The UA campus has grown immensely from its beginning as a solitary building in the middle of the Tucson desert. Departments and disciplines may expand and contract, but these locations — and their history — have endured for 125 years.
The spread combines current Arizona Daily Wildcat photographs with how each building looked during or near the time of its completion.
Special thanks to University of Arizona External Relations and the staff at the University of Arizona Library Special Collections for their help with this project and for providing the archival photographs.
Completed in 1904, the Douglass building was the home for the UA’s first proper library and museum. It was renamed in 1980 for Andrew Ellicott Douglass, a professor of physics and astronomy. During his 56-year career at the UA, Douglass created the foundation for the university’s astronomy and space sciences departments and research, and introduced tree-ring research to campus.
Built in 1926 to replace Herring Hall, Arizona’s first gymnasium, Bear Down Gymnasium housed basketball and other sports until McKale Center opened in 1973. The last basketball game was held Jan. 18, 1973, during Fred Enke’s tenure as head coach. During World War II, the gym served as housing for 500 people at a time who were enrolled in the Naval Indoctrination School.
Herring Hall was the UA’s first gymnasium when it was built in 1903. It is the UA’s second-oldest building and is named for Col. William T. Herring, territory lawyer and chancellor and president of the Arizona Board of Regents from 1898 to 1903. The original wildcat mascot, first called “”Tom Easter,”” was introduced to the UA in Herring Hall.
