University of Chicago (1857-1886)

The first University of Chicago, a Baptist school, was incorporated in 1857 on land donated by Senator Stephen A. Douglas. The University closed in 1886 due to financial difficulties. At the final meeting in 1890, the Board of Trustees changed the name of the institution to the Old University of Chicago so that the new Baptist school being organized as a completely separate legal entity might be called the University of Chicago.

The institution known as the Old University of Chicago was originally established as the University of Chicago in 1856 on a ten-acre tract of land donated by Senator Stephen A. Douglas. A Baptist school, the University was constantly plagued by financial difficulties and was forced to close in 1886. At its final meeting in 1890, the Board of Trustees changed the name of the institution to the Old University of Chicago so that the new Baptist school being organized as a completely separate legal entity might be called the University of Chicago.

Douglas had first offered the property at Cottage Grove Avenue and Thirty-Fifth Street to the Presbyterian Church for a university, but when they failed to raise the $100,000 he had stipulated, he conveyed the site to a group of Baptists. While the charter required that a majority of the members of the Board of Trustees be Baptists, the school was nondenominational in character, applying no religious test to either faculty or students. Its name notwithstanding, the university was primarily collegiate and vocational in nature with two hundred to five hundred students enrolled annually in preparatory, collegiate, law, and medical schools.

The new institution began almost immediately to encounter financial difficulties. Douglas' connection with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, regarded as a betrayal of the anti-slavery cause, proved a liability in fundraising, and the financial panic of 1857 rendered most of the initial subscriptions worthless. Nonetheless, the trustees proceeded with construction projects beyond the school's means, and debt mounted rapidly. The president, J. C. Burroughs, and the trustees succeeded in securing new subscriptions, but just as it seemed that the institution might reach solid financial ground, the Chicago fire of 1871, followed by the panic of 1873 and the fire of 1874 plunged it into financial peril once more.

Administratively, the university's situation was equally chaotic and disagreements over fundraising, financial management, and faculty appointments escalated into open strife among the trustees. President Burroughs and his most vocal opponent, trustee W. W. Everts, were persuaded to resign, but the trustees created for Burroughs the post of chancellor and made him responsible for the school's financial affairs. Conflicts among the trustees, the president, and the chancellor continued, with administrators arriving and departing in rapid succession.

Union Mutual Life Insurance Company, the university's chief creditor, brought suit in 1881 to foreclose the mortgage on the university's property that it held. In January 1885, the court found in favor of the company. The trustee's hope of redeeming the property proved illusory: the university closed in the autumn of 1886 and the main building was razed in 1890.