If these stones could talk…
On an Ampersand walking tour of campus during С Boulder’s 150th anniversary year, Professor Emeritus Paul Chinowsky weaves a tapestry of campus stories one brick at a time
Lean in close—close enough to hear the whispers of the stones and bricks that build the University of Colorado Boulder.
Are they telling the story of the young man who rode his horse to campus, so he was frequently late and only avoided being locked out of Old Main because Joseph Sewall’s daughter had a crush on him and let him in?
Are they, too, expressing mystification about where the turtles in the pond came from? Do they have something to say about when Boulder was identified on maps as The Great American Desert?
Paul Chinowsky is a С Boulder professor emeritus of civil, environmental and architectural engineering.
These are the stories Paul Chinowsky hears when he puts his ear to the stones. A professor emeritus of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, Chinowsky sees not just structures, but stories as he roams campus. HehostErika Randall, С Boulder dean and vice provost of undergraduate education and professor of dance, ona College of Arts and Sciences podcast. Randall and guests explore stories about ANDingas a “full sensory verb” that describes experience and possibility.
On a walking tour of the Quad, Chinowsky reflected on С Boulder’s founding to understand the choices made throughout its history that brought the university community to this point of celebration, 150 years later, and planning for the next 150 years.
PAUL CHINOWSKY: It's really important when you're looking at buildings to not look at them as you are today. Think of them as they were being built. What were the creators trying to do? What was the feeling?
ERIKA RANDALL: What's the world that they're building?
CHINOWSKY: What were they trying to create? The first 50 years of this campus, we didn't know what we wanted to be. So, every building reflects, "Let's try this." In the 1860s and 1870s, we didn't know. We just knew there was gold. There was something out here. It was referred to as "The Great American Desert."
When this territory was looked at, the first Army explorers that came out here, it's on maps. This is "The Great American Desert." They came back in the early 1800s and said nobody will ever want to live there. There's nothing there.
RANDALL: Now that's what the bumper stickers say. It's like, oh, it's terrible here. Tell your friends. But when you stand in front of Old Main, and then you look across to the old library …
CHINOWSKY: Right.
RANDALL: … they're trying to decide.
CHINOWSKY: What Old Main is, at that time, you have to think about what was high society in the 1870s. It was St. Louis. St. Louis was the last civilization before you got to San Francisco.
RANDALL: So, we're serving St. Louis vibes?
CHINOWSKY: This is St. Louis. If you went to St. Louis, this would fit right in. Who would have ever built red brick here? They didn't even make these bricks here. This was all imported
RANDALL: From St. Louis?
In the 1860s and 1870s, the area that would eventually be the С Boulder campus was referred to as "The Great American Desert." (Photo: Boulder Historical Society/Museum of Boulder)
CHINOWSKY: From the Midwest. All of this was moved. All the stone around the windows, that all comes from Indiana. Everything's imported. Now, you have to get a feel of it.
RANDALL: Yeah, let's go this way.
CHINOWSKY: Can we walk? You have to kind of … if you look back, this was wasteland.
RANDALL: And you see that in a few photographs.
CHINOWSKY: You see it in the early pictures—this land was just, it wasn't even good grazing land, because in the winter, the snow would come through and bury the cows. So, this was grazing land. And in fact, across the street, right across Broadway, was where the rancher that owned a lot of this land, that's where he kept his steers.
RANDALL: But he had to bring them in in the winter?
CHINOWSKY: He had to bring them in in the winter. So, this was all donated land. They made a big deal that it's all donated.
RANDALL: Well, that's because they didn't want it.
CHINOWSKY: They didn't want it. It's just these were the people that donated the land. This was just extra land.
RANDALL: $439.60.
CHINOWSKY: For 22 acres. Yep, that was Andrews land. That was land right where Norlin Library is now, because we're oriented this way. Here's Marinus Smith's land. That's where we're standing.
RANDALL: $509.
CHINOWSKY: $509.
RANDALL: And 80 cents.
CHINOWSKY: And 80 cents. Arnett has that triangle just on the other side of where Geography is, for $76. But he did donate 80 acres later on for a team of horses.
RANDALL: But nobody wanted this!
CHINOWSKY: Nobody wanted this. So, this was our front yard. This little area, there were no trees here. You have to imagine Hale puts in the trees afterwards, 10 years later. This was the front lawn.
An 1889 view of С Boulder campus with Old Main in the distance. (Photo: Joseph Bevier Sturtevant/Carnegie Library for Local History)
RANDALL: Wow.
CHINOWSKY: And when we talk about the buildings, you have to feel it.
RANDALL: OK, I'm feeling it.
CHINOWSKY: You feel it? So, this is 150-year-old stone. Feel there's no rough edges.
RANDALL: No, this is hard-hewn. You can see all the chisel marks. They're not trying to keep this clean or sleek.
