Blount house, negative and correspondence

Blount house was built in 1883- I have a newspaper

In sorting out notes that migh be of some value to save for John Newman

I have come across this letter from James .iller regarding the stereopticon view which I think must have been taken from high up or the top of Old Main, since it shows the Blount house near the corner of Laurel and College , and therefore it mus be Spruce Hall. Some people have argued that the present stairs have an

arch instead of the square- but I think that just was a change with the years, since the Blount house is clear, and I compared it with many others that show the flagpole, Jesse Harris fountain etc. T~e thin chimney and paired brackets are still right today .

The thing I was most interested in was that funny building with the orchard wondering if it was a"more correct 11 view of the Claim building than the one Miller

accepted as drawn by an ear~ president etc. But he was too strained with problems of

old age to care any more . I showed it to Laura Nakepeace and she recognized the name on the back as a former janitor or someone longsince gone. Then when you came and

started working so hard, I lost interest in the claim building . It is such a small detail and so unimportant as the history of the university develops.

I thought you might like to examine it however, and enclose the negative in case you want a print. Miller didn't date his letter and I am not sure when I was working on that stuff- fall 1972/ or maybe before- anyway I decided it was unimportant and dropped it.

I would like to borrow back the stereopticon picture to use if I have an apport unity to fix up an exhibit for my book some time, as I think it would be attractive- Otherwise this can be kept in the ARchives-Special Collections along with Miller's letter if they want it.

Ttle negatives of the early campus drawing with the blowup showing the train chugging throu~?;h you might like with that painting of the campus you

showed in your exhibit. I really don't know what to do with all the ne atives. Evadene

Hrs. Swanson,

R~: stereoptican view, 1 find it a puzzler . 1 can ' t seem to crient myself in that setting .

At first, I assumed it to be a view looking

tovmrd the northeast corner of the campus, 1.vhere the "claim building" st nnd -- out practically on where the sidewalks are now. That would be the South Col lege and Laurel corner .

I am not familiar with "the Blount house". If it is Cor was) on Laurel, it must have set back some d ista ~ce f ro m the College Avenue side .

l n .that case, the present Campus Shop mus~

stand southeast of the site .

All this aside, I cannot imagine the build-ing with a curved r nof and a gable window in the section to the left being the Claim Buil s-ing. Assuming that the vie\or is towar d the College Avenue- Laurel intersection, I believe the actual site of the Claim Bnilding could

have been beyond this building . I cannot recall ever finding that another building such as

this one in the picture as ever si tuated in tha t lo cali tt.

I do not r ecall now the so rce of the drawing of the Cl aim Building "\·rhich I believes appears omewhere in my "\-rri tings . (I am past

80 years of age, and not as keen of memory as I once was. I cannmt refer to any records, as I gave everything to the two libraries• Besides the manuscripts, I placed some source material s in the CSU files; they are indexed in t he cat alog but star -d in a closed ~oom; .Missr Rum"ble of the

staf f would know vlhere . 1

I do remember, however, that I assumed that the artist who drew the picture vias the first pres-i dent, pres-inasmuch as he dpres-id that kpres-ind of sketchpres-ing , and I believe I indicated in the manuscript that I had to just assume that i t was his work.

As I recall my s ource material - - and what it was, I d o no t know - - the construction of the

Caaim Building \ttaS a hurry- up job , with the

quarrying and hauling of the stone and the

actua 1 building being done in just a fevl days t i me . That would hardly call for construction of the buil ding show iT in the pi ctur e-, whi ch must have been quite sizeable , and of materials other thanstone, at least inpart .

1 fear this only adds to your confusion.

iss uth J . Wattlew also wrote an unnublished

history of the comllege, and perhaps she might be of so IJl9 a >sistance to you.

I regret the delay in replying to your inquiry . My ife i s an invali d, and we were in an emergent situation at the time your letter came; she is hospitalized at present .