Map of the Scribner campus

Skidmore sets its sights on a new campus

By the late 1950s, Skidmore's new president and administrators found that properly maintaining the campus's century-old buildings was increasingly difficult. Furthermore, a new highway (now Interstate 87) was to be built over a tract of the college's recreational land. Plans to redesign the existing campus were entertained, but in 1960, trustee J. Erik Jonsson offered to donate to the college a tract of nearly 1,000 acres of land just two miles north of the existing campus. In 1961 the board of trustees voted unanimously to accept his offer and build a new campus on the wooded site.

The Jonsson Campus is built

Construction of the new campus commenced in 1963. The first building completed was a residence quadrangle. Work on the new library was then begun in 1964. By the summer of 1968, the new campus was functional, with construction completed on Starbuck Center, Kimball, McClellan, Penfield and Wilmarth halls, a dining hall, a heating plant, athletic fields and a field house, the Filene Music Building, the Lucy Scribner Library, the Dana Science Center and Bolton Hall. Work was progressing on additional buildings, such as the Jonsson Tower.

For a working version of the map below, click here.