KU's First Building
KU's First Morning in 1866
As KU's first building, Old North College will always be an icon of the university's history and its architecture. North College represents the beginning of Jayhawk history.
KU's First Morning in 1866, painted by Streeter Blair in 1958, depicts the universities beginning by illustrating North College, the town of Lawrence, and the Kansas river, as well as KU's first forty students, three professors, and Chancellor Oliver, all precisely accounted for by Blair. The painting pictures Lawrence and its people very different from what they are today; it shows a small and scattered settlement, people dressed in typical clothing of the mid-19th century, and even a one-horse shay.
North College first opened on September 12, 1866 and was financed by Lawrence city funds - some originally intended for building an orphanage after Quantrill's Raid. The brick and stone building was fifty-feet square and three stories high with ten rooms with wood stove in each of them to provide heat, and a cistern to provide water.
KU abandoned North College in 1881 and the state legislature turned it into an "asylum" (school and home) for "feeble-minded" children until 1889. After renovations, North College reopened in 1890 as the law school until 1893, when the fine arts school took residence.
Old North College, Yearbook of 1917
1917 was a significant year for KU's very first building. As the floors started threatening to collapse and the walls started to separate, the structure was condemned by the state architect marking the beginning of North College's end.
Old North College, Yearbook of 1918
Just a year later, in 1918, crews started disassembling the structure. The university repurposed items for other buildings and auctioned off interior woodwork to fund efforts for World War 1. Finally, in 1919 a World War 1 Whippet tank razed the remaining structure during a "demonstration of the effectiveness of modern science."
Images courtesy of University Archives