Old College, University of Notre Dame
Near South Bend, Indiana
Old College is the oldest surviving building on the University of Notre Dame campus, constructed in the early eighteen forties, soon after Father Edward Sorin and the brothers of the Congregation of Holy Cross arrived at the frozen Indiana frontier site that would become Notre Dame. Sorin had traveled from France with almost nothing, accepted five hundred twenty-four acres from the bishop of Vincennes, and needed shelter immediately for the small community of priests and brothers who would build the university. Old College was that first permanent shelter, a plain two-story brick building that served simultaneously as dormitory, classroom, and community residence.
It was humble by any standard, but it was built on the edge of a wilderness, by men who had committed to starting a university in Indiana with almost no money and nearly no students. Notre Dame eventually grew around it, and Old College now sits near the shore of Saint Mary's Lake, looking out across a campus that enrolls more than twelve thousand students.
