Archives West Finding Aid

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The columns were part of the original University of Washington campus in downtown Seattle. A low, stone stairway vanishing into the trees leads to the Sylvan Theater, the site of early-day graduation ceremonies. This now tree-enclosed hideaway is a grassy stage set with the four white columns that once graced the front stoop of the original university building. In 1908, when the original structure was about to be razed, Edmond S. Meany (head of the History Department and one of the university's first graduates) sought to save the old building by having it moved to the new campus. Eventually, the hand-fluted cedar columns were preserved and erected at the new site by the Class of 1911. Sentimental Edmond Meany and his colleague Dean Herbert T. Condon dubbed the Ionic pillars "Loyalty," "Industry," "Faith," and "Efficiency," the first letters spelling "LIFE." As life would have it, "Loyalty" sustained three fractures when it blew down in February 1930. Later that year "Efficiency" toppled in high winds but was not damaged. The columns are now supported by steel angle arms set in concrete. History buffs may be disillusioned to know that the scrolls atop the 24-foot columns are fiberglass, molded in 1958 from the original hand-carved pine scrolls, by then cracked and weathered beyond repair.

Condon Hall is now known as Gowen Hall.

Philosophy Hall is now known as Savery Hall.

Physics Hall is now known as Mary Gates Hall.

Condon Hall is now known as Gowen Hall. Philosophy Hall is now known as Savery Hall.

The Women's Gymnasium is now known as Hutchinson Hall.

Denny Hall is the oldest, and was originally the only, building on campus. It contained laboratories, a teaching museum for natural sciences, classrooms, 10 recital halls, faculty and regents rooms, the president's office, and a 736 seat assembly hall. The building, designed in the French Renaissance style with round turrets and candle-snuffer roofs, was built of Tenino sandstone and pressed brick. Students and faculty used it for the first time in September 1895. It was named for Arthur Denny, the pioneer who donated 8 2/3 acres of the University's original 10-acre downtown tract. Denny Hall is now home to the Departments of Anthropology, Classics, Germanics, and Near Eastern Languages and Civilization. Crowning Denny Hall is the belfry containing "Varsity Bell," which was brought around the Horn of South America in the winter of 1861-62 for installation in the original Territorial University building. In its years at the downtown site the bell pealed for weddings, tolled for funerals, guided ships to safe harbor in foggy weather, warned of the anti-Chinese riots of 1886, and signaled the start of the great Seattle fire of 1889. Today, it is rung only at Homecoming. This item is not colored.