This building was erected for the University of Detroit when the school's campus was located downtown.

The school was founded as Detroit College by the Jesuits in 1877 and incorporated in 1881. Its Engineering College traces its roots back to 1878.

With a growing alumni base and an increasing need for higher education in Detroit, the college allowed its charter to expire in 1911, and the school was reorganized under the name the University of Detroit.

With increasing enrollment and demand for engineers amid Detroit's manufacturing boom, the university hired architect Oscar C. Gottesblen to design a new home for its Engineering Department on the south side of East Jefferson Avenue, just east of St. Antoine Street.

On March 8, 1915, steam shovels began excavating for the new building, and it would be completed on Sept. 10 of that same year. This Collegiate Gothic structure was the third building added to the school's campus, being located across Jefferson Avenue from the other two.

The four-story structure cost about $160,000 to build and equip. A gift from the Dinan brothers to the school's Engineering Fund led to the building being named after them. John and Mike Dinan were brothers who became millionaires in the grocery store business. "They stayed bachelors and lavished their love - and money - on their old college," the Detroit Free Press wrote Oct. 5, 1958. The Dinans also bought farmland at Six Mile and Livernois for $120,000 in order for the university to build a new campus.

The new structure was built of reinforced concrete with a front facade made of Bedford stone. It was laid out in an I shape, with a front footage of 100 feet, extending back 200 feet to Woodbridge Street. The front of the first floor housed offices and the building's lobby, as well as two engineering labs. The second floor was entirely dedicated to classrooms. The third featured general physics and electrical physics labs, two physics lecture rooms, four classrooms and the engineering section of the university's library. The fourth floor was where the inorganic chemistry and chemical analysis labs were located, as well as a lecture room connected to each.

From an architectural engineering standpoint, it was worth noting that the front facade was an independent piece of self-supported masonry, resting entirely on its own foundation.

In 1916, the university's Arts and Sciences, Law and Engineering departments moved in.

The Engineering School offered alternate weeks spent in the classrooms and manufacturing plants of Detroit. This not only gave them hands-on training, but also allowed them to help pay for their schooling.

By 1922, it was home to the Detroit School of Commerce and Finance, as well as a commercial art design program and aeronautical laboratories.

In 1927, the university moved most of its programs to Livernois at McNichols Road, but it continued to operate classes and programs out of this building as part of its downtown campus. In the 1940s, the building was home to the University of Detroit's Workers Educational Program, offering courses about such topics as organized labor and problems of industrial democracy.

By the mid-1950s, the building was home to the university's dental school. But by 1957, the planned Reuther Freeway (I-375) made it clear that Dinan Hall was in the way of so-called progress. In June 1963, the Board of Wayne County Road Commissioners put out a request for bids to demolish 630 E. Jefferson to make way for on-ramps to I-375.