The University of Connecticut Historic District is a historic district including the historic campus of the Connecticut Agricultural School, now the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from H ...

(UConn).

Site description

The Historic District is located Storrs in the town of

Mansfield, Connecticut Mansfield is a town in Tolland County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 25,892 at the 2020 census. Pequot and Mohegan people lived in this region for centuries before the arrival of English settler-immigrants in the late 17th cen ...

, flanking Storrs Road ( Connecticut Route 195). The principal elements of the district are 23 masonry buildings erected between 1906 and 1942, in Collegiate Gothic,

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archit ...

, and

Classical Revival Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...

styles. There are also 18 residential structures, some dating to the 18th century, and including the President's House, built in 1940. These are located in an area historically known as Faculty Row, which is now part of Whitney and Gilbert Roads. The master plan for the campus was drafted in the early 20th century by Charles N. Lowrie, a landscape architect, and was followed to a substantial degree by subsequent development. The only non-university buildings in the district are those associated with the Storrs Community Church. and UConn is historically significant as the nation's first public university established specifically for the study of

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

. It was founded in 1880 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named for its donors ( Charles and Augustus Storrs) and the village where its campus was located. The school remained small and focused on agriculture until the early 20th century. In 1906, the school began to expand both its physical plant and its curriculum, although the latter remained focused on agricultural subjects such as farm machinery and horticulture. This building program, largely completed by 1935, produced most of the assemblage of masonry buildings contained in the historic district. In 1933, the school was renamed Connecticut State College, and in 1939 it was given its present name. The district was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1989.

Demolition

In the Spring of 2017, seven of nine houses on Gilbert road were demolished to create a park area.

References

{{University of Connecticut Mansfield, Connecticut Federal architecture in Connecticut Historic districts in Tolland County, Connecticut National Register of Historic Places in Tolland County, Connecticut Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut

Site description

Demolition

See also

References