Historic Sites

The best place to start an OWU walking tour is at the beginning. Built in 1833, Elliott Hall is the oldest building on the Ohio Wesleyan campus as well as the oldest collegiate Greek Revival building in Ohio. Elliott Hall was built as a hotel, called the Mansion House, to accommodate guests to the nearby Sulphur Spring. When the hotel was put up for sale a few years later, the Rev. Adam Poe, pastor of William Street Methodist Church, encouraged the citizens of Delaware to buy it in order to found a university.

Sitting just north of Sturges Hall, Slocum Hall also was built as a library and opened in 1898. It is one of the university’s hidden architectural gems, containing an eye-catching 70-foot-long by 20-foot-wide leaded glass ceiling not visible from its exterior. 

The ceiling features 18 glass portraits including Abraham Lincoln, John Wesley, James Russell Lowell, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri, Victor Hugo, George Bancroft, George Washington, Saint Paul, Martin Luther, Michelangelo, Moses, Beethoven, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Sir Walter Scott, and Julius Caesar.

The building underwent a yearlong, $11.25-million, donor-funded renovation in 2021-2022, transforming it into the Home of the OWU Connection, a program dedicated to helping Ohio Wesleyan students plan travel-learning, internship, service, and other experiences that expand and enhance their globally focused, liberal arts educations.

Slocum Hall also serves as the