict symbols for civil, agricultural and mechanical engineering). The main foyer is tiled in marble, and contains a marble staircase. In the 1950s and 1960s, the detailed exterior tiles were painted over, and some architectural elements added to cover them over. In 2011, the paint was removed, the tiles conserved and repaired, the mortar repointed, and the a-historic architectural elements removed.

Roberts Hall is named for William M. Roberts. Roberts was just 15 years old when he began work as a surveyor's assistant on the Union Canal in Pennsylvania. He trained as an engineer (few engineers had any formal education until the 1900s), and worked on various projects in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Canada. He traveled to Brazil in 1857 and spent eight years there building the Don Pedro Railway. He returned to the U.S. and worked on projects on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, the St. Louis Bridge, the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh public water systems, and a railroad in Nova Scotia. Hired by the Northern Pacific in 1869, he helped survey and design the route through Montana. He stayed with the NP for a decade, during which time President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him to an 1874 commission to design a way to clear a path through the Mississippi River delta to the Gulf of Mexico. He traveled back to Brazil in 1879 to be chief engineers on a government effort to build a plethora of harbors and rivers, but died there of typhoid fever on July 14, 1881.

Roberts Hall underwent a $190,000 renovation to its HVAC system in 2009, and a $160,000 technology and lighting renovation to its classrooms in 2012.

As of 2103, Roberts Hall houses the College of Engineering Dean’s Office, the Mechanical Engineering Department, engineering research labs, and two large computer labs.