Whiting Hall the Italianate style building above and below, was originally part of Knox College and functioned as a women’s seminary. The central core is from 1854-7, with the east wing added in 1885 and the west wing added in 1895, when it received its current name. It is now senior housing. The Knox County…
Tag: Universities
Former Lincoln College
On literally the exact day I visited the former MacMurray College in Jacksonville, a victim of declining enrollment and financial troubles, Lincoln College in Lincoln, Illinois announced it would be closing, as well. It’s a similar story as befalls others small colleges, though there’s a criminal twist to Lincoln College: it was a victim of…
Lindell Boulevard from Grand Boulevard to Vandeventer Avenue
Ah, Lindell Boulevard! I avoid the street like the plague because it is such a dysfunctional street. Once a residential street lined with mansions, sometime in the Twentieth Century it became the busiest street in the city. The mansions were demolished, and it became lined with businesses, while the through traffic jumped over to Highway…
Fayette and Upper Iowa University, Revisited
We returned to Fayette, which I looked at back in the fall of 2018. This time, the weather was sunny, and I was able to catch a more cheerful view of the town. I actually photographed this Queen Anne beauty below, which is now an AirBnB where my family stayed during our time in the…
Former MacMurray College, Jacksonville, Illinois
The picturesque church looks like you’re standing in the middle of a Colonial era commons, and Red Coats could march into the middle of the swath of greensward any moment. But in reality, you’re looking at the Annie Merner Chapel, at the former MacMurray college, which closed back in May of 2020. It had opened…
Former Campus of the Principia
I learned recently that the Principia was once located on Page Avenue in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood, so I went and checked out the couple of remaining buildings from that era of occupation. On the northwest corner of the site, at Minerva and Montclair, there is this impressive building, which might have been a gymnasium…
Views of Central St. Louis from St. Louis University Hospital’s Parking Garage
I was checking out the beautiful Emil Frei & Associates stained glass windows in the chapel of the new St. Louis University Hospital, and when I looked out from my perch in the parking garage, I captured the stunning view of the skyline of the central corridor of St. Louis. Above is the Central West…
Former Marthasville Seminary and Emmaus Homes, Spring 2021
Update: The property had been purchased with the intention of being renovated into a hotel by the winter of 2022. But then Hoffman put the property up for sale in October of 2023. It was purchased by a local couple that is now restoring the property. Fast forward to the spring of 2021, and the…
Wild Acres Park, Former Holy Family Seminary
Update: The seminary buildings were demolished in 2023. The former Holy Family Seminary in Overland is now Wild Acres Park, but the buildings are still well-preserved and the grounds well-maintained. They have sort of a 1940s proto-Modernist interpretation of the Spanish Revival, which I sort of like. Like St. Stanislaus Seminary in the Florissant area,…
Former Harris Teachers College
Normal schools, where teachers were trained to teach in primary school education, were located throughout the State of Missouri. My own alma mater, Truman State, was long a teachers college. Harris Teachers College, built according to plans by William B. Ittner in 1905, was the location of the white teachers’ college in St. Louis. The…