Trees tell the story of the Dell
Dr. Clifton W. Potter, LC History Professor
Issue date: 2/26/09 Section: Opinion
|
When the men of the 54th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry rushed across what is now Shellenberger Field the area was open meadow with only a few trees on its edge. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a number of saplings grew on what is now the Circle. When the Intermont Hotel-later renamed the Westover Hotel-was constructed in 1890, the growing forest was thinned to create a sylvan setting for the resort. A nation-wide depression led to the closure of the hotel, and it was offered for sale at a fraction of its construction cost. In April 1903, Dr. Hopwood and the newly constituted Board of Trustees bought the hotel as well as the acres that surrounded it.
In 1909, with the construction of Carnegie Hall and the Administration Building which was renamed Hopwood Hall in 1953, the axis of the campus changed. When the men asked to form a baseball team, Dr. Hopwood gave them permission to cut the trees in front of the new buildings and created their playing field in the empty space. Cut into firewood, the felled trees were sold to purchase uniforms and equipment for our oldest inter-collegiate team.
Having cleared part of the campus, Dr. Hopwood continued to plant oak trees on the upper part of the campus. In the archives of the Knight-Capron Library there is a postcard from the Hopwood era which was used to recruit students. In the background is Westover Hall, and in the foreground are the oaks that were planted during our first decade. Some of them still dominate the landscape in front of the library and Schewel Hall. The dogwood trees that stand between Dr. Hopwood's oak trees and the maple trees which are close to Snidow Chapel were planted under the direction of Miss Georgia Morgan who taught art at the college from 1915 until 1945.
The first graduation exercises were held in Westover Hall, and then they were moved to Hopwood Auditorium. In 1923, when Memorial Gym, now Hall Campus Center, was completed, graduations were held there. By the mid-1960s this culminating event of the academic year had grown so large that it had to be held in the Circle. At first, the area in front of Knight-Capron Library was used, but with the completion of the chapel graduation assumed its present form. The procession begins on the steps of the chapel and ends on the steps of Hopwood Hall. The land that was cleared for a playing field is now filled with lovely trees that provide welcomed shade for Freshman Convocation and Senior Graduation. In a hundred years, we have come full circle.