What is the history of the Mackay School of Mines Building?

The New York architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White was one of the greatest American architectural firms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among other projects, the firm designed Pennsylvania Station. Architect Stanford White, who designed Mackay's house on Long Island and the original Madison Square Garden, helped develop the plans for the Mackay School of Mines Building and the adjoining quadrangle -- the Quad. However, the flamboyant architect did not see the blooming of the University of Nevada Quad because he was shot to death June 25, 1906, on the roof of Madison Square Garden in a lovers' quarrel. (The incident was portrayed in the Ray Milland-Joan Collins movie, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, and E.L. Doctorow's novel, Ragtime.) After White's death, a collaborating firm, Bliss and Faville of San Francisco, took over the Quad's design.*

* taken from "Campus on the Hill", by Patrick McDonnell, Nevada Magazine, Sept/Oct 1998, v.58 no.5, p. 84