TOWN AND CAMPUS
It was a happy stroke of fortune that fixed Ann Arbor as the location of
the University of Michigan. A literal interpretation of history may
suggest that politics and speculation had their share in the selection
of the site, but these factors might have operated quite as easily in
favor of some other Michigan village. The fact remains that Ann Arbor
was chosen. This assured to the University an individuality and an
opportunity for self-realization that might have been lost if a town
destined to a more rapid expansion had been selected. It has given
Michigan a special character among most of the larger American
universities and has had a vital influence on the development of the
institution, which has grown proportionately far more than the town. The
result has been that Ann Arbor has become one of the most attractive
academic centers in the country, with a distinctive charm in her homes
and shady streets, that strikes the visitor no less than the beauty of
its location and the dignity of many of its public buildings.
Ann Arbor lies in the rolling country of Southern Michigan, thirty-eight
miles west of Detroit, in the quietly picturesque valley of the Huron
River. The University and a good part of the present town lie upon the
top and slopes of a gentle hill which falls away to the valley levels on
all sides except toward the northeast. From this situation arises one of
the characteristic features of Ann Arbor; the ever-present glimpses of
distant hills covered with rolling farm lands and woodlots, toward
which almost any of the longer streets lead the eye.
At the time the University was established the flow of immigration from
the East was at high tide. Ann Arbor had already become one of the
progressive and settled communities of the new State; but farther to the
West other districts were constantly being opened and towards them a
steady stream of settlers pressed on. One of the early inhabitants of
Ann Arbor has given us a picture from his boyhood memories, of the long
line of wagons filled with household goods and drawn by horses and oxen,
which sometimes stretched along the pike as far as the eye could reach.
The men who drove these wagons and the women who rode above with the
youngest of their little families were not adventurers; they were
essentially home-seekers. Their strong fiber was shown by their energy
and courage in seeking thus to better their condition in this new
country, which at last had in prospect means of communication with the
seaboard states through the Erie Canal and the railroads soon to be
built. It was settlers with this stuff in them who gave to the
University of Michigan the support that spelled success instead of the
failure which had attended many similar efforts.
The very name, Ann Arbor, recalls an idyll of pioneer life. It sketches
in a picture that is no doubt more charming than the bitter mid-winter
reality faced by the first two families, whose tents were pitched in a
burr-oak grove beside a little stream flowing toward the nearby Huron.
John Allen of this party, a vigorous young Virginian, was the driving
force which first turned the tide of settlement toward Ann Arbor. By
chance, on his way West, he met E.W. Rumsey and his wife in Cleveland
and induced them to come with him to Michigan. They drove overland and
arrived at the site of their future home some time in February, 1824. A
tent and sled box set over poles with blankets for sides formed the
first dwelling, and here some months later Allen welcomed his wife,
whose name was Ann. Mrs. Rumsey's name also happened to be the same, and
when in the spring the grape vines spread their leaves over the
neighboring trees, these first settlers found a little natural arbor,
which they called, doubtless at first in jest, "Ann's Arbor." The name
persisted, however, and it was formally adopted by general acclamation
at a celebration held on the fourth of July, 1825, when some three
hundred persons sat down to a dinner at Rumsey's coffee-house. So far
had civilization progressed in a little over a year. By that time there
were nine log houses in the little settlement, which had already begun
to take its place as one of the way-stations in the general tide of
westward travel. For some time, however, communication with Detroit was
difficult, and it was not until two years before the University was
opened that the long-awaited railroad actually reached Ann Arbor.
Therefore, for many years the little settlement had to be largely
self-supporting. Such water power as the Huron could furnish was quickly
developed; sawmills, gristmills, and a little later, woolen mills arose
at favorable sites, the ruins of which are still to be seen where the
relics of the dams now serve as hazards for the venturesome paddler.
The first tendency of the inhabitants was to settle on the rise above
the little stream; known as Allen's Creek, which furnished the water
supply for the earliest pioneers. This rivulet, practically hidden
nowadays, runs through the city on a course roughly parallel with the
Ann Arbor Railroad tracks. The site of the burr-oak grove and the
original encampment was almost certainly on the hillside on the south
side of Huron Street, a block or so west of Main Street. This was
reported to be an old dancing ground of the Pottawatomies, and an Indian
trail used to run to the Huron along the stream. Rumsey built a log
cabin on this spot immediately and established in it a resting-place for
travelers, known far and wide as the Washtenaw Coffee House. The second
building was erected by Allen on higher ground at what is now the corner
of Huron and Main streets. It was painted a bright red and the place for
some time went by the name of "Bloody Corners." At one time the two
apartments of the little log house held fourteen men and twenty-one
women and children, divided into family groups by the simple expedient
of hanging blankets. In what seems now an incredibly short time life was
moving in organized channels. A store was opened in September, and
others soon followed; more buildings were erected; a physician or two
swelled the population; in a little over two years a county court was
established; and finally, in 1833, the village was incorporated.
For many years the little town was divided into two separate districts
by the Huron River, and a determined effort arose to make the section on
the north side the main business and residential quarter. This was not
to be; though the old business blocks still stand across the Broadway
bridge, and many of the finer homes of that period, now falling into
decay, remain on the hills along the turnpikes to Plymouth and Pontiac.
