Page:A History of the University of Chicago by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed.djvu/401

A THIRD PERIOD OF BUILDING 349 memory of his son, Frank Bartlett, who died on the fifteenth of July, that Mr. A. C. Bartlett, a member of our Board of Trustees, erects this building. Mr. Bartlett's contribution was later increased to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The gymnasium was located on Uni- versity Avenue north of Fifty-seventh Street, opening to the east on the avenue and to the west on the athletic field. The corner- stone was laid on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1901, in the presence of interested friends and enthusiastic students. After an introductory statement by the President, the cornerstone was laid by Mr. A. C. Bartlett, the donor of the building, and the corner- stone address was delivered by Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus. The baths and dressing rooms of the Gymnasium were in the basement, the lockers, the swimming-tank, the professors' exercise room, and the offices on the first floor, and the great gymnasium room and running track on the lofty ceilinged second floor. This great room, the full size of the building, witnessed many stirring athletic events, and served many purposes. Here more than one Convocation was held and here in 1910 the Northern Baptist Con- vention met, with President Judson presiding. The dedication of the Gymnasium took place January 29, 1904. The building cost two hundred and thirty-eight thousand dollars. The excess of cost over what was first planned came from the Rockefeller subscription of 1895 as in the case of the Tower Group. At the dedication exercises, Mr. Bartlett spoke briefly, saying, among other things: This Gymnasium is the fruition of a young life, a life in which good- fellowship, truth, high aspirations, and kind deeds were the cardinal principles, and this Gymnasium was built, not by the death of Frank Bartlett, but through his life. Among the striking features of the building were the memorial window, given by Mr. J. G. Hibbard, over the front entrance, representing the crowning of Ivanhoe by Rowena after his triumphs in the tournament at Ashby de la Zouche, and the mural painting in the entrance hall, picturing contests with singlestick and the two-edged sword. In these decorations the artists represented athletic sports of the period of the building's architecture.