Engineer Richard D. Kimball and his firm helped design Dartmouth’s Heating Plant and original network of steam pipes in the mid-1890s. It turns out that RDK Engineers is still around and claims that its project at Dartmouth was the first underground steam distribution system in the country.

The 2001 Arts Center Infrastructure Analysis (pdf) by Rogers Marvel with Ove Arup suggests that the heat plant eventually move to Dewey Field, north of the Medical School. That would allow the Hood Museum or other arts functions to take over the old plant building.