It was probably not until the location of the University was fixed that
the center of Ann Arbor's population began, very slowly at first, to
turn to the south and east, and mounted the slopes of the hill upon
which the University stands. Certain it is that for years the Campus
was practically in the country, and only gradually did the dwellings of
the townspeople rise in the neighborhood. Aside from the University
there was nothing east of State Street, except an old burying ground and
one dwelling, occupied by the ubiquitous Pat Kelly, whose freedom of the
agricultural privileges of the Campus made him quite as important a
financial factor of the community as the members of the Faculty he
served.
To the north was a district known as the "commons." Professor Ten Brook
tells how he was accustomed every Sunday morning on his way to church in
lower town, to strike across this open place to the ravine just west of
the present hospital buildings up which Glen Avenue now passes. Coming
out on Fuller Street, the river road, he passed the old Kellogg
farmhouse, the only home until within a few blocks of the church across
the river. Lower town was but little smaller then than in these days; it
had its own schools as well as churches and when Ann Arbor received a
city charter in 1851 it held aloof for some time. The original
settlement about the Court-House Square extended no further to the west
than Allen's Creek for many years, while there was little to the south
of the present William Street save scattered farmhouses and a large
brickyard.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF ANN ARBOR
Across the valley of the Huron--The hospital buildings with the
University beyond]
In the beginning Ann Arbor was solely a farming community, a character
it retained essentially until the increasing number of manufacturing
plants in recent years has somewhat changed its aspect. The first
inhabitants were almost entirely New Englanders, true Yankees in faith,
resourcefulness, and business enterprise. But it was not long before
immigrants of another type began to arrive; South Germans, who had left
their native land to seek homes in the freer religious and political
atmosphere of the new world. They speedily became an important factor in
the growth of the town, as the business names on Main Street nowadays
show; almost all borne by descendants of the early German settlers, who
have for the most part identified themselves wholly with their new home.
This was revealed by the recent war. While there were some who, through
a sentimental attraction for the home of their fathers, stimulated by
the unscrupulous efforts of Germany's representatives, were actively
pro-German in their sympathies or at least violently torn between their
love for the old home and loyalty to the new land, there were many
others, probably the majority, who were out and out loyalists on every
occasion, and who by spoken word and action proved their unhyphenated
Americanism. The brave record of the Ann Arbor men in the Civil War, and
in France a half century later, where several of foreign parentage lost
their lives, is ample proof of the solid qualities in this element among
Ann Arbor's first inhabitants.
Whatever their parentage or creed, the dwellers in the little double
community saw to it from the first that, at least in some measure, the
religious and intellectual needs of the people were satisfied. There is
evidence that occasional religious services were held in 1825, but the
first church, the Presbyterian, was not established until August, 1826.
For some years it was migratory in its meeting places, passing from a
log schoolhouse to a room in "Cook's" hotel and finally in 1829 to the
first church built in Ann Arbor, an unpainted log structure 25 by 35
feet on the site of the present church on Huron Street. The other
denominations quickly followed this example and by 1844 there were six
churches to serve the needs of the 3,000 inhabitants of the village, as
well as the surrounding countryside, including the first Lutheran church
for the German-speaking settlers in Michigan.
The journalist also appeared on the scene in this prologue to the drama
of the University's history. Less than six years after the arrival of
the first settlers, the first number of the _Western Emigrant_ appeared
on October 18, 1829. Like all country journals of that period it was far
more interested in national politics and even foreign affairs than local
events; any one who searches for a chronicle of the daily life of those
times finds scant reward in the columns of these papers. Even so
important an event as the first meeting of the Regents is dismissed with
a brief paragraph which throws no light on many interesting questions
raised by the official report of that gathering. Yet such slender sheets
as this, which eventually became the _State Journal_, and its Democratic
contemporary, the _Argus_, established in 1835, furnish a picture of the
life of those times in unexpected ways that would greatly surprise their
editors, whose duty, as they saw it, was chiefly to guide the political
opinions of their readers by strong and biting editorials, by long
reports of legislative actions and by publishing the speeches of the
political leaders of their party. The enterprise and industry of the
community shows up well in advertisements, where every form of trade
suitable for such a growing community found representation. One merchant
advertised some 125 packages of fine dress goods from the East in a long
and alluring list anticipating the great celebration over the arrival of
the railroad; another firm, whose specialty was "drugs, paints, oils,
dye-stuffs, groceries," offered its wares "for cash or barter, as cheap
if not cheaper than they can be procured west of Detroit." Cook's
"Hotel" announced a few years later that it had been "greatly enlarged
and fitted up in a style equal to any Public House in the place," and
that its location in the public square was "one of the most pleasant and
healthy in Ann Arbor." The editor of the _Argus_ in 1844 revealed the
secrets of his business office in the following double-column notice:
Wood! Wood!
Those of our subscribers who wish to pay their subscriptions in
wood will please favor us immediately.
