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"Old Main", the first building of Illinois
State University, stood on the crest of a hill at the
north end of the campus. It was begun in 1857 and finished
in 1861. It was also the site of the first graduation
in 1860. 
The building’s history and architecture embodied the
ideas, values, and personal vision of those who willed
the University into existence in 1857. That vision became
an enduring part of Illinois State University’s heritage.
The first plan for the building submitted by Ninian
Edwards, governor of Illinois, was reminiscent of the
buildings of Oxford University, but Charles Hovey, the
first president of Illinois State Normal University,
felt it inappropriate for a new American "frontier"
university. The founders of the university wanted a
large, imposing, and suitable structure for the prairie
lands location of the university.
President Hovey selected a Chicago architect, George
P. Randall, to design the school. Randall was well known
and a contemporary of many famous Chicago architects
such as McKim, Mead & White, Burnham & Root,
and Louis Sullivan, the mentor of Frank Lloyd
Wright.
Upon its completion in 1861, President Hovey remarked
that the edifice was not entirely 
his idea or the design of the architect, but a collaboration
of many local citizens. They preferred something "grand,"
and some influential citizens demanded certain architectural
features be added to the design. A central tower or
dome, a broad columned porch, and three stories in height
were part of the design necessities. "Higher education
must tower above the common man and his environment."
The architect, Mr. Randall, referred to the finished
architectural style as "Victorian Renaissance," more
commonly called Italianate, but admitted it defied classification.
It may have seemed something of an architectural mishap,
but in totality it revealed a sense of harmony, reverence,
and beauty.
Although the exterior would seem to indicate a grand
entrance from the south veranda with reception area
and a grand central staircase, the plan reveals no grandiose
scheme, having smaller entrances from the east and west
sides of the structure with four narrow side stairways,
or broads as they were called - two designated as up
and two designated as down. Students were only allowed
to use these side entrances
The central space of each floor was dedicated to large
halls, capable of holding 300 persons on the second
floor
Assembly Room and 1000 persons on the third floor "Normal
Room." Also included in the building were the Model
School: the Natural History Museum: the Art Gallery
(which was later abandoned due to a lack of interest
in the arts): the Philadelphian and Wrightonian Society
Halls, the literary debating societies: and the YWCA
Room.
The first telephone was installed in the building in
1880 at a cost of fifty dollars. In 1891 Old Main was
fitted with electric lights. In that same year President
Cook had the cuspidors, that had served as stumbling
blocks for unsuspecting professors and students, removed
from the hallways of the building.
From the beginning the architectural engineering of
Old Main revealed many structural problems worsened
by a violent storm that devastated the campus in 1902.
By 1946, Old Main became so unsafe that the tower roof
and third floor were removed. On May 22, 1946, the bell
tolled for the last time from the former majestic tower.
Classes were dismissed and all stood silently as a crane
lifted the dome and lowered it to earth. In 1959, despite
much protest by alumni, Old Main was torn down. 
The former site of Old Main is now a flower bed
with a series of four bronze plaques each representing
an elevation of the building mounted on a concrete block.
To thousands of alumni, faculty, and citizens of the
community, Old Main with its tower will ever be a symbol
of Illinois State University.
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