Hamline University

Lake Pepin". The city of Red Wing pledged about $10,000 to enable construction of a building and the beginning of an endowment, and donated a tract of land on a hillside overlooking the Mississippi River.
Chartered in 1854, Hamline University is the second oldest university in Minnesota, and the first coeducational university in the state, graduating its first collegiate class in 1859.
The first classes at Hamline were held in rooms on the second floor of the village general store while the construction of the classroom building was in progress. Students moved into the Red Wing building in January 1856. The original building contained a chapel, recitation rooms, a school room, a library, laboratory, reading rooms, and dormitory quarters. Seventy-three students enrolled at Hamline in its opening year. The catalog lists them separately as "Ladies" and "Gentlemen", but most of them were children or adolescents, and all were enrolled in either the primary or the preparatory department. There was no collegiate division …