Professional ethics was not quite so tender a subject in those days as
it is at present, for John Allen announces in 1835 that he maintains a
law office for the convenience of his clients where he may be sought in
consultation, while "Doct. S. Denton," whose subsequent standing as
Regent and Professor was unquestioned, announces on April 2, 1835, that
he
Has Removed his Office to the Court House in the South Room on the
East side of the Hall. Those who call after bed-time will please
knock at the window if the door is fastened.
It is noticeable also that even at this time, ten years after the
village was founded, the spelling, "Ann Arbour," is followed in numerous
places while the _Argus_ in its headline gives it, "Ann-Arbor," with a
hyphen.
As with religion and politics, as represented by the newspapers of the
day, so with education. It is not improbable that one of that group of
nine log cabins which was Ann Arbor in 1825 housed a primary school;
certainly a school taught by Miss Monroe was under way that year at the
corner of Main and Ann streets. This was at first a private venture and
was housed in various places, but in 1829 it was finally moved into a
brick building,--on the jail lot, of all places!--and became a public
enterprise. The children in the community were all small in those
days--there were only 141 children between five and fifteen years in
1839--and it was not for some years that a need for secondary schools
was felt.
The first academy was established in 1829 where Greek and Latin and the
"higher branches of English education" were taught. This was soon
discontinued, to be succeeded by an academy in the rude building which
served the Presbyterian Church. Although this particular school was
short-lived, its successor soon came to be known as the best in the
territory and numbered the sons of many prominent Detroit families among
its pupils. Several schools came in 1835, including an experiment some
distance out what is now Packard Street, known as the Manual Labor
School, in which the pupils paid a part or the whole of their expenses
by daily farm work.
The Misses Page also maintained for many years a very "genteel" young
ladies' seminary, long reckoned a most substantial and worthy school,
where not only the classics, moral philosophy, and literature were
taught, but also heraldry,--an eminently useful branch in a pioneer
community! The lower town district as well was not without its schools
and an academy. Provision was also made for pre-collegiate training
during the first years of the University. So it would appear that on the
whole Ann Arbor was well provided with schools from its earliest days.
The discontinuance of elementary work in the University, however, and a
consolidation of the schools of the two districts finally led to the
establishment of the Union High School in 1853. The first building was
erected at a cost of $32,000 on the present site of the High School and
was opened to students in 1856, while most of the ward buildings were
built during the sixties. Close association with the University
undoubtedly strengthened the Ann Arbor schools, and the High School soon
became, in practice, a preparatory school for the University,
particularly after the organic connection between University and schools
through the diploma system became effective. This enabled the Ann Arbor
High School to become one of the best secondary schools of the State
with an attendance for many years far exceeding the normal enrolment in
other cities of the same population.
While the townspeople have always shown their pride in the University
and their interest in its welfare, Ann Arbor has not escaped entirely
the traditional rivalries between town and gown. The village had a
flourishing civic and commercial life before the first students came;
even after it was established, the University for years was
comparatively small and made no great place for itself in local affairs,
as one may easily surmise by the rare references to it in the early
newspapers. The members of the Faculty, however, were welcomed from the
first as leaders in the community, though perhaps less can be said for
the students, whose irrepressible spirits often led them to carry things
with a high hand. Nor was the younger element in the town blameless. The
result was an occasional crisis which was sometimes serious.
The indignation meeting of the citizens over the modification of the
building program, as well as the similarly expressed support given the
students in the fraternity struggle of 1850, were mentioned in the first
chapter, and evidence a more cordial entente than is suggested by a
serio-comic squabble in 1856 between the students and the Teutonic
element in the town, long known as the "Dutch War." The original
trouble appears to have started in this case with the students, though
it was probably the outgrowth of old animosities between them and the
rougher and foreign elements in the town. For, despite vigorous efforts
on the part of the President and Faculty to enforce the law against the
sale of liquor to undergraduates, many student difficulties were to be
traced to popular downtown resorts maintained largely by the German
inhabitants. On this occasion the trouble started at "Hangsterfer's," in
an altercation between two students, who were making themselves
unpleasant, and the proprietor of the place. The next night the students
returned in force and demanded free drinks, and, upon their being
refused, precipitated a general mêlée in which clubs were used and even
knives were drawn. In the end, the unfortunate owners were chased to the
outskirts of town by the uproarious students.
Bad feeling followed this episode and one night six uninvited students
broke into a ball at "Binders's," where they surreptitiously helped
themselves to the refreshments--presumably liquid. One of them was
captured and only released after planks had been brought to batter down
the brick walls of the building and a squad of medical students, armed
with muskets, had arrived on the scene. Warrants were sworn out for the
six the next day, but the officers were foiled by exchanges of clothing,
by the culprits never eating in the same place twice, by their
substituting for one another in recitations with the tacit approval,
apparently, of their instructors, and by concealment in the Observatory,
or, in the case of three of them, in a Regent's house. Finally two
students were sent down to the scene of the battle to buy liquor, and
with this as evidence, a sufficient case against the proprietor was
secured to induce him to withdraw his complaints. This ended the "war."
