Spooner Hall was built in 1893-94 as the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

' first library building. The

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...

structure was designed by architect

Henry Van Brunt Henry Van Brunt FAIA (September 5, 1832 – April 8, 1903) was a 19th-century American architect and architectural writer. Life and work Van Brunt was born in Boston in 1832 to Gershom Jacques Van Brunt and Elizabeth Price Bradlee. Van Brunt ...

and built with funds bequeathed by William B. Spooner, a Massachusetts leather merchant who had a family connection to the university. As originally built, the building housed a reading room on the ground floor and meeting space on the upper level, with book stacks in a five-story section. Spooner Hall is constructed of rough-faced gray Oread Limestone blocks quarried in the immediate vicinity of

Mount Oread Mount Oread is a hill in Lawrence, Kansas upon which the University of Kansas, and parts of the city of Lawrence, Kansas are located. It sits on the water divide between the Kansas River and the Wakarusa River rivers. It was named after the long ...

. Red

Dakota sandstone The Dakota is a sedimentary rock, sedimentary geologic unit name of Formation (stratigraphy), formation and Group (stratigraphy), group rank in Midwestern North America. The Dakota units are generally composed of sandstones, mudstones, clays, and ...

accents the quoins, columns, beltlines and sills. The roof is a steeply pitched gable with clay tile roof covering, accented by a sculpted owl on the peak of the western gable. The original interior was completely modified for use as an art gallery. In 1924 Spooner Hall was superseded by a new library. In 1926 the building became the Spooner-Thayer Museum of Art. Later renamed the University of Kansas Museum of Art, the collection moved into the Spencer Museum of Art in 1978. It was placed 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 v ...

on July 15, 1974. The building presently houses anthropology collections and acts as a conference center.

References

External links

Spooner Hall
at the Historic Mount Oread Fund
"Spooner or Later"
at KU History * University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Kansas School buildings completed in 1894 University of Kansas campus Historic American Buildings Survey in Kansas Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in Kansas Library buildings completed in 1894 National Register of Historic Places in Douglas County, Kansas Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Kansas Libraries in Kansas University and college academic libraries in the United States {{Kansas-NRHP-stub