University of Pennsylvania. Office of the Treasurer.

The acquisition, sale and management of land have been an integral part of the University of Pennsylvania's history from the purchase of its first property in February 1750 on North Fourth Street, below Arch Street (http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017.4/4136) and the acquisition of its first real estate investment in 1761-Thomas Penn's gift of a portion of the Manor of Perkasie in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Being a part of the University's financial assets, the records of University property have been maintained by the Treasurer. The number of properties the University owned and managed was relatively small in its early years because of the physical and financial limitations of a campus located in the heart of the going commercial center of a major American city. It was not until late nineteenth century after the University moved to its present campus in West Philadelphia in 1870 that Penn was seriously able to consider acquiring more land for expansion and investment. The financial needs that would support and sustain this growth created the need for active fundraising which not only resulted in gifts of cash, stocks and bonds but also of land, such as the Chestnut Street Opera House from Col. Joseph Bennet and farms in Manchester, Massachusetts from John H. Towne.

It was in the twentieth century that the University of Pennsylvania experienced its largest growth in the number of properties it acquired and managed. In the period between 1919 and 1932, the University purchased a total of 393 properties in 101 transactions just for real estate around its West Philadelphia campus. The demands of managing these properties required the Office of the Treasurer to establish a system for organizing the deeds and related paper work for University property in safety deposit boxes in a fireproof bank vault. After the existing records were inventoried and assigned envelope and deed box numbers, all new properties were given envelope numbers when the University acquired title. This system was in place during the period of greatest growth---the Gaylord P. Harnwell administration---when the University acquired around its campus over 320 properties in 209 transactions. The filing system is still in use by the Office of the Treasurer.

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