Equally objectionable to the Ann Arbor citizens, though more excusable
perhaps, was the standing protest of the students at the condition of
the wooden sidewalks in the town, whose improvement apparently formed no
part of the programme for civic betterment on the part of the good but
conservative burghers. The students therefore constantly took matters in
their own hands and about once in so often the offending rickety planks
went up in flames. The class of '73 thus celebrated after its
examinations in the spring of 1870. Their raid on the sidewalks had been
unusually comprehensive and the city fathers became thoroughly aroused.
Arrests were threatened, and serious trouble was certain, when Acting
President Frieze settled the matter by paying the $225 damages out of
his own slenderly lined pocket. This the offending class eventually made
up to him by laying a tax upon its members, doubtless to the great
disgust of the innocent ones, "who thought bad form had been displayed
somewhere." This experience, however, by no means ended the practice,
which continued down to the present day of flag and cement. The
_Chronicle_ once even took occasion to point out certain places where--
If the freshmen _insist_ upon celebrating their transition state by
the customary hints to citizens in regard to side-walks, etc., we
think we cannot do better than call their attention to a wretched
collection of rotten planks which lie along the fence on Division
Street, not far from William.
The local police force has always been fair game for the students, a
position "he" (to use the long-standing quip) did not always appreciate.
Gatherings of students in the streets were at one time looked upon with
great disfavor, while the daily "rushes" at the old post-office, before
the days of carrier delivery, were particularly prolific sources of
trouble. The office before 1882 was especially inconvenient, and when
the officers, warned by previous trouble, proposed to allow students to
enter only one at a time, which meant that many would go without their
mail, a disturbance threatened at once, and several were arrested. The
next night matters proved even more serious; the fire-bell called out
the state militia, who charged with fixed bayonets and wounded several
persons. A dozen students were jailed indiscriminately but no one could
be found to prefer charges the following morning. Suits for false
imprisonment were brought against the city and mayor but were eventually
discontinued on the advice of Judge Cooley.
In November, 1890, even more serious trouble arose following another
series of arrests for post-office "rushing." During the evening sounds
of rifle shots were heard, and the students, already excited, scented
more trouble. They gathered in a great crowd in front of the house where
the firing had occurred but found that it was only a wedding
celebration. Then, with characteristic good nature, they called for a
speech, but their intentions were misinterpreted, and when the militia,
who had attended the wedding in a body, marched out the students
followed them with jokes and jeers. Finally the militiamen lost patience
and charged with clubbed guns, and one quiet student who had been
apparently only a spectator, was felled to the ground and afterward died
of his injury. The sergeant in charge of the soldiers was also seriously
injured. In this instance the students were guilty of nothing but noise,
while the militia were acting entirely contrary to the law.
Nevertheless, though eight men were arrested, the blame could not be
fixed on any one man. The Governor of the State, however, disbanded the
company for its unsoldierly conduct.
[Illustration: ALONG THE HURON
A glimpse of Ann Arbor's park system]
While the growth of the University of late years would suggest a
corresponding increase in such troubles as have been described, the
actual development has been quite otherwise, and serious clashes between
students and townsfolk have been very rare in recent years. There have,
it is true, been occasional raids on street-cars and signs; students
have been arrested for playing ball on the streets; and sometimes
political meetings have been disturbed. One of the most amusing
incidents of this character was an address given by W.J. Bryan in 1900
from the portico of the Court House. Wild cheering greeted him as he
rose to speak, which lasted for at least fifteen minutes. At first he
was obviously greatly flattered; then he began to suspect something was
not quite right and majestically raised his hand for silence. Instantly
every student waved his hand in response, and the exchange was continued
for some time. Meanwhile the police force was busy dragging off to jail
any unlucky student on the outskirts of the crowd they could lay hands
on. When the speaker was at length able to make himself heard his first
words, somewhat unfortunate under the circumstances, were, "If I were an
imperialist I would call out an army to suppress you. But I am not."
It may be said, therefore, that in spite of these occasional troubles
the relations between town and gown have been on the whole surprisingly
normal and friendly when we consider that at present over one-fourth of
the total population of Ann Arbor during term-time is composed of
students. This cordial relationship is undoubtedly fostered by the fact
that all the men and many of the women outside the fraternities, live
in rooms rented from the townspeople. The extent to which this system
has developed is probably unique in any American university of the same
size. Only very recently has there been any modification of the
tradition, in the erection of women's dormitories and a promise of
similar buildings for the men.
While this arrangement is not ideal in many ways, for the students do
not always secure the clean and attractive quarters they are properly
entitled to have, it has been undoubtedly a great advantage to the
University in relieving it of the expense and trouble of maintaining
dormitories, at a time when every dollar of resources, to say nothing of
the energies of the officers, was necessary to maintain the University's
work. It is only natural, however, that many disputes between students
and landladies should arise, particularly when the rooming and boarding
houses are not supervised by the University: This is the case with the
men. For some time the women in the University have been allowed to live
only in approved rooming houses. The Health Service has also undertaken
to inspect all the student boarding houses in an effort to ensure
wholesome food and to maintain a definite standard of cleanliness.
Whatever the minor sources of friction that have arisen between the
students and townsfolk of Ann Arbor, however, the substantial
friendliness of the citizens and their pride in the University have
always been one of its great assets through its years of development.
