Willis Hall is a historic building on the

campus A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-like se ...

Carleton College Carleton College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. Founded in 1866, it had 2,105 undergraduate students and 269 faculty members in fall 2016. The 200-acre main campus is between Northfield and the 800-acre Cowling ...

Northfield, Minnesota Northfield is a city in Dakota and Rice counties in the State of Minnesota. It is mostly in Rice County, with a small portion in Dakota County. The population was 20,790 at the 2020 census. History Northfield was platted in 1856 by John W. N ...

, United States. It is 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 v ...

. Willis Hall was the first building specifically built for the college. The first students started attending classes at the former American House hotel in Northfield in 1867, but the building had some serious mechanical problems. Construction of a new building began in 1868, but construction was slow and halted before the building could be erected due to lack of funds. The president of the college, James W. Strong, traveled to New England in 1870 for a fundraising tour. After Strong was injured in a railroad accident and subsequently recovered from his injuries, benefactor

William Carleton William Carleton (4 March 1794, Prolusk (often spelt as Prillisk as on his gravestone), Clogher, County Tyrone – 30 January 1869, Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin) was an Irish writer and novelist. He is best known for his ''Traits and Sto ...

donated $50,000 to the college to insure its survival. His wife, Susan Willis Carleton, donated $10,000 to help clear the construction debt of the college's the first permanent building. The building was named Willis Hall in her honor. It was designed in the French Second Empire style by a prominent Minneapolis architecture firm, Alden and Howe. The upper floor was a men's dormitory, the first floor a chapel, and the rest of the building was lecture space and library. On December 23 1879, a fire ravaged the building, gutting it entirely. It was rebuilt with minor changes to the exterior, as well as improvements to the chapel, a new classroom, and a furnace. From 1954 to 1979, Willis officially operated as the campus student union, and it housed the campus bookstore, the post office, a game room, a darkroom, lounges, and the KARL radio station (now known as KRLX). Currently, the building houses the economics department, the education studies department and the department of political science.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota Buildings and structures in Rice County, Minnesota Carleton College National Register of Historic Places in Rice County, Minnesota Second Empire architecture in Minnesota University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota