college student union, until it was replaced in 1979 by the Sayles-Hill Student Center, a converted gymnasium. Willis Hall now houses the Economics, Political Science, and Educational Studies offices.
Goodsell Observatory, also on the NRHP, was constructed in 1887 and at the time was the largest observatory in the state of Minnesota. It was named for Charles Goodsell, who donated land for the campus. From the late 19th century to the end of World War II, Goodsell Observatory kept the time for every major railroad west of the Mississippi River, including Northern Pacific Railway, the Great Northern Railway, the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, and the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway.
Scoville Hall (originally Scoville Memorial Library), completed in 1896, is on the NRHP. Replaced in function by the Gould Library in the 1950s, Scoville was adapted for administrative space.
Four nineteenth-century buildings have been demolished. Gridley Hall (1882) was the main women's dormitory for many years, …