The promoters of the hastily organized land company through whose
efforts Ann Arbor was made the site of the future University builded
better than they knew. Their venture was probably not a particularly
profitable one, for the rapid growth they had expected did not
materialize. But their prompt action and foresight assured the
institution a normal and healthy environment comparatively free from
political and commercial influences. There are, undoubtedly, certain
advantages which come to the modern university in a larger city, which
becomes in a way a laboratory for various forms of scientific
investigation; but the disadvantages are no less obvious. The life of
the students becomes more complicated; social distractions and
amusements are apt to offer too great temptations; the simplicity of
academic life is lost; while the personal relations between Faculty and
student become more perfunctory. Thus by her very situation Michigan has
been able to retain, in spite of her extraordinary growth in recent
years, something of that fine flavor of college life which has always
been the essence of our best academic traditions.
In the first days the Campus was only a backwoods clearing with lines of
forest oaks on the east and south, the fence-rows of the Rumsey farm,
and from it the stumps of the original forest trees had to be removed
before the University was opened. For many years it was, to all intents,
a farm lot upon which a few scattered buildings were to be seen. The
early Regents and Faculty were necessarily occupied with pressing
practical problems, and the first steps toward rendering the Campus more
attractive were very casual and ineffective. The sum of $200 was given
Dr. Houghton for the planting of trees in 1840 but action was delayed
because of Pat Kelly's wheat, and when eventually the trees were
planted--tradition has it they were locusts--they were soon destroyed by
insects. Andrew D. White describes the Campus when he came to the
University in 1857 as "unkempt and wretched. Throughout its whole space
there were not more than a score of trees outside the building sites
allotted to professors; unsightly plank walks connected the buildings,
and in every direction were meandering paths, which in dry weather were
dusty and in wet weather muddy."
Yet as early as 1847 the forlorn condition of the Campus began to be
officially noticed; appropriations of small sums were made from time to
time for trees and shrubs and a scheme for the laying out of avenues and
walks and the planting of groups of trees was adopted. Unfortunately,
the trees came before the walks, and as they were all of quick-growing
varieties the effort did not go far. Nevertheless a vision of the
traditional academic grove appeared in the report of the visiting
Committee of that year, which recommended that "regard should be had, in
making the selection, to the cleanliness, desirability, symmetry, and
beauty of foliage of the trees to be planted" and observed that "the
highway of thought, and intellectual development and progress, much of
which is parched and rugged, should, as far as may be, be refreshed with
fountains and strewn with flowers." Truly, an alluring picture! The
Faculty, however, somewhat more practical, insisted on walks, protesting
that they were "obliged before clear day to wend their way to their
recitations through darkness and mud." A similar plan was undertaken in
1854 when citizens, students, and Faculty all joined in the work, the
citizens to set out a row of trees on the farther side of the streets
outside the Campus, while the students and Faculty were to do the same
on the Campus side. Five hundred trees were thus set out within the
grounds while an equal number was added through an appropriation by the
Regents. But apparently small success attended these efforts, for few of
these trees have survived.
It was with the coming of the young Andrew D. White, as Professor of
History, with his youthful enthusiasm and memories of the "glorious elms
of Yale," that the first effective effort for the improvement of the
Campus began. He says, in his Autobiography:
Without permission from any one, I began planting trees within the
university enclosure; established, on my own account, several
avenues; and set out elms to overshadow them. Choosing my trees
with care, carefully protecting and watering them during the first
two years, and gradually adding to them a considerable number of
evergreens, I preached practically the doctrine of adorning the
Campus. Gradually some of my students joined me; one class after
another aided in securing trees and planting them, others became
interested, until, finally, the University authorities made me
"superintendent of the grounds," and appropriated to my work the
munificent sum of seventy-five dollars a year. So began the
splendid growth which now surrounds those buildings.
His example was doubtless infectious, for the Ann Arbor citizens
continued their tree-planting efforts around the outside of the Campus
in the spring of 1858, while a group of sixty trees presented to the
University were set out inside. The seniors of '58 left a memorial in
the shape of concentric rings of maples about a native oak in the center
of the Campus, one of the few survivals of the original forest growth,
which has since become known as the Tappan Oak, and is now marked by a
tablet on a boulder placed there in later years by '58. Many of these
maples still survive, though all traces of the circles are lost. The
juniors also set out another group further to the east, while Professor
Fasquelle planted a number of evergreens east of the north wing to
balance a similar group of Professor White's at the south. The maples
outside the walk on State Street were also the gift of Professor White
and were balanced by a similar row of elms on the inside, given by the
Faculty of the Literary Department. This general interest in Campus
improvement did not escape the Regents and successive appropriations,
though comparatively small, continued the work until Michigan now has,
in the words of the father of the movement, written forty-six years
after his work was undertaken, "one of the most beautiful academic
groves to be seen in any part of the world,"--a monument to him and to
the students of his time.
