Old Main is an historic building located on the

Iowa Wesleyan University Iowa Wesleyan University is a private university in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. It is Iowa's first co-educational institution of higher learning and the oldest of its type west of the Mississippi River. The institution is affiliated with the United Me ...

campus in

Mount Pleasant, Iowa Mount Pleasant is a city in and the county seat of Henry County, Iowa. The population was 9,274 in the 2020 census, an increase from 8,668 in the 2010 census. It was founded in 1835 by pioneer Presley Saunders. History The first permanent s ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Built in 1854, when James Harlan was the college's president, it is the second building constructed on the campus after Pioneer Hall. It is believed that Old Main was the first genuine collegiate building built in Iowa. The bricks for the building were manufactured locally by Benjamin Franklin Pearson of

Keosauqua, Iowa Keosauqua ( ) is a city in Van Buren County, Iowa, United States. The population was 936 at the time of the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Van Buren County. History Keosauqua was laid out in 1839. The word Keosauqua derives from the Me ...

, who also was responsible for some of the building's construction. with The three-story building has modified classical features. It was designed to have classrooms on the first two floors and the library, natural history museum and chapel on the third floor. The building is capped with a

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

with bracketed eaves, and a wooden

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...

with a low dome painted gold. The International P.E.O. Sisterhood was founded in the building. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1973.

References

School buildings completed in 1854 Buildings and structures in Mount Pleasant, Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Henry County, Iowa University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa University and college academic buildings in the United States Iowa Wesleyan University {{Iowa-struct-stub