Columns Time-Line
1840 – Cornerstone laid for Academic Hall
1843 – Academic Hall completed on July 4. Six magnificent
Ionic columns grace the front entrance of the building.
1892 – Academic Hall leveled by a fire
January 10. The only structures left standing the following day
are the six columns.
1893 – Through a proclamation by the MU Board of Curators
the decision is made to preserve the Columns as, “…a
sacred ruin and sad monument to the lives of the old students,
a monument of progress to the new.”
1943 – The Columns are 100 years old.
1997 – Copper caps are placed atop each column to prevent
water from seeping in, freezing, expanding, and breaking away the
limestone.
1999 – G. Franklin Rothwell IV, with a gift of $50,000, establishes
the Rothwell Family Columns Preservation Endowed Fund, to be used
for the continued preservation of the Columns and beautification
of their surroundings.
2000 – In the early morning hours of April 4 — a ‘day
of infamy,’ the word “¡BOÑO!” is
spray-painted on the Columns.
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University of Missouri-Columbia
