Last Month's Answer

From the March 2005 issue of UW NewsLinks. In honor of the new copper cupola atop Denny Hall, we listed five items about the oldest building on the UW campus, asking which of the five was false:

1. Frustrated by indecision while touring the campus grounds in 1894 for the site of the new building, Regent David Kellogg drove his umbrella into a rotten log and declared this would be the place for the new structure.
2. Sandstone blocks left over from the construction of Denny Hall were used for the UW's second oldest building, the Observatory.
3. The regents wanted the building to incorporate the columns from the original Territorial University Building in downtown Seattle, but architect Charles Saunders vetoed the idea, stating they would not fit the French Renaissance style of his plans.
4. The Denny Bell is rung every Homecoming by a descendant of Arthur Denny, one of the founders of the University of Washington.
5. In the 1950s the University planned to demolish Denny Hall, but instead did a brutal remodeling job on its interior spaces.

The answer is #3. There was no move to incorporate the columns into the new building, although later Professor Edmond Meany tried to have the entire Territorial University Building moved to the new campus. When funds did not come through, just the columns were saved and transported to the Montlake site.

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