Gros Louis talks about IU’s past

In 1884, the IU campus stood a daunting 3,000 feet from the edge of Bloomington. Students walking to campus had to make their way down woodland paths, through grazing pastures and hunting grounds. “Well on the way to Brown County,” as one resident described it.

More than 120 years later, the distance is just a short walk past neon signs and crowds of students. The years saw a small campus of just one building grow into the bustling state university IU is today.

University Chancellor Ken Gros Louis took an audience of professors, students and alumni on a journey through IU history Monday at the DeVault Alumni Center.

“It’s amazing how much he knows,” sophomore Brian Baltz said. “It’s like he instantly knows anything you ask about this campus.”

Gros Louis’ presentation included stories about the old campus, paintings and photos of Bloomington’s ever-changing landscape and the reflections of one of IU’s longest-serving administrators.

Gros Louis started his career at IU in 1964 and has since served as vice president for the Bloomington campus and interim chancellor, among other posts.

The chancellor took his audience back to IU’s early days, on the old campus near the intersection of Second Street and College Avenue, when Bloomington was just a few buildings surrounding the town square – a time, Gros Louis said, when Bloomington was said to possess “more rascality than exists in any other spot of its size in the United States.”

He described the changing architecture at IU, from the original one-room recreational sports center (“It’s hard to imagine what sports could have been played in this building”) to some of the older student clubs on campus, such as the “Dragon’s Head” club, which “prided itself on doing nothing,” and the organizers of the first Little 500 race.

And Gros Louis remembered the old football stadium on 10th Street and the night he
and then-IU President John Ryan thought up the Arboretum as a replacement.

Gros Louis said he originally put together a segment of his presentation for incoming IU freshmen starting in 1983 and later for faculty members seeking a broader knowledge of campus.
But, he said, this is the first time he’s made such a large presentation.

While many of Gros Louis’ stories are in the past, such as IU’s Oaken Bucket game victory that ended in a 0-0 tie that “went to the home team,” the buildings and the history he recounted are still a part of campus.