Manhattan ? The restoration of a set of Depression-era murals at Kansas State University is completed.

Age and water damage had left the David Hicks Overmyer murals in the Reading Room at Hale Library in need of repair. A previous restoration effort also contributed to the problems. One issue was that the color and dimension of a pumpkin in the “Agriculture” mural was inconsistent with other parts of the mural.

Because the murals depict the university’s four colleges at the time, there also were murals named “Mechanics,” for engineering and industry; “Arts”; and “Home,” for home economics.

The Friends of the K-State Libraries paid for the bulk of the restoration cost. A crew has worked on the murals on and off for the last four years.