Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/262

 228 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO fitted up for the physical culture work of women. In a portion of the east front was the printing-office of the University Press. South of this was a large room where the General Library was placed. The western section, south of the women's gymnasium, formed the men's gymnasium. This was divided into a locker room and the gymnasium proper. Around the walls of the latter, a dozen feet above the floor was a running- track, at that time "the best indoor running track in the West, twelve laps to the mile." On this track many great contests took place before excited throngs of students and other enthusiasts crowding the floor below. This temporary structure cost twenty-five thousand, two hundred and eight dollars, and was a good investment. Although constructed very cheaply, and, contrasted with the other buildings, a blot on the landscape, it served its generation of students most usefully. When the noble tower group of buildings and the splendid Bartlett Gymnasium were planned its day was over. In the spring of 1901 the northern part of the building, the women's gymnasium, was torn down to make room for the foundations of Hutchinson Hall and the Mitchell Tower, and the summer of 1903 saw the rest of it demolished and removed to give an unobstructed approach to the Reynolds Club House and Mandel Assembly Hall, which were then approaching completion. In connection with the raising of the million-dollar building fund, four women contributed fifty thousand dollars each for dormitories. The contribution of Mrs. Henrietta Snell was designated by her for a dormitory for men. She wished it to be a memorial of her husband, Amos J. Snell. Contracts for the erection of Snell Hall were made in August, 1892, and the hall was occupied by students in April, 1893. Though built for men, it was assigned for the Spring Quarter of that year to the women, whose halls were not ready. There was no Summer Quarter in 1893, and on the opening of the Autumn Quarter the men came into their own. Snell Hall was located on Ellis Avenue south of Fifty-seventh Street. It housed sixty students and cost fifty-three thousand, five hundred and eighty-six dollars. During the first ten years it was the only dormitory assigned to undergraduate men and was a center of University life for the men of the colleges.