By the late 1920s, Conant Hall was no longer adequate to accommodate chemistry; James designed a new building for chemistry and agricultural chemistry. Completed after James's death, the Charles James Hall was dedicated at the 1929 fall meeting of the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Conant Hall is now one of the three surviving original buildings of UNH at Durham. The interior has been completely altered since its use by the Department of Chemistry, and today it serves as a classroom and office building. The exterior, however, is remarkably unchanged from its appearance in 1893, when the Department of Chemistry first occupied Conant Hall and when, in subsequent years, James and his students conducted the thousands of manipulations needed to complete rare earth separations. Conant Hall and Durham became known worldwide among chemists as a center of rare earth research.