McCormick Hall, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois
Image by myoldpostcards
Sitting on the west side of the quad on the Illinois State University (ISU) campus is McCormick Hall, a Georgian architectural style structure that opened in 1925. The building is named after Henry McCormick, a "beloved and respected teacher of history and geography" who came to Illinois State in 1869. He became Vice President in 1892, taught until 1901, and served as Vice President until his retirement in 1912.
In 2007, the Board of Trustees approved the construction of a new west addition to McCormick Hall. Built at a cost of .6M, the 170,000 sq. ft. facility opened for spring 2011 as the Student Fitness Center and serves the School of Kinesiology, and administrative, educational and instructional space. Know formally as the Student Fitness Center and McCormick Hall, it is the largest building project ever undertaken by the university. The Student Fitness Center component of the complex will be featured in a future post.
Illinois State University is a public research university that was founded in 1857 as Illinois State Normal University. It is the oldest public university in Illinois, and is recognized as one of the top ten largest producers of teachers in the United States. As of the fall of 2020, the school had an enrollment of 17,987 undergraduates and 2,733 graduate students.
Normal is the smaller of two principal municipalities of the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan area. Located in McLean County in Central Illinois, the estimated population of Normal in 2019 was 54,469, with a metro population of 191,067.
