Many of the earliest homes to the natural science programs and their collections were small wooden buildings that were notorious for catching fire.

In the fall of 1908, five architect's proposal's were presented to the president and department heads of the time, who decided on a design by Clarence P. Hoyt of Boston.

[1] Built in 1910 as this biological sciences building, Fernald Hall would become the permanent home for the Massachusetts Agricultural College's expanding entomology department.

The hall was dedicated to longtime faculty member and economic entomologist Charles H. Fernald in March 1921, even though the college had a rule that no buildings were to be named for a person until after their death; on January 7, 1921, President Kenyon L. Butterfield and the trustees of the college waived that rule in order to tell Fernald, who was in very poor health at the time, about the future naming of the building.

[2] Within the year of the building's completion, the college constructed the apiary to serve as a laboratory where bees could be raised without causing the potential problem of stings and swarming.