If you look closely, you’ll find that scattered around Whitman’s campus are snapshots into its past. Photos hung in some buildings offer glimpses of student life in black and white. In one photo on the wall of the Prentiss study room, young women in dresses gather around the fireplace in the Great Hall. The fireplace may have changed from wood to gas, but it’s still in the same cozy Great Hall, offering a warm space for Whitties to gather. These photos, also available in the Whitman College Archives, tell a story of how much campus has changed since its beginning — and the ways it’s stayed the same.
Whitman’s Founding
Whitman began as a seminary in 1859. Cushing Eells, who had been a missionary with Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, founded it as a memorial for his colleagues who died in 1847. Eells wanted the seminary to be at the site of the Whitman Mission, but “local pressure and resources provided a way for the school to open in Walla Walla, a town that had began to take form in late 1859.”
After about 10 years, the school faced challenges with finances and enrollment. Its trustees decided to pivot and turn the school into a college. In 1882, Alexander Jay Anderson became the first president of the new college. Anderson, his wife and his son were the only faculty members in the first year and 60 students were enrolled. The first day of classes was Marcus Whitman’s birthday — Sept. 4, 1882.
Despite some turbulence in the early 1900s, Whitman’s goals now are very similar to what they were at the beginning. In 1907, Whitman’s third president, Stephen Beasley Linnard Penrose, created a plan called “Greater Whitman,” in which he proposed that Whitman would become tech-driven and science-focused. The school removed their association with the Christian church in hopes of broadening sources of financial support for the project. Ultimately, they were not able to raise enough money and the plan was abandoned in 1912.
In Historian G. Thomas Edwards’s “The Triumph of Tradition: The Emergence of Whitman College”, Penrose expressed how the school was shifting gears back toward the college’s original focus.
“The noblest aim for Whitman is to be a small college, with a limited number of students to whom it will give the finest quality of education,” Penrose said.
Shaping Campus
The college started out with just two buildings: the original Seminary building and College Hall, built a year after the school was chartered. The Memorial Building and Billings Hall were added in the 1890s, under Penrose’s leadership. The Memorial Building is the only one still standing today, with Billings having been replaced by Maxey Hall, named after Whitman’s seventh president.
In the early 1900s, the Baker Center was added. At the time, it was a home for one of Walla Walla’s wealthiest couples, Louis and Mabel Anderson, both children of influential figures in the development of the college.
Whitman obtained its land from Dorsey Baker, a landowner, banker and one of Walla Walla’s wealthiest residents at the time. Baker transferred his property along Boyer Avenue to the trustees of Whitman Seminary in 1866, agreeing to sell 4 acres for $1.
Baker had his daughter Mabel with his third wife in 1868. Mabel was first educated at the Whitman Seminary, then later at Whitman College.
AJ Anderson, Whitman’s first president, had a son named Louis Anderson. Louis was born in 1861 and travelled with his family to different schools for his father to teach. He was 20 when his father became Whitman’s president.
Louis eventually became one of Whitman’s first three faculty members. He was a professor of Greek and Latin.
Eight years after his father became president, on Nov. 2, 1890, Louis Anderson married Mabel Baker. Cushing Eells, Whitman’s founder, officiated the wedding in the home of Mabel’s parents.
John Boyer, Baker’s business partner and brother-in-law, lived in a house on the corner of Boyer Avenue and Otis Street. Louis and Mabel Anderson took over this house in 1897, but then decided they wanted to build a bigger house on the same parcel of land. The original house was moved down the street and now serves as Whitman’s Das Deutsche Haus. In its place, the Andersons hired an architect to build their dream colonial style home, what is now known as the Baker Center.
The construction of the house was long and contentious — Louis Anderson complained about a number of things, and eventually had to settle for a house that came with a few mistakes. Letters from the architect, Kirtland Kelsey Cutter, to Anderson detailed some of the “blunders”, as he called them.
“If I am not deceived by the photograph of the exterior of your house a blunder has been made which proves either ignorance or neglect on the part of the Architect in charge. A man who has ever studied Architecture at all knows that in this classical style the corner pilasters should line with the architrave while in this case they apparently stand forward about four inches. This is bound to produce a very unpleasant effect, making the cornice look weak and the pilasters clumsy.”
This issue would have been too expensive and taken too much time to fix, so it remains what Cutter described as “clumsy” to date.
In total, the house ended up costing around $15,000 (nowadays roughly $500,000 accounting for inflation). It was almost entirely Mabel’s money, despite her lack of involvement in the planning and construction of the house. The Andersons moved in in 1904. Nowadays, the Baker Center houses the Alumni Relations and Annual Giving offices.
Post-World War II growth meant that the college was finally able to build a student center. One was built 21 years after the first year of classes and situated where the Bratton Tennis center is now. It was eventually replaced with Reid Campus Center, on the corner of Boyer Avenue and Park Street.
A number of buildings were built in the 1950s, including the Penrose Memorial Library. This project was spearheaded by Chester Collins Maxey, the namesake of Whitman’s social sciences building.
Dining Over the Years
Before Cleveland Commons opened in 2018, food was spread between Jewett Hall and Prentiss Hall, with both open seven days a week so students could stay on whichever side of campus they lived to eat. Despite some controversy that arose from higher prices at Cleveland Commons, the new dining hall was certainly a step up from the previous options.
“Prentiss cafeteria… now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a loooong time,” said alumni Silas Miller ‘21. “Not flashy, but authentic. Hot gossip was served daily.”
Andrea Dobson, Whitman professor of Astronomy and member of the class of 1982, talked about the flaws in the old dining halls.
“There were not enough choices, not enough hours, [and] long lines… [with] obnoxious people,” Dobson said.
She wished that she had the dining halls that current Whitman students are able to enjoy.
Clara Hastings ’29 agreed, saying that the salad bar in the modern dining hall always pulls through, as well as highlighting other bright spots of the Whitman dining experience.
“Reid ice cream is a 10/10, best thing about campus,” said Hastings.
Dobson also emphasized that the science building has improved significantly — the wing added in 2002 provided higher quality chemistry labs and better airflow in the building.
165 years and 15 presidents since its beginning, Whitman has changed in many ways, from dining to residence halls to academic buildings. Whitman’s goals, however, have largely remained unchanged. Stephen Penrose’s words from 1912 still ring true today.