The development of the building program, if a thing so haphazard can go
by that name, was less fortunate for the University. Only in very recent
years has there been any appreciation of the need of some degree of
uniformity and planning for the future. Many of the present buildings
have been evolved, as the needs of the University grew, rather than
planned, while others have been built to suit the tastes of certain
officers, or the special needs of the departments concerned, with no
reference to the larger unity which has come to be recognized as so
necessary in any group of buildings. Some of the oldest buildings have
gone; in particular the two residences on the north, which became the
old Dental College and the Homeopathic School in their last
incarnations, while the picturesque old Medical Building followed them a
few years later. The two on the south still survive; the President's
House, though often remodeled, still retains its old lines, but the
adjacent building, now known as the Old Engineering Building and used
largely for instruction in modern languages in the Engineering College,
has lost all semblance of its former character.
[Illustration: THE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS IN THE SEVENTIES]
[Illustration: THE CAMPUS ELMS]
Similarly the Law Building has undergone many transformations, while
the old Chemistry Building, now used by the Departments of Physiology,
Materia Medica, and Economics as make-shift quarters, has lost through
successive additions almost all trace of that first little laboratory
which exemplified the progressive spirit of the University in her early
days. The new Chemistry Building on the north side was completed in 1910
and cost with equipment about $300,000. It is four stories high, 230
feet long by 130 feet wide, and is built about two interior courts. The
building contains two amphitheaters, laboratories for organic and
qualitative chemistry, metallurgy, physical chemistry, and gas analysis,
as well as the College of Pharmacy.
Just beside it to the west rises the largest building on the Campus, the
Natural Science Building, which houses the Departments of Botany,
Geology, Forestry, Mineralogy, Zoölogy, and Psychology. This building,
which was something of a departure in laboratory construction when it
was completed in 1916, is built upon the unit system, and consists
essentially of concrete piers, whose uniform spacing divides the rooms
and laboratories into equal units, or multiples, with practically the
total width between piers opening into windows. This is, in effect, a
modern adaptation of the old Gothic principle, though it emphasizes the
horizontal and lacks entirely the buttresses and pinnacles which gave
the medieval church builders their inspiration. It marks, however, a new
era in laboratory construction, for not only are the laboratories
flooded with light, but they are carefully designed for the purpose for
which they are to be used. It is also to be noted that each department
is installed in a complete section of four floors, from basement to top.
The building, which cost $375,000, has about 155,000 square feet of
floor space and like the neighboring Chemistry Building is built about
an open court. The same principle of construction has also been followed
as far as practicable in the new Library Building.
Other buildings on the Campus which have not been mentioned elsewhere
are the Physics Laboratory, the Museum, and Tappan Hall. The Physics
Laboratory was built in 1886-87. Within twenty years it proved
inadequate and in 1905 an addition costing $45,000 became necessary,
which contains among other features a well-equipped lecture room
accommodating four hundred students. Until the completion of the larger
lecture room in the Natural Science Building this was in great demand
for many University lectures. Tappan Hall, a class-room building, in a
portion of which the Department of Education now has its headquarters,
was erected in 1894-95 and stands near the southwest corner of the
Campus just at the rear of Alumni Memorial Hall.
The University Museum was erected in 1881 and stands between University
Hall and Alumni Memorial Hall. It is far from being the most successful
of the University Buildings architecturally, and as it has been for some
time entirely inadequate for the collections it houses, it will not be
many years before the need for a new museum will be presented to the
Legislature. In addition to the offices of the Curator, Professor A.G.
Ruthven, Morningside, '03, and his staff, the building contains the
University's zoölogical and anthropological collections, very popular
with casual visitors to the Campus. The former includes a fine exhibit
of mounted mammals and some 1,600 birds, as well as reptiles, fishes,
mollusks and insects, in all of which particular effort has been made to
show forms native to the State. The Anthropological Collection includes
the entire exhibit of the Chinese Government at the New Orleans
Exposition in 1885, as well as many items from China and the
Philippines, collected by the Beal-Steere Expedition. The collections in
geology, mineralogy, botany, materia medica, chemistry, the industrial
arts, and the fine arts are to be found in the Natural Science Building
and other buildings devoted to these special subjects.
For many years the original forty acres of the Rumsey farm were more
than ample for the needs of the University. The Observatory, the first
building to find a place apart from the Campus, was set upon its hilltop
some distance northeast, because of the need of clear air and quiet;
advantages now almost lost in the proximity of the hospitals, heating
plant, and railroads that portends an eventual change in location. The
Observatory has grown rapidly since its establishment by Dr. Tappan in
1852. The building was last remodeled and enlarged in 1911 when a
reflecting telescope, with a 37-5/8 inch parabolic mirror, largely made
in the shops of the University, was installed. In light gathering power
this instrument is in a class with the Lick and Yerkes refractors, and
it is at least as effective in astronomical photography, the purpose for
which it was designed. The new brick tower, with its copper-covered
dome, rises sixty feet above the basement and is forty feet in diameter.
Just beyond the Observatory, on the crest of the hills defining the
Huron valley, is the largest group of university buildings off the
Campus, the old University Hospitals, which are to be replaced in 1922
by the new Hospital, ground for which was broken in September, 1919.
Following the erection of the first building in 1891 an office building
was added in 1896 to be followed rapidly by other sections, including a
children's pavilion erected in 1901, known as the Palmer Ward, the
bequest of the widow of Dr. Alonzo B. Palmer, who also left $15,000 for
the maintenance of free beds in it. The entire group of buildings
numbers ten, including the State Psychopathic Hospital.
