Dunn's Woods and Surrounding Buildings at Indiana University Bloomington
A stop on Indiana University, a free self-guided tour.
Dunn's Woods is the wooded heart of the Old Crescent. In 1883 a fire destroyed one of the university's main buildings at its original site south of downtown, and the trustees decided to move. They bought 20 acres of farmland and woods here from Moses Fell Dunn, and the campus has grown outward from it ever since.
The woods were deliberately kept, and the early buildings were placed around their edges in an arc, giving the Old Crescent its name. Paths wind under tall oaks, maples, beeches and other hardwoods, and spring wildflowers carpet the ground.
Around the woods stand some of IU's oldest buildings. Owen Hall and Wylie Hall, the first two on this site, were completed in 1884. Maxwell Hall dates from 1890 and Kirkwood Hall from the mid-1890s. The Student Building, with its clock tower, was finished in 1906, and the small Kirkwood Observatory, built in 1900, still opens its telescope to the public on some evenings.
Look for the bronze statue of Herman B Wells, IU's longtime president, seated on a bench in the Old Crescent. Students often shake his hand.
More on Wikipedia: Maxwell Hall · Kirkwood Observatory