National Historic Landmark · college · Lancaster, Indiana

Eleutherian College

School in Lancaster, Indiana, USA. Built 1848. Added to the National Register in 1993, and a National Historic Landmark.

Eleutherian College 2Eleutherian College from northwest in eveningEleutherian CollegeEleutherian College
Photos via Wikimedia Commons · 4 in the Commons category

What it is

Wikipedia · Eleutherian College

Eleutherian College, founded as Eleutherian Institute in 1848, was a school founded by local anti-slavery Baptists at Lancaster in Jefferson County. The institute's name comes from the Greek word eleutheros, meaning "freedom and equality." The school admitted students without regard to ethnicity or gender, including freed and fugitive slaves. Its first classes began offering secondary school instruction on November 27, 1848. The school was renamed Eleutherian College in 1854, when it began offering college-level coursework. It closed in 1874 and its main building was used for a private normal school and then a public high school. It is now home to a non-profit group. The school was the second college in the United States west of the Allegheny Mountains and the first in Indiana to provide education to students of different colors. The restored three-story stone chapel and classroom building was constructed between 1853 and 1856 and presently serves as a local history museum. The school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1997,

Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The record

National Register of Historic Places
Property typeBuilding
AddressIN 250, Lancaster, IN
CountyJefferson County
ListedDec 15, 1993
Reference number93001410
Built1848
Type of placecollege, school building
StyleGreek Revival architecture
DesignationsNational Historic Landmark
Contributing resources1 buildings
StandingYes

The nomination form, the document that argues why this place matters, is in the National Archives: Read the nomination ↗

Visiting

Open to the public
AddressIN 250, Lancaster, IN
Coordinates38.83098, -85.51616 · Directions ↗
Nearest national park unitWilliam Howard Taft National Historic Site · 58 mi · on Park Atlas
This one you can go inside. Hours and admission change with the season; the website above has the current schedule.

Explore

Why you would stay

Reference

Exists because it is true

Sources

Location, dates, type and contributing counts come from the National Park Service's National Register spatial data. Construction date, architect, style, photograph and encyclopedia link come from Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, matched on reference number 93001410. Nothing here is transcribed by hand. The description under "What it is" is the opening of the Wikipedia article, CC BY-SA.