Blanchard Hall is a limestone building on the campus of Wheaton College in

Wheaton, Illinois Wheaton is a suburban city in Milton and Winfield Townships and is the county seat of DuPage County, Illinois. It is located approximately west of Chicago. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 52,894, which was estimated ...

. It was built in five phases starting in 1853. The first phase was completed in 1858 and the last in 1927.

History

Blanchard Hall is the main building of Wheaton College in

. Construction of Blanchard Hall began in 1853, and the building was completed in 1927. The building takes its name from Jonathan Blanchard, the founder of the college, and his son Charles A. Blanchard. The elder Blanchard sought to make the building a symbol of the power of Evangelical Protestantism. The building was completed shortly after the younger Blanchard finished his stint as University President.Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
/ref> The limestone for the building was quarried form

Batavia, Illinois Batavia () is a city mainly in Kane County and partly in DuPage County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located in the Chicago metropolitan area, it was founded in 1833 and is the oldest city in Kane County. Per the 2020 census, the population w ...

, and the architecture is based on buildings at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. The Classical Revival is the dominant form of the building, although there are details of

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

and Romanesque Revival design. The building features a 1,000-pound copper bell with the school's motto engraved on it. It is currently used by the

Humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

and

Social Sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...

departments,

Human Resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include m ...

Accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

, and also houses the offices of the President, Provost, and

Chief Financial Officer The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...

. There have been no major changes since 1927. On November 14, 1979, the building was recognized by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

with a listing 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 ...

Architecture

The building was completed in five stages. The first phase was a two-story building that opened in 1858; this section is now in the center, excluding the tower. Its two-story narrow arched windows can still be seen behind the tower. The , five-sided tower was added to the middle of the main facade (facing south) in 1871. Two years later, a three-story wing was added to the west. A four-story eastern wing was added in 1890. The building was finally made symmetrical in 1927 with and addition to the east wing. Limestone

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

s decorate window bays. The roof is decorated with a stone

battlement A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

References

{{Wheaton College, state=expanded School buildings completed in 1858 Buildings and structures in Wheaton, Illinois National Register of Historic Places in DuPage County, Illinois Wheaton College (Illinois) University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois