Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1906 [PAGE 296]

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270

UNIVEESITY OF ILLINOIS.

[Sept. 12

U p o n recommendation of the Committee on Buildings and Grounds Professor Breckenridge was authorized to sell the horizontal fire tube boiler which is about to be removed from the power plant, the terms of sale to be agreed upon between him and the Business Manager.

R E S I D E N C E FOR T H E DIRECTOR OF T H E AGRICULTURAL E X P E R I M E N T STATION.

M r . Kerrick, from the joint committee appointed to report on p r o viding a residence for the Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, presented the following report, which, after discussion was referred to the next meeting of the t Board for further consideration. To the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Your Committees on Buildings and Grounds and on Agriculture, to which was referred the matter of providing an official residence for the Director of the Experiment Station and Dean of the Agricultural College, in joint meeting July 20th, after having the matter under consideration for somTe time, visited and inspected carefully the house now owned and occupied by Dean Davenport. It will be recalled by the members of the Board that about two years ago, Dean Davenport selected a lot on the west side of Wright street fronting the University Campus between the Library and Woman's Building, and offered to donate it to the University if the University saw fit to accept it and build thereon a suitable house for the official residence of the Director of the Experiment Station and Dean of the Agricultural College. The proffer, for what seemed a good reason at the time, was not accepted by the University. Nevertheless, it was the opinion of Dean Davenport and others interested in the Experiment Station and Agricultural College, that no more suitable site for an official residence for the Director and Dean could be found. In planning his residence which he afterwards built' on his Wright street lot, this fact and the possibility that the property might sometime be chosen for an official residence for the Director of the Experiment Station and Dean of the Agricultural College was kept in mind. Your committees found a building which appeared to them to be exceedingly well adapted for an official residence for the Director of the Experiment Station and Dean of the Agricultural College. We carefully examined every apartment from cellar to garret. From one of the superintending architects (Professor White) we learned that the cost of the building was $12,500. There are on file with the Secretary of the Board, estimates, vouchers, etc., showing that the house cost the sum named. The money seems to have been providently expended, and the house, to your committees, appears to be worth the money it cost. In estimating the value of the ground, your committees took the cost price, adding six per cent interest from the time Dean Davenport made the purchase. The lot, if vacant, would probably sell for considerably more than the amount now asked first of the University by Dean Davenport. Altogether, house and lot have cost $16,500; and seeing the property is worth the money and is eligibly located and well adapted to the uses that will be required of it, we recommend the purchase by the University, at $16,500. There are two mortgages on the property—one for $8,000 dated May first, and another for $1,000 dated October first. These can be paid on the dates named, and possibly arrangements can be made to pay earlier. We add to our report a memorandum of action taken at a meeting of the Agricultural College Advisory Committee, held at the University May 11, 1905. The members of this committee are A. P. Grout, President of the Illinois Live Stock Breeders' Association; H. A. Aldrich, President of the Illinois State Horticultural Association; Josdph Newman, President of the Illinois Dairymen's Association; E. E. Chester, President of the Illnois Corn Growers' Association; B. F. Wyman of Sycamore, President of the Illinois State Farmers' Institute; the latter, however, was not in attendance.