164 Kansas History “Old Main” at Kansas Colleges: Splendor, Survival, and Loss by Keith L
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Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 38 (Autumn 2015): 164–179 164 Kansas History “Old Main” at Kansas Colleges: Splendor, Survival, and Loss by Keith L. Sprunger hen Bethany College at Lindsborg opened its new building in 1887, five stories high, it was a prairie wonder. A few weeks before the formal dedication, a group of state legislators traveling by train passed through Lindsborg by night. “They were attracted by the sight of a great building illuminated from ‘turret to foundation stone.’ It was Bethany College,” reported the Newton Republican. For the travelers it was an amazing moment: “Beautiful spectacle . a revelation that such an institution existed.”1 The effect, no doubt, Wwas exactly what the college founders had desired—awe and wonder in honor of the school. Bethany exemplified how Kansas colleges used architecture to promote their institutions. Fine buildings glorified the colleges and enhanced their identity, mission, hopes, and aspirations. With its building of quality, Bethany College was making a mark in Kansas. The towering main hall, by college reports, was the tallest building between Kansas City and Denver. Bethany, established six years earlier in 1881 as the Bethany Academy, was already a going concern, but this new building really put Bethany on the map. Kansans from surrounding regions attended the dedication ceremonies and were inspired by the building and the potential of higher education in the state. They returned home “delighted with all they saw and heard.”2 Bethany College could now rightfully claim the central position of Swedish Lutheranism in Kansas, not only educationally, but culturally and religiously. While preserving the best of Swedish traditional ideals, the college also promoted patriotism. The American flag floated briskly over the main building; and, according to the college catalog, Bethany stood without reservation for “the Bible and the Constitution. It is orthodox in its faith; sound in its patriotism.” Emory Lindquist, the historian of Bethany, observed: “The new building loomed large on the landscape of the Smoky Keith L. Sprunger is Oswald H. Wedel Professor of History Emeritus at Bethel College. He has served on the Newton/North Newton Historic Preservation Commission. My thanks to many persons who helped in gathering information for this study, including Peggy Goertzen of the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies at Tabor College, Mary Hester of the McPherson College Library, Denise Carson of the Bethany College Library, Ruth Mirtz of the Kansas Wesleyan University Library, Mary Nelson of Special Collections and University Archives at Wichita State University, Gary Oyer of Hesston College, and John Thiesen of the Mennonite Library and Archives at Bethel College. Also, I received helpful information from John Birger of Development Services/Planning Division of Salina, and Sarah J. Martin and Amanda K. Loughlin from the Kansas Historical Society. 1. Newton Republican, June 10, 1887. 2. Ibid. “Old Main” 165 Valley and in the minds of Bethany faculty, students, and The majority of the colleges in this study began in the friends.”3 1880s, during a time of Kansas prosperity and a statewide Within a few years, other religious denominations building boom. Three (Tabor, Hesston, and Marymount) of central Kansas, following Bethany’s example, built were a little later, coming into existence in the early imposing college structures in towns all over the area. twentieth century. Overall, the central Kansas colleges Colleges and universities in the eastern part of the state are only a fraction of the state’s institutions of higher had been founded two or three decades earlier, but now education. Today Kansas has at least forty-eight two- towns founded in the 1880s competed for colleges, and year and four-year colleges and universities plus some they promised many enticements. Each college began with technical schools.6 a monumental central building. On campus these main To get a church-related college started in nineteenth- buildings often gained the affectionate name “Old Main.” century Kansas, there were three essential needs: raising It was the iconic architectural monument on the campus, money, hiring faculty, and designing the building. The symbolizing in stone the ideals and the aspirations of the building was often the first priority, even before securing founders. Some of these great Kansas structures still exist adequate funding or the beginning of a faculty. With a and continue their historic function of higher education. school building in place, or at least in process, it was Their survival is to be celebrated. Other “Old Mains” easier to attract and inspire donors. have disappeared, examples