Burton Hall is one of those campus landmarks with a flair for drama. Built in 1894 as the University of Minnesota’s first purpose-built library, it replaced Old Main, which burned to the ground in 1904. The Board of Regents wanted a building that could survive both time and fire, and they got it—though not without a fair amount of architectural bickering.
President William Watts Folwell had tapped LeRoy Buffington for the job, but the Regents had other ideas, and after rounds of back-and-forth, a compromise was struck. Buffington would design the exterior in a stern Greek Revival style, while Charles Sumner Sedgwick handled the interior with all the ornate flair of late Victorian taste. The result was a curious dual personality: a stoic stone temple on the outside with a far more decorative party happening inside. Buffington’s material choice, light gray Ohio sandstone, sparked another controversy, with Minnesota stonecutters protesting the import. The compromise this time? Ohio stone, yes, but cut on site by local hands.
When it opened, the Library Building wasn’t just a warehouse for books. It featured a vast reading room, an 800-seat assembly hall that doubled as the University chapel, and space for humanities departments and administrators. At a cost of $175,000, it was one of the most expensive projects the campus had seen, but it quickly became its intellectual heart. For three decades it served as the main library, until Walter Library took over in 1924. In 1931, the building was renamed Burton Hall in honor of Marion LeRoy Burton, the University’s fourth president.
Since 1952, Burton Hall has housed the College of Education and Human Development, and while its interiors have been modernized beyond recognition, its exterior remains one of the best surviving examples of Greek Revival on campus. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, the building has gone from book vault to teaching hub without losing its gravitas. Today, it stands at 178 Pillsbury Drive SE like the campus elder statesman—proof that even a building born out of consternation and compromise can keep its dignity for well over a century.