As many of you know, Denny hall is UW’s first structure that was built back in 1894. It was named after Arthur Denny (the person who donated the space for the construction of the building). Although the building was initially called “Administration building” it changed to “Denny” since he was the one who donated and cleared the land for the construction of the building. The architect responsible for its construction was Charles W. Saunders. I found some of his architectural drawings of the rear north elevation that date back to 1894. Charles designs or architectural style is French Renaissance. I posted some actual images of the building being constructed during that time.

Architectural Drawings (Denny Hall)

Construction site (Denny Hall)

A few years after its construction, I found images of a large auditorium that was located at the bottom floor of the building which dates back to 1905. The building had a total capacity of 600-800 students. The interior of the building also included a large library which was the only one available on campus at the time. According to the information that I found, the library system contained about 6000 volumes.

Auditorium (Denny hall)

Library (Denny Hall)

The building also contained different exhibits and science labs owned by the young naturalist society. The collection included different rock specimens (geology), small section on native American artifacts and animals (ducks, crabs). these collections were eventually moved to another building (i.e. Burke museum) in 1962.

Exhibit (Denny hall)

Exhibit part 2 (Denny Hall)

Exhibit part 3 (Denny Hall)

Although I found a wide variety of resources (e.g. articles about the building, pictures of the construction, architectural drawings, images of the interior and exterior part of the building as well as students) I couldn’t find maps of the land. I found multiple images of the building at different times but I noticed that the land looks significantly different in some of them. Maps could help me understand how the landscape changed over time.

Resources:

https://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcollections/collections/exhibits/site/bldgs

http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=2565

http://opb.washington.edu/sites/default/files/opb/Architecture/ULAC%202007-11-30%20Denny%20Hall%20Site%20Program.pdf

http://kuow.org/post/founding-university-washington-one-student-time

http://www.oregonlive.com/travel/index.ssf/2013/09/university_of_washington_campu_1.html

http://www.lochkelden.org/historic-photos.htm