Baker University - Wildcat Yearbook (Baldwin City, KS)

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MANHATTAN DISTRICT Presiding Elder, J, R. Madison.

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JUNCTION CITY DISTRICT Presiding Elder, S, Alonzo Bright.

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fX HISTORY OF THE CAMPUS. Baker University. I became connected with the University in the spring of 1871, but up to 1873, at which date this history begins, the improvements consisted of one building with one :story only completed--now called Science Hall. The history of this building, and it has a most unique one, forms a chapter by itself. and will not be attempted here. A three-board fence enclosed a campus of twenty acres. The native grass had al- most disappeared, and there was not a tree or a shrub to be seen, just a few wild iiowers and a few specimens of the ever-present Kansas sunflower. Not far removed from the northeast corner of the campus there was one small but apparently prosperous village of prairie dogsg possibly they were prairie squirrels. Not far from the northwest corner there was an abandoned well, whether this was dug in territorial times or was one of Major Schoiie1d's sites for a fountain, or who dug this well, if I ever knew, I can not now recall. There were numerous paths over the campus, leading almost anywhere. Each stud- cnt and professor seemed to have a path of his own, leading to his home or boarding house or elsewhere. Whether this was prophetic of the independence of thought and originality, which has ever been the characteristic of the Baker student, or of the youths hereafter meandering down life's pathway, I a1n not able to say. However that spring the ground was plowed and a crop of oats was grown, not wild oats, that was left for subsequent parties, but genuine graing and at the same time I purchased blue grass seed and sowed it myself and secured a good stand which for many years made a beautiful lawn over a great part of the campus. During the spring of '73 or '74 the ground was prepared and a hedge was planted around the entire campus. Dr. L. B. Dallas was the first to suggest and start this work. XY. Plashet donated the plants and .l. C. Stearns, the father of Mrs. IYeatherby, set and cultivated the hedge. At that time hedges were very popular in Kansas, and Mr. Stearns, though more than seventy-five years old, took great pains and gave many weeks of hard toil in laying it down and trimming it, and finally made it a greatly admired hedge. 30