Macbride stood as a testament to the University’s place as an outpost of civilization on the prairie, and it marked a continued determination to remake the architectural image of the University on a grander and more ordered scale.. The building houses one of the largest classroom on campus, as well as the Museum of Natural History—the oldest existing university museum west of the Mississippi. For more than four decades, the building was also the home of the University’s library.
Thomas Huston Macbride
1848 - 1934
Achievements
- Served as the tenth president of the University of Iowa, from 1914 to 1916
- Joined the University of Iowa in 1878, becoming a professor of botany in 1883.
- In 1902, he was made head of the Department of Botany and served as secretary of the faculty from 1887 to 1893
- Served the campus for more than a half-century as a scholar, conservationist, and administrator
- The building that bears his name was constructed in 1904 as the Hall of Natural Science and was renamed in his honor in 1934
Building Information
Street Address
17 North Clinton Street
Year built
1908
Additional building information