A Holiday Time Celebration of Jeft’s Hall Renovations

On Friday, December 18, 2015 an open house celebrating the renovations at Jeft’s Hall took place at Camp Pillsbury.  Originally built in 1911, the renovations began in March after being vacant for several years before being purchased by the current owner, Vonda White.   Formerly a cafeteria and later, the library of Pillsbury Baptist Bible College, the building is now a convention center at Camp Pillsbury for formal events, weddings, conferences, music, and other events.

Jeft’s Hall has a rich history and you can see some pictures of the transformation from a library to what it currently looks like in this article by Kim Hyatt of the Owatonna People’s Press, Holidays and history: Open house to celebrate Jeft’s Hall renovation, history with festive twist.   This article features the history of the hall along with Nancy McGuire’s remembrances from when she worked at college and it’s closing in 2008.

During the event, guests listened to a historic presentation from Jerry Ganfield of the Steele County Historical Society.  He shared interesting tidbits and a time line of the history of the campus.    Kim Hyatt was also at the Open House and wrote this article about the event, Fifty attend Jeft’s Hall Open house.  The article features the event and the renovations that took place for it to look like it does now.

White, who now runs Camp Pillsbury and Pillsbury Prep on the campus, said she had not heard the history of Pillsbury before but found it fascinating.  She hopes to work with Ganfield to create a visual history of Pillsbury to be displayed in Old Main depicting the time line and history of the campus.

The 105 year old building looked wonderful inside and all that is left is some outside work on the tuck point that needs to be done when the weather warms up.  If you would like information about Jeft’s Hall or booking the room for an event, you can contact info@camppillsbury.com.