OTTAWA UNIVERSITY, 9th and Cedar Sts., a coeducational Baptist institution, offers four-year courses in art, music, and science. The university has 17 instructors and an average enrollment of 400 students. There are four buildings on the 3O-acre campus, all built of Kansas limestone. Owing to a tradition whereby graduating classes donate a tree, a shrub, or an ivy plant, the buildings are encrusted with vines and the campus is heavily wooded. A choir composed of students in the Music Department presents Handel's Messiah annually in December at the First Baptist Church, 4th and Hickory Sts.
At the first Baptist Convention in Kansas, held at Atchison in 1860, plans for a college were adopted and the proposed institution, named in honor of Roger Williams, was chartered by the Territorial Legislature on February 20, 1860. Tauy Jones subsequently urged that the Ottawas be admitted to the school. Representatives of the Baptist Church and the Ottawa tribe accordingly met on December 5, 1860, and worked out a plan whereby the Ottawas agreed to donate 20,000 acres to Roger Williams University; the trustees agreed to finance the construction of buildings, to educate fifty Indian children between the ages of 4 and 14 each year for 30 years, and to thereafter establish ten perpetual scholarships for Indians. These provisions were incorporated in a treaty on June 24, 1862, but as the Ottawas were removed to the Oklahoma reservation in 1867, the provisions of the treaty were never carried out.
Throughout the Civil War no attempts were made to construct the school. On April 21, 1865, the institution was incorporated and renamed Ottawa University. Classes were held during 1866 in a temporary building. In the following year the school was closed to await the completion of its own structure, the present Tauy Jones Hall, which was finished in 1869. Instructions were resumed in May of that year, with only three Indians in the class of 83 students. The Ottawas held rights in the university until 1873 when by Act of Congress the remainder of the original grant of 20,000 acres (about 11,000 acres) were put in Government trust along with $16,000 obtained through land sales.
TAUY JONES HALL, the oldest building on the campus, is a three-story limestone structure, erected in 1869. It was gutted by fire on January 5, 1876, but the walls remained firm. In the succeeding months the Reverend Robert Atkinson, president of the college, hewed walnut logs to rebuild the interior. Aided by the townspeople of Ottawa, he reroofed the structure and classes were resumed in 1876. The hall was damaged by a second fire in 1921. Two years later it was extensively remodeled in keeping with the original design. Six dormer windows were replaced and the interior was outfitted with hardwood floors, beamed ceilings, and walnut doors. The building now houses the music department and a MUSEUM which contains fossils, minerals, Indian artifacts, and Kansas memorabilia.
FOREST PARK, W. end of Tecumseh St., an 80-acre wooded area, contains playgrounds, tennis courts, horseshoe courts, picnic grounds, and a swimming pool. Throughout the summer weekly concerts are presented by the Ottawa Band. The annual Franklin County Fair is held here.
The MEMORIAL GATEWAY at the main entrance to the park was dedicated on November 3, 1899, m memory of Franklin County citizens who served in the Spanish-American War with Company K of the 2oth Kansas Regiment. The ornamental iron gates are supported by octagonal limestone pillars, 13 feet high. The central pillar is surmounted by a bronze eagle. The money to build the gateway ($1,600) was provided by popular subscription.
The MAIN STREET BRIDGE, Main St. at the Marais des Cygnes River, a steel and concrete structure built in 1925, is arched above the ford that was used during the 1850's and 1860's by soldiers, settlers, traders, and freighters following the Osage Trail. While crossing the river at this point in 1856, Cyrus Curran, Indian trader, turned to the members of his party and said: "I've been across this ford a good many times and I never cross but that I think that some day there'll be a town built here."
The FRANKLIN COUNTY COURTHOUSE, SE. corner 4th and Main Sts., is a three-story structure of red brick and Kansas limestone. The blue slate roof has turrets at the corners, with intermediate gables and a cupola at each end of the apex. The west cupola above the Main Street entrance contains an illuminated clock with four dials. The east cupola contains a bell which strikes the hours. At the apex of the west gable is a statue symbolizing Justice. The courthouse was designed by George P. Washburn & Son, and completed in 1893 at a cost of $46,535. Washburn, one of the most prolific and talented of Kansan architects in the 1890's, also designed the courthouse at Atchison.
Websites about Ottawa, Kansas: