Introduction

Origins

The City

Collegeville (1887, 1895)
College Delta (1898, 1899)
Oakwood (1899)
Cedar Banks (1900)
College Grove (1903)
Fairview (1904, 1905)
College Heights (1904)

Charter of 1907

Avondale (1913)
Bungalow Knolls (1916)
Chesterfield Hills (1916)
Ardson (1919)
Ridgeley Park (1921)
Strathmore (1925)
Glen Cairn (1926)
Bailey (1927)
Touraine (1927)

The Campus

Chronology

Interactive Map

Sites on the National and State Historic Registers

Complete list of
Significant Structures

Sources

Farm Lane

Farm Lane bridge, with typical traffic, circa 1915-1921. This was the third bridge on the site.
Photo Credit: M.S.U. Archives.

Farm Lane was established very early in the College's history, and its name suits its purpose: it was the access road to the College farms south of the river. The first bridge over the Red Cedar River, likely made of wood, was built in 1860. R.C. Carpenter designed a second wooden bridge built in 1875. It was replaced in 1888 with the steel (Beal says iron) bridge seen above, at a cost of $1,200. Since the dairies and barnyard compounds were north of the river, and the pastures were to the south, for decades livestock was the predominant traffic across the bridge.[Beal, p.89. Kuhn, pp.104,154. Lautner, p.59]

On a side note, in the early years of the women's program, female students were not allowed to cross to the south side of the river. The land beyond the bridge was considered "too wild." Obviously, this was in an era of strict propriety, in loco parentis, and this rule was but one in a litany of curfews and conduct guidelines. Of course, until the 1920s the south campus was truly barely-tamed farmland, and the cows were surely more at home there than the ladies would have been.[Kestenbaum, p.137]

In 1935, the Board of Agriculture "requested the State Highway Department to take over the control and maintenance of Farm Lane... including the bridge over the Red Cedar." Whether this was an attempt at getting the Highway Department to foot the bill for a new bridge is uncertain, but four years later the state cancelled its responsibility without having touched the 1888 bridge. The College turned to the Works Progress Administration for funding, and the current, concrete-piered bridge was built circa 1939. Its sidewalks were widened in the late-1960s.[Lautner, p.142]

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