Harker Hall, also known as the Chemical Laboratory, is a historic building on the campus of the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

in Urbana,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

. Built in 1877, the building originally served as the university's chemical laboratory. Architect

Nathan Clifford Ricker Nathan Clifford Ricker, D.Arch (June 24, 1843 – March 19, 1924) was a professor and architect known for his work at the University of Illinois. He was born on a farm near Acton, Maine June 24, 1843. In 1875, he was married to Mary Carter S ...

designed the Second Empire building, which originally featured a mansard roof. In 1896, a lightning strike set the roof on fire, and architect James White replaced it with a

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thu ...

. The building was named Harker Hall in honor of Oliver A. Harker, who served as dean of the university's law school from 1903 to 1916. Until it stopped hosting classes, the hall was the oldest classroom building at the university. The building was added to 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 artist ...

on November 19, 1986.

Timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:750 height:auto barincrement:25 Period = from:1875 till:2015 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:30 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb(0.99,0.7,0.7) id:line value:black id:bg value:white PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:skyblue from:1877 till:1896 text:Chemistry Lab bar:2 color:skyblue from:1896 till:1902 text:Renovations bar:3 color:skyblue from:1902 till:1927 text: College of Law bar:4 color:skyblue from:1927 till:1989 text: School of Life Sciences bar:5 color:skyblue from:1989 till:1992 text:Renovations bar:6 color:skyblue from:1992 till:end text:University Foundation ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:10 start:1877 TextData = fontsize:L textcolor:black pos:(300,30) # tabs:(0-center) text:"Harker Hall timeline" References

References

University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Second Empire architecture in Illinois Buildings and structures completed in 1877 National Register of Historic Places in Champaign County, Illinois Buildings and structures of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 1877 establishments in Illinois {{ChampaignCountyIL-NRHP-stub