Lost and Found
Written by PA Heritage Staff in the Lost and Found category and the Winter 1997 issue Topics in this article: Addison Hutton, architecture and architects, Chambersburg, Chester County, Franklin County, National Register of Historic Places, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Philadelphia, West Chester State Normal School, West Chester UniversityLost
A century after its erection in 1870, and just one year after it was named to the National Register of Historic Places, Old Main, a landmark on the campus of what is today West Chester University of Pennsylvania in Chester County was demolished – despite protests by local, county, and state historical organizations, architects, even the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The imposing serpentine edifice, designed by Addison Hutton, a noted Philadelphia architect, was built for the West Chester State Normal School at a cost of seventy-four thousand dollars. In 1970, college officials deemed Old Main too expensive to rehabilitate and ordered its demolition.
Found
Warfield Hall on the campus of Wilson College in Chambersburg, Franklin County, was designed in the classic collegiate gothic style by the New York architectural firm of Ludlow and Peabody. Erected in 1929-1930 of limestone, the well preserved classroom building is among the most prominent of the twenty-eight buildings located on the fifty-five acre campus. Wilson College, founded in 1870, is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges for women in the United States. The entire college campus was entered in the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district in 1995 to mark the institution’s one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary.
