The First Years of the University
		The University of Chicago was an important addition to Hyde Park.  In 1891, President William Rainey Harper and the University's first trustees selected
	a site along the north edge of the Midway Plaisance extending several blocks into the well-settled Hyde Park and Kenwood neighborhoods.  The use of distinct quadrangles was a deliberate arrangement intended both to delineate the academic space from the outside world and to create an architectural complex harmonious with its adjacent surroundings.  Blue Bed ford limestone, considered to be timeless, would be able to accommodate buildings constructed in diverse architectural styles. Because the campus was cluttered with construction materials during its first decade, little attention was paid to the University's landscape until the turn of the century.  Not surprisingly, the marsh ecosystem on which the University was constructed proved to be an inconvenience in the early years.  Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed, in his History of the University of Chicago, described how in the University's first year, the southeast quarter and "the western side [were] flat, but dry and covered with young oaks, [and how] these two sides were separated by low ground which was a morass in the spring, being the lowest just east of where Haskell later stood, and here there was standing water much of the year."