Another way F&S is enmeshed into the university, like stars in the sky: history.

F&S is home to the university’s historic preservation officer, Dennis Craig. He’s a walking, talking history book when it comes to what has happened on campus since it was called Illinois Industrial University, dating to the late 1800s and can bring some context to almost any site, building, location, or notable person on campus.

Craig helped guide part of a tour for about 30 students in Scholar Adventurers Series of the Campus Honors Program at the Observatory, the building which has housed a telescope for investigating the stars since 1896. Craig’s specialty is early history of the campus and relaying just how different life was back then. When the Observatory built, many of the buildings on the Main Quad didn’t exist yet, including the Main Library or Foellinger Auditorium. The Observatory was the first building of permanence located south of University Hall and near the Morrow Plots. An important site in the development of the science of astronomical photoelectric photometry, the Observatory was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986. 

“Although the Observatory seems to be in an unusual location on our modern campus, when it was constructed, its location was remote from the academic area of campus on a high spot of land,” said Craig. “This original location functioned well for the first twenty years of its existence.”

The Observatory has added space, but the main dome and telescope are functionally the same as they’ve always been. There’s a creaky wooden ladder that rotates around the main room, and managing and using the telescope itself is a very manual, tangible task. Incredibly, the foundation for the telescope itself is separate from the foundation of the house, with the “many ton” telescope basically sitting on a brick column that goes down to the bedrock.

Tours: https://fs.illinois.edu/tours/

Huff 100 Years Ago

Craig’s expertise was required for another event, this time opening a time capsule from the early days of Huff Hall, then called the New Gym, more than 100 years ago. The time capsule was opened as part of a weekend of programming about the building and its importance to athletics and events at the university from 1924, particularly until the development and construction of the Assembly Hall, now called State Farm Center. A time capsule was opened after the demolition of Illini Hall in 2023, as well, with Craig there to report on the time and meaning of the contents stowed away for our generation.

Two F&S brickmasons, Calvin Berry, foreperson, and Cole Russell, provided the muscle to remove bricks near the main entrance at Huff.

“Historically, time capsules were included in buildings with the idea of the builders capturing information about their time to be shared with future generations,” Craig said. “When included in buildings, time capsules were usually copper boxes filled with a variety of objects. These copper boxes usually were installed in a cut-out of the building cornerstone or date stone. Huff Gym was one of the 11 buildings designed by architect Charles Platt and is the third building which the time capsule has been opened recently. The majority of the Platt buildings have recently turned or are turning 100 years old. Time capsules were also removed from the Library and McKinley Health Center in roughly the last year. Since the time capsule was installed with the cornerstone, it is quite a project to get to them and open. Unfortunately, the copper boxes were not watertight and the materials in them are often damp or wet and require careful handling and conservation work. In the case of Huff, there was a listing of the contents of the time capsule available, and the time capsule was pretty full.”

Illini Hall Time Capsule: https://x.com/UofIFS/status/1755704622969221457

The items inside the Huff time capsule were known before it was re-opened, as a materials list was written up on a typewriter decades ago. Included are game tickets, posters, meetings minutes, reports,  scores, news clippings, and other booklets and information about the university and its athletics programs.

In addition to Dennis Craig and other experts who can help lead a tour about F&S services, F&S leads regular tours at the Solar Farms (1.0 and 2.0), Abbott Power Plant, and the Waste Transfer Station: https://fs.illinois.edu/tours.