CHINOWSKY: No, this was rough, Colorado. This was the West. This was not clean.
RANDALL: So, this part is the West? The foundation is the West, but just beyond reach--
CHINOWSKY: This is what we thought. This is really if we could evolve--
RANDALL: Vertically up, we could be that.
CHINOWSKY: We could be that.
RANDALL: Wow! That's cool to think with that.
CHINOWSKY: And so, the mythology right from the beginning was we are going to lift what we thought, what the Europeans thought of, as new land.
RANDALL: Yes. We Europeans and our savior complexes. Oh, god!
CHINOWSKY: We are going to lift this territory into civilization. And that from the very beginning, 1870s, that was our mythology: С was put here to lift this area up.
RANDALL: Which, when we think about it now, no wonder there isn't a ton of support always.
CHINOWSKY: There never was support for the university. It was only a year after we started that they thought we should actually have operating expenses. They gave the land but there was no money from the state to actually operate the university. Kittredge was the one in the legislature who passed the bill that we could actually have operating funds. But no funds could go to any building that wasn't a classroom building.
RANDALL: So, there was administrative and academic always together?
CHINOWSKY: Yes.
RANDALL: Huh. Was the pond here?
A view of the Museum of Natural History from 1937. (Photo: Carnegie Library for Local History)
CHINOWSKY: No. The pond didn't get here until about 1907. It was after Hale was built, and they were having flood problems, so the pond was put in as a flood control.
RANDALL: Where did they import the turtles from?
CHINOWSKY: It's a good question. I've always wondered that too. It's like, yeah, these don't belong. There's a lot of things on campus you go, huh, that doesn't belong here. So, what we're looking at is what was the empty field that people would come across to walk to Old Main. This walkway was the shortcut. This road is the original road where the horse and buggies would come in.
RANDALL: It's so wild to think of.
CHINOWSKY: Come in, drop people off there and then make the turn where Macky is to go back out. And this was the shortcut. If you were walking, you would walk straight across from the corner of Broadway and what's now University, and you come across the field to the building. And you had to get in the front door before 9 a.m.
RANDALL: Or?
CHINOWSKY: Or they closed it and locked it.
RANDALL: Our students would be in so much trouble!
CHINOWSKY: Because Joseph Sewall, who was our first president, who lived right here, he believed … he came from Illinois. He was a doctor. And punctuality was very important. So, his daughter Jane had the job. They rang the bell in the bell tower at 9 a.m., and she closed the door. No one's allowed to come into class after 9 a.m.
RANDALL: How old was when she was ringing the bell in the bell tower?
CHINOWSKY: She was about 10, 11. And there's a story that she writes. She had a crush on one of the early students, and he was never on time because he rode in on his horse, and the stables were down near where the Union is now.
RANDALL: It's impossible to imagine.
CHINOWSKY: He would have to take his horse down to the stables and run back and come in the back door.
RANDALL: And there's no sidewalks. There’re no Lime scooters.
CHINOWSKY: There's nothing. And so, she would hold the door open for him so he could sneak in the back door because he was never on time.
RANDALL: So stinking cute.
CHINOWSKY: But here in the first floor, right over here, this was where the Sewalls' apartment was on the first floor. So, they moved in 1877, and it was a year or two later, a carriage comes in. And Jane and her sister would love to try and run out before their mom got out here. It would drive their mother just crazy as they would do it.
They would wait over here, out of that window, so they could see first. And if they saw first, their goal was to try and get out.
RANDALL: There was no Instagram or television. This is what they were doing.
CHINOWSKY: Exactly. Their goal was to try and get out there before their mom stopped her. So, one day, there's a carriage coming up with four gentlemen in a dress, top hats, everything. And they saw this, and they went, oh, this must be something important. And Jane goes running out with her sister. The carriage pulls up right here, right in front.
She comes running down the stairs, bounds up into the carriage, and jumps on the lap of the first person saying, "Hello, I'm Jane. You must be important." And her mom comes out and just stands there and is just mortified. It was President (Ulysses S.) Grant.
He came. After he got out of office, he came because his daughter-in-law lived here up in Summit County. So, he was here on his post-presidency visit. He was here with the governor coming to view the land that he had granted.
RANDALL: So, kind of the most important carriage of all time?
CHINOWSKY: And she's jumping on there, going, "Hi!"
RANDALL: Oh, my god, I love Jane.
CHINOWSKY: So those are the kind of things that are going on at the beginning. It's this mix of trying to be proper, but there's this Western casualness that's going on at the same time. And there's this push and pull of what are we going to be?
RANDALL: What are we going to be?
CHINOWSKY: What are we going to be? Nobody had written the story. It was our story to write. And there was this feeling, we've got something here.
Click play to hear the rest of the conversation!
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