150 Years — A Historic Postcard Slideshow of Campus

This postcard, postmarked 1913, depicts three of Grinnell’s most famous “ghost buildings.” From left: Chicago Hall, Blair Hall, and Alumni Hall. The rear of Goodnow is visible in the background, just to the right of Chicago Hall. Blair Hall is often considered one of Grinnell’s most beautiful structures.

Grinnell House, a stately Georgian structure at the corner of Park Street and Fifth Avenue, served as the home of Grinnell College’s presidents from 1917 to 1961. John H.T. Main was the first president to live in Grinnell House. Today it is a guesthouse for the College.

This rebuilt barracks building was moved to Grinnell from the Sioux City Air Base and served as Grinnell’s student union from 1947 through 1963, when the Forum opened.

Rand Gymnasium was built in 1897 and given to the women of the College by Carrie Rand, instructor in social and physical culture at Grinnell. In his history of the College, Joseph Wall ’41 wrote about the restrictions placed on women students’ physical activity: “Properly attired in heavy, many-layered, and restrictive garments, women could find physical exercise only in the decorous, ladylike strolls, like nuns always in pairs. … That the females survived this restrictive regimen designed to protect their innate weakness is, ironically, testimony to the strength of their constitutions.” Rand Gymnasium burned down in 1940.

This reunion picnic in 1912 brought together alumni from the class of 1907. The picnic fare probably featured box lunches — see the many boxes scattered about. The Men’s Gym is visible in the background.

The cornerstone of the Men’s Gym was laid during Commencement in 1899. It would be known as the Women’s Gym after Darby Gym was completed in the mid-1940s.

Construction of the South Campus dormitories and Quad Dining Hall, circa 1915. President John Main dreamed of a residence hall system at Grinnell that would resemble the Oxford system, offering men and women a campus where they could live in small “homes” that would foster the community he deemed essential to the education of young people.

This postcard image of the brand-new South Campus dormitories reveals a tennis court in the foreground. Tennis was considered “the ideal sport” by Grinnellians around the turn of the 20th century, according to Grinnell College in the 19th Century by Joseph Wall ’41. An 1890 report to the trustees asserted that tennis is a “peculiarly healthful amusement — adapted to both sexes — free from muscular injury and over-exertion incident to baseball and football.”

Main Hall, circa 1915, still under construction. The new women’s Quadrangle was dedicated later that year with the ceremonial “lighting of the fires.” President Main handed a lighted torch to physics faculty member and Dean of Women Fanny Gates. From the torch, six tapers were lit and handed to six women students, one for each cottage, to kindle the fires in the new hearths.

Railroad tracks brought bricks and other materials to the construction site for the North Campus dormitories, which welcomed their first (male-only) residents in 1917. Ernest Jaqua 1907, assistant to President John Main, wrote, “We are planning Grinnell’s growth not for the next few years, but for 10, 50, and a hundred years.”

Originally published as an online web extra for The Grinnell Magazine, Winter 2009. Images of postcards courtesy of Mickey Munley ’87.