This decapitated building may look ready for the scrap heap, but sentimental Nebraskans would indignantly refuse to have it scrapped, for it is the remains of the original campus building. Once it housed the university entire, even offering sleeping room on the two upper stories for men students.

First recollection invoked is of “Miss Bishop,” Bess Streeter Aldrich’s filmed story of primitive university life, which had its premiere in Lincoln. Another is Oscar Wilde’s visit to the university in the eighties. There, garbed in his eccentric finery, he walked unhappy as a strange cat, distressed by the uncouthness of Nebraska and its university and especially by the ugly castiron stove which heated the premises. After expressing this distress, along with his regular lecture, Wilde, in knee breeches, buckled slippers and velvet coat, shuddered his way back to the Arlington hotel, 841 Q, and was soon lost to this region forever. Nobody was depressed over his disapproval and irrepressible Journal reporters put him and the castiron stove into facetious rhyme.

The cornerstone for U hall was laid Sept. 23, 1869, with ceremonies—Masonic ceremonies, in fact. An Omaha brass band led a procession and a thousand people banqueted—which must have more than depopulated residential Lincoln—then danced until 4 in the morning.

Lumber for the building was shipped from Chicago to Nebraska City and thence came slowly over the hills in wagons. Brick was burned in a kiln on Little Salt creek. On Jan. 6, 1871, the doors swung open and in walked ninety young men and women. Rumors that the building was unsafe continued off and on for fifty years. Every now and then some propping was done. Finally the two top floors and belltower were taken off, but classes are still held on the remaining first floor.