The new Hospital is to be one of the largest and most completely
equipped in America. It is composed of a series of wings taking the
general form of a double letter "Y" connected at the stems, with a
smaller office building in front and a larger wing containing
laboratories, operating and class rooms at the rear. The building is 420
feet long and six stories high with provision for an additional three
stories at some future time. It is built of reinforced concrete upon
regularly spaced piers, and is similar in construction to the Natural
Science Building.
The work of the Homeopathic Department is centered in its fine Hospital
building with an adjacent Children's Ward and Nurses' Home just off the
northeast corner of the Campus. The Dental Building, erected in 1908, is
situated to the west, just across the street from the Gymnasium. It
contains many laboratories and lecture rooms, as well as an operating
room fitted with eighty dental chairs.
Of the other buildings off the Campus, the new Union, Hill Auditorium
and the three dormitories for women are the most conspicuous. The Union,
with its magnificent tower and imposing yet withal beautifully
proportioned masses, has been mentioned as the dominant architectural
feature of State Street. Hill Auditorium, which was made possible by a
bequest of $200,000 left by Regent Arthur Hill, '65_e_, of Saginaw upon
his death in 1909, forms one of the unique features of the University's
equipment. Despite its seating capacity, with the stage, of over 5,000,
it has almost perfect acoustic properties, so that a whisper from the
stage can be heard in any portion of this great hall. Its completion in
1913 enabled the University at last to bring the great part of the
students together under one roof upon such occasions as the annual
convocation, the official opening of the University in the fall. The
problem connected with the admission of relatives and friends of the
graduating classes to the Commencement exercises, which had proved
exceedingly troublesome for many years, was also at last ended; while
the musical interests of Ann Arbor, particularly the annual May
Festival, immediately found an opportunity for further expansion in this
hall, whose advantages as a concert hall were praised by every visiting
musician. The building, which is finished in tapestry brick and terra
cotta, stands opposite the Natural Science Building on North University
Avenue. In addition to the great auditorium, it contains offices and
class rooms, a dressing-room for choruses, and a great foyer across the
front of the second floor, where the Stearns collection of musical
instruments, one of the finest in America, is installed. The great organ
from the Chicago World's Fair is also placed in this building as a
memorial to Professor Henry S. Frieze, the pioneer in Michigan's
development as a musical center.
The University now has four dormitories or halls of residence for women.
Two of them were completed in 1916; the Martha Cook Building on South
University Avenue, given by the Cook family of Hillsdale, in memory of
their mother, and the Newberry Hall of Residence on State Street, a
memorial to Helen Handy Newberry, the wife of John S. Newberry, '47,
given by her children. The Martha Cook Building is probably the most
sumptuous and complete college dormitory in America and cost something
over $500,000. It is an unusually beautiful example of Tudor Gothic,
always a favorite style for college buildings. Simple in its main lines
it reveals an extraordinary perfection in detail as well as comfort in
its appointments and a richness in decoration which cannot but have its
happy influence on the one hundred and seventeen fortunate women who
live there. Less elaborate but equally attractive as a home for the
seventy-five girls it is built to accommodate is the Newberry Building,
which, though smaller and simpler in its architecture, embodies every
essential found in the larger building. It is of hollow tile and stucco
and cost about $100,000. Similar in general plan and appointments,
though built of brick, is the adjacent Betsy Barbour Dormitory, which
was completed in 1920, the gift of Ex-Regent Levi L. Barbour, '63,
'65_l_, of Detroit. It stands on the site of the old ward school
building on State Street, used for many years by the University as a
recitation building, and soon to be razed now the new dormitory, just to
the rear, is completed. Alumnae House, the fourth girls' residence hall,
was, as the name implies, furnished by the alumnae of the University. It
was made over from a quaint old dwelling on Washtenaw Avenue at a cost
of about $18,000, and accommodates sixteen self-supporting students.
A final group of buildings, very necessary in an institution so large as
the University, is composed of the heating and lighting plant, the
nearby laundry in the one-time ravine at the east of the old "Cat-hole,"
and the University shops and storehouse a little distance south. The old
power house near the Engineering Building was abandoned in 1914 when the
new plant, situated on a lower level than the Campus and reached by a
spur from the railroad, was ready for service. It cost approximately a
third of a million dollars, and furnishes heat, compressed air,
electrical energy, and hot water to the Campus and adjacent buildings
through a series of tunnels nearly ten feet high which extend as far as
the Union, half a mile across the Campus.
Aside from the smaller and the more temporary buildings and the many
dwelling houses on property recently acquired, the buildings of the
University number about forty. This does not include the buildings
occupied by the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A., or the Psychopathic Hospital,
the titles to which do not rest with the Board of Regents.
Though the buildings on the Campus have not, until very recently, been
placed with any careful relationship to a general scheme, and exhibit a
very unfortunate lack of architectural harmony, in certain features the
Campus gives promise of better things in the future. Some of the
buildings have real beauty, though it is too often lost in an
unfavorable environment. Charming details are to be found here and
there, while the green canopy of the elms and maples planted sixty years
ago helps to give our academic field a real distinction. Fortunately the
center of the Campus has been left comparatively free of buildings, save
for the rambling old Chemistry Building, now used by the departments of
Physiology and Economics, and the plain but imposing bulk of the new
Library Building, a fitting center whence paths diverge in every
direction to the halls and laboratories along the avenues that mark the
outer confines of the Campus. Lack of funds and the imperative need of
room, and yet more room, for the thousands of new students, has severely
limited the Regents in the matter of adornment of the buildings erected
in recent years, which have all tended to conform to one type, simple,
dignified in their very rectangular bulk, and relieved only by patterns
in tapestry brick and terra cotta trimmings.
Within recent years, too, the new buildings have been carefully placed,
not only with reference to the present Campus, but also the inevitable
northeastward growth of the University toward the hills lining the
river. For some time the Regents have been acquiring scattered parcels
of property as occasion presented, and now own a good share of the land
in the triangle bounded roughly by Hill Auditorium, the University
Hospitals and Palmer Field, an area twice as large as the present
Campus. In addition there is the University Arboretum and Botanical
Gardens, a large area south and east of Forest Hill Cemetery, which is
now linked up by boulevards with the rapidly growing system of city
parks.
A formal entrance to the Campus in the form of a double driveway, laid
out in accordance with a plan prepared in 1906 by Professor Emil Lorch
of the Department of Architecture, and known as the Mall, passes between
the Chemistry and Natural Science Buildings. This forms practically a
continuation of Ingalls Street between Hill Auditorium and a future
companion, possibly a new Museum, which will eventually be built to the
east on the other corner. The impressive vista thus formed leads the eye
to the massive façade of the new Library, though the Campus flagstaff,
some distance in front, now marks the actual end of the new driveway.
The architectural emphasis of the Campus is thus being turned to the
north, but the western, or State Street side still remains the accepted
front, dominated by the old-fashioned but nevertheless stately bulk of
old University Hall. Within a short time State Street has become,
through the fortunate removal of several unsightly old survivals of
earlier days, one of the most beautiful of academic avenues, flanked on
one side by the Campus, with its trees, broad spaces and dignified
buildings, and by a row of public buildings on the western side, which,
though sadly lacking in uniformity, are yet for the most part impressive
and substantial. These include the Congregational Church, the two halls
of residence for women, the older Newberry Hall, a number of fraternity
houses, and particularly the commanding beauty of the Michigan Union.
It is fortunate for the University and the community that the problem of
the future development of the institution in relation to the city is
being carefully considered. The expansion of the Campus to the north and
northeast is now established, and it is probable that at some future
period the Mall, lined with monumental buildings, and laid out in
co-operation with the city, will extend to the river. Ann Arbor has
already taken far-sighted measures in establishing a series of
boulevards and parks along the river with connecting links which will
eventually encircle the town. The extensive University properties in the
Arboretum and Botanical Gardens, which cover the hills defining the
ravine extending from the river to Geddes Avenue, and join the present
enlarged University grounds at the Observatory, form part of this
system. Plans are now under consideration for a rearrangement of
streets, which will afford easier access from the Campus to the
Hospitals and the boulevards and river drives. These will give to this
portion of the future University grounds an irregularity and
picturesqueness wholly lacking on the flat hilltop occupied by the
present Campus. One of the difficulties in this plan is the old
"Cat-hole," the end of a ravine, whose steep hillsides extend from the
river practically to the northeast corner of the Campus. Though this
unsightly boghole has been gradually filled in, it still forms a blot on
the landscape which might, nevertheless, with a little effort and
comparatively small expense, be transformed into a charming open air
theater. This in fact has been recommended by Mr. Frederick Law
Olmstead, the landscape architect, who has made an extensive study of
the whole problem for the city and the University.
It is fortunate for the University that this plan for the future,
tentative though it may be at present, is actually a part of a large
scheme for the improvement of the city, suggested by Mr. Olmstead. Ann
Arbor is fast becoming one of the most beautiful little cities in the
country, with winding streets, shaded by noble maples and elms and many
of the original forest oaks, and lined by substantial homes, charming in
their simple architecture and setting. This development came at first,
as was natural, largely from the Faculty, but an increasing number of
families from Detroit and elsewhere have of late come to make Ann Arbor
their permanent residence, attracted by the unusual beauty of the city
and the advantages afforded by the University. The sightly range of
hills along the Huron between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti and about the new
Barton Pond, two miles to the north and west of the city, recently
developed as a water-power site, are soon to be dotted here and there
with comfortable and attractive country homes, which promise to change
the entire character of Ann Arbor's environs. The little country town of
the past is fast disappearing.
With these plans rapidly evolving there is every reason to hope that, at
no distant period, the University may find an imposing physical setting
more in keeping with her standing among American universities. The
present is an era of transition; as yet she has hardly had time to
adjust herself to the extraordinary growth of the last ten years; still
less to realize all the problems it involves. But it requires no great
vision to see the University of the future occupying at last the heights
overlooking the Huron valley which that unfortunate decision at the
first meeting of the Regents denied to her in 1837.