Blanchard Hall is a limestone building on the campus of Wheaton College in

Wheaton, Illinois Wheaton is a city in and the county seat of DuPage County, Illinois, United States. It is located in Milton and Winfield Townships, approximately west of Chicago. As of the 2020 census, Wheaton's population was 53,970, making it the 27th-mos ...

. It was built in five phases starting in 1853. The first phase was completed in 1858 and the last in 1927.

History

Blanchard Hall is the main building of Wheaton College in

. Construction of Blanchard Hall began in 1853, and the building was completed in 1927. The building takes its name from Jonathan Blanchard, the founder of the college, and his son Charles A. Blanchard. The elder Blanchard sought to make the building a symbol of the power of Evangelical Protestantism. The building was completed shortly after the younger Blanchard finished his stint as University President.Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
/ref> The limestone for the building was quarried form

Batavia, Illinois Batavia () is a city mainly in Kane County, Illinois, Kane County and partly in DuPage County, Illinois, DuPage County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located in the Chicago metropolitan area, it was founded in 1833 and is the oldest city in Kan ...

, and the architecture is based on buildings at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. The Classical Revival is the dominant form of the building, although there are details of

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

and Romanesque Revival design. The building features a 1,000-pound copper bell with the school's motto engraved on it. It is currently used by the

Humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

and

Social Sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

departments,

Human Resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include ' ...

Accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

, and also houses the offices of the President,

Provost Provost may refer to: Officials Ecclesiastic * Provost (religion), a high-ranking church official * Prince-provost, a high-ranking church official Government * Provost (civil), an officer of local government, including the equivalent ...

, and

Chief Financial Officer A chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization who is assigned the primary responsibility for making decisions for the company for projects and its finances; i.a.: financial planning, management of financial risks, ...

. There have been no major changes since 1927. On November 14, 1979, the building was recognized by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

with a listing on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

Architecture

The building was completed in five stages. The first phase was a two-story building that opened in 1858; this section is now in the center, excluding the tower. Its two-story narrow arched windows can still be seen behind the tower. The , five-sided tower was added to the middle of the main facade (facing south) in 1871. Two years later, a three-story wing was added to the west. A four-story eastern wing was added in 1890. The building was finally made symmetrical in 1927 with and addition to the east wing. Limestone

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th-century encyclopedia, ...

s decorate window bays. The roof is decorated with a stone

battlement A battlement, in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals ...

References

{{Wheaton College, state=expanded 1858 establishments in Illinois Buildings and structures in Wheaton, Illinois National Register of Historic Places in DuPage County, Illinois Wheaton College (Illinois) University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois University and college buildings completed in 1858