Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/394

 344 A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO for the Auditor, Registrar, Secretary of the Board, and Superin- tendent of Buildings and Grounds for many years. On the first floor the Press maintained the bookstore for the accommodation of professors and students. The Decennial year, with those immediately preceding and following it, witnessed an extraordinary activity in building opera- tions. In response to Mr. Rockefeller's great proffer of three million dollars, made in 1895, the friends of the University had united in making liberal gifts for new buildings. On December 12, 1899, President Harper informed the Board of Trustees that Mrs. Charles Hitchcock desired to erect a memorial to her husband and was prepared to give to the University a large sum for this purpose. In a letter, dated January i, 1900, Mrs. Hitchcock informed Presi- dent Harper that she would give the University for the purposes she had in mind two hundred thousand dollars, one of these pur- poses being the erection of a memorial hall, and the Committee on Buildings and Grounds was instructed to have plans for the Charles Hitchcock Hall prepared. The plans prepared by D. H. Perkins, architect, were submitted on May 15, 1901, and bids ordered taken. The cornerstone was laid, by Mrs. Hitchcock herself, just one month later June 15, 1901. It had originally been intended that the Hall should cost not to exceed one hundred thousand dollars, but various considerations finally led the donor and the Trustees to increase the cost to a hundred and fifty thousand. Under the careful management of the; Comptroller, Major Rust, the cost was confined to almost exactly this sum, exceeding it by only five hundred dollars. The Hall was completed in September and was occupied by students at the opening of the Autumn Quarter, October i, 1902. Hitchcock was the largest of the residence halls, having not only rooms for ninety-three students, but a club room, infirmary, breakfast room, and a large and beautiful library room. One of the attractive features of the building was the cloister running along the south front and uniting the five divisions of the Hall. Charles Hitchcock, of whom the building is a memorial, was a Chicago lawyer for a quarter of a century. He was made the president of the Constitutional Convention of 1869 which framed