A Picture of Faculty Row

Marvin Bergman, who now occupies the old Sylwester house (Faculty Lane House 1) on North Columbia Avenue, kindly arranged for some old photographs in his possession to be scanned for this blog. One of the photographs shows the four old houses of Faculty Lane before those houses were moved to Faculty Lane.

On the photograph the four houses are annotated with the family names of their occupants -- (right to left) George Weller, Mr. Schuelke, Karl Haase and Fred Strieter. Annotations on the photograph's bottom and right margins say Prof. Ave.

I have uploaded this photograph to this Flickr webpage. If you click on ALL SIZES above the photograph on that webpage, you can see the image in larger sizes.

Fortuitously, Tobin Beck recently wrote an article for this blog in which he reported that these four houses originally had been located on a street that had been named Faculty Row. A key part of his article stated:

Originally the big white houses were built just northwest of Founders Hall, and ran in a straight line west from Miessler Hall. This was called Faculty Row, and there was a dirt lane running east-west between the houses and Founders. The college’s building expansion plans in the early 1920s called for the houses to be moved and a new street created.

Beck quoted from the May 21, 1924, issue of the Blue Valley Blade, which stated:

In order to carry out the proposed building plan, and furnish the desired site for the administration building the residences occupied by Professors Schuelke and Koenig, will be moved several blocks to the north and east.

Steve Sylwester explains this photograph as follows:

The distance between the Weller house and the Schuelke house in the above picture is MUCH greater than the distance between the Sylwester house and the Hackmann house on Faculty Lane.

Notice how the Weller house is configured in the above picture, which is different than how the house was configured on Faculty Lane. The front porch opens to what would be the east on Faculty Lane. When the house was on Faculty Lane, the front porch opened to the south. If the above picture was on Faculty Lane, the sidewalk from the front porch on the Weller house was headed toward the area where the new gymnasium was built, which back when was an empty field.

Toby Beck's article states that originally the big white houses were built just northwest of Founders Hall and ran in a straight line west from Miessler Hall. This was called Faculty Row, and there was a dirt lane running east-west between the houses and Founders. Therefore, the sidewalk coming from the middle of the Weller house and exiting the picture on the right side edge at the "V" in "PROF. AVE." is headed due east toward Miessler Hall.

I believe the large evergreen trees in front of the above Weller house are the outer trees that were removed from the cluster of large evergreens that once stood between Founders Hall, Miessler Hall, and Brommer Hall.

Furthermore, my very sure guess is that the above picture was taken from the roof of Founders Hall.

Toby, if you had not discovered the hidden history behind Faculty Row moving to Faculty Lane, the above picture would not have made sense. Thank you!