Cutler Hall
Tour Stop: #1
Current Name: Cutler Hall
Historic Name: The College, Palmer Hall
Address: 912 N. Cascade Avenue
Year Completed: 1880
Architectural Style: Collegiate Gothic
Architect: Peabody and Stearns, Boston
Designation: National Register
Access Level: Cutler Hall is a working building. The public is invited inside, but we ask that ongoing activities not be disturbed.
On July 4, 1877, 华体会 and the people of Colorado Springs gathered to celebrate the beginning of construction on the undeveloped and isolated plot of prairie donated for its campus. With an uninterrupted vista of the Rocky Mountains providing a magnificent backdrop for the ceremony, General William Jackson Palmer, who had founded Colorado Springs only six years earlier, turned the first shovel of dirt and observed, "My friends, in breaking this ground, let us set apart and forever devote it and the structure which is to rise upon it to the purpose of education in the most unsectarian way, to the discovery and inculcation of truth." Completion of a permanent building for the college addressed Palmer's vision of a cultivated and refined community in which education would play a central role and constituted a milestone in the school's quest for stability. The task of raising enough money to pay for the building appeared almost insurmountable for the fledgling institution. Donations toward the cost of construction ranged from four pounds of butter to a pet ram to partial interest in a mine in the San Juan Range.
In seeking an architect for its first building the college, led by President Edward P. Tenney (1876-84), set a standard of choosing the best. It looked to the East, where many of its founders and donors originated, and selected the nationally prominent Boston firm of Robert S. Peabody and John G. Stearns, Jr. Both were graduates of Harvard College who had worked in the office of Henry Van Brunt; Peabody specialized in the design work and Stearns supervised construction. The firm (1871-1917) has been cited as "one of the chief wellsprings of architectural inspiration in their time." General Palmer, impressed with their Colorado College work, hired them to remodel his private residence, Glen Eyrie (1881-82), and to design his first Antlers Hotel (1882-83), both in Colorado Springs. Peabody and Stearns also planned a residence for Colorado conservationist and forestry leader Edgar Ensign in the 1880s. They designed several noted Boston landmarks, including the Exchange Building, the Custom House Tower, and Matthews Hall at Harvard Yard, as well as many mansions in eastern resort areas.
Within days of the groundbreaking, the college eagerly began preparations for construction of the new building. Even before the architects produced exact specifications for its dimensions, volunteers with wheelbarrows, picks, and shovels performed much of the foundation excavation during a "Digging Bee." After interviewing Colorado quarry owners, the college selected pinkish-gray rhyolite stone quarried at Douglas Station near Castle Rock for the walls, together with white Manitou limestone trim. Colorado stone would be utilized in all major construction at the college in the early years.
This
Building
in
History:
Kerr's assay affice and part of the chemical laboratory were in the back. The second story housed the mining and metallurgical school which became the Mining and Metallurgy Dept. of Colorado College in 1880 under Prof. William Strieby.
As we pass through this old building talking together of the deeds done and hopes for the future, I cannot refrain from an expression of an earnest wish to anticipate the progress of this century, beyond me, back of you, and to see with your eyes the Chemistry of your day.
Two of the staunchest friends a college was ever blessed with, Mr. Henry Cutler of N. Wildraham, Massachusetts, and Mr. Samuel Crooks, of Hopkinton, Mass., both now gone to their eternal reward, had, with others also lost large sums of money thro' the college mismanagement referred to, yet with a characteristic magnanimity they came to the rescue of the college in its distress.
The buildings which have been erected by the generous gifts of its friends will no doubt by the time of your administration be multiplied many fold.
On Wednesday morning next the excavation for Colorado College will be begun. The building committee propose to have the work done by volunteer labor, and as they desire to complete the excavation in one day, they will need about twenty-five men with