of unfortunate loss.4 Founders of the colleges wanted to have a building This article will survey the architectural story of “Old that would stand out in a pretentious way, appropriately Main” in ten central Kansas colleges, located roughly in to show that their school and their religion were a a line from Salina south to Wichita. They are: (1) Kansas substantial presence in the state. Swedish Lutherans, Wesleyan University (Methodist) at Salina, (2) Marymount Scottish Presbyterians, German-Russian Mennonites, College (Roman Catholic) at Salina, (3) Bethany College American Methodists, Quakers, and other denominations (Lutheran) at Lindsborg, (4) McPherson College (Church and ethnic groups were speaking out. The founders of the Brethren) at McPherson, (5) Sterling College committed as much money as they could raise, and (Presbyterian) at Sterling, (6) Tabor College (Mennonite) sometimes more, even going into debt to produce the at Hillsboro, (7) Hesston College (Mennonite) at Hesston, desired monumental effect. Commonly, the plans were (8) Bethel College (Mennonite) at North Newton, too grandiose to be achieved in one push, and many years (9) Friends University (Quaker) at Wichita, and (10) were required to bring some of the projects to completion. Fairmount College (originally Congregational), now In Kansas college architecture the preference was for the Wichita State University at Wichita. The three Mennonite neo-medieval, castle-like structures in the style of pointed- colleges represented different conferences within the arched Gothic or round-arched Romanesque (especially broader Mennonite spectrum. All of these central Kansas, the Richardsonian Romanesque). The dominant style in church-related colleges were closely connected, not only Kansas in the 1880s, not only for colleges but for all public by geography but also by commonality of goals and building, according to David H. Sachs and George Ehrlich, programs. Six of the colleges in 1966 formed a consortium was Richardsonian Romanesque.7 This was the case with to facilitate cooperative work, the Associated Colleges of the main buildings at Friends, Fairmount, Bethel, and Central Kansas (ACCK).5 Sterling, and to some extent at Bethany and McPherson. Gothic was also favored. The supreme collegiate Gothic example was the Marymount building, built in the 3. Emory Lindquist, Bethany in Kansas: The History of a College (Lindsborg, Kans.: Bethany College, 1975), 14, 25. 1920s, which Richard Dober described as magnificently 4. Some resources on college architecture, in addition to histories of medieval, lacking only a moat and a drawbridge for the individual colleges, are Richard P. Dober, Old Main: Fame, Fate, and achieving medieval Gothic perfection.8 In our study of Contributions to Campus Planning and Design (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Society for College and University Planning, 2006) and the online Council of Independent Colleges Historic Campus Architecture Project (HCAP). Eight Kansas colleges are included in the online national collegiate 6. Information from Douglas Penner, president of the Kansas architectural project: Baker, Bethel, Friends, McPherson, MidAmerica Independent College Association and Fund, email message to author, Nazarene, Southwestern, Tabor, and the University of St. Mary. Also March 9, 2012. very useful is the online Kansas Historic Resources Inventory (KHRI) 7. David H. Sachs and George Ehrlich, Guide to Kansas Architecture and the National Register of Historic Places survey, both provided by (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996), 21. See also Richarad J. the Kansas State Historical Society. Cawthon, “Richardsonian Architecture Exemplified in Many Kansas 5. The colleges of the ACCK are Kansas Wesleyan, Bethany, Sterling, Buildings,” Kansas Preservation 6 (January–February, 1984): 1–3. McPherson, Tabor, and Bethel. 8. Dober, Old Main, 110. 166 Kansas History Kansas City architect Charles Ashley Smith achieved “medieval gothic perfection” in 1922 with the construction of the administration building at Marymount College in Salina, Kansas. Featuring six grand towers, college officials once boasted that it was the largest building west of the Mississippi. Although the Catholic college it served no longer exists, the building remains in use as office space. Kansas colleges, the only strongly neoclassical structure The original Bethel College plans called for a substantial was Tabor’s “replacement” Old Main of 1920. central tower, but because of Mennonite frugality and A lofty bell tower added heft and prominence and for shrinking funds, Bethel officials eliminated the tower this reason was much desired for the new buildings. The from its architectural plans and also lopped off the Friends building had a commanding tower of 148 feet, the intended fourth floor. These steps somewhat diminished most