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Caption: Book - 30 Year Master Plan (Tilton & O'Donnell)
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12 History of Campus Plan boretum. Between the railroad and Springfield Avenue was the fortress-like Mechanical Hall, with the New Armory across the street facing south down Burrill Avenue. With this situation before them, where was the Engineering Building to be placed? The Building and Grounds committee found themselves divided over the question and submitted very interesting majority and minority reports, the former recommending the present site. Thus was established the nucleus of what is now the College of Engineering, which fills a large portion of the area north of Green Street. During this same year occurred several relatively unimportant incidents noteworthy because of their significance today. Inspired doubtless by the propects of growth to the south, the Champaign and Urbana Street Railway in 1893 began the presentation of an insistent series of requests for permission to extend their line south along Wright Street and through the University grounds. I t was only after a succession of flat refusals that the company gave up the plan. It is worth noting in this connection, too, that, as early as 1867, following illadvised action of the Executive Committee, the trustees were called upon to take firm stand against a proposed extension of the present Big Four Railroad Line across the campus. The convictions of the Board were well embodied in the resolution, That this Board disavow and disapprove of any attempt on the part of the Executive Committee, or any other committee of this Board, to grant or allow to the Danville, Urbana, Bloomington, and Pekin Railroad Company, or any other railroad company, the right of way over any property of this Institution . . . . without the direct authority of a vote of the Board. Thus there was precedent for later action. The street railwaydid succeed, however, in securing the cooperation of the Board in the erection of a waiting station on Green Street in front of University Hall. Green Street was becoming an important thoroughfare and so urgently in need of improvement and better care that the Trustees undertook definitely to determine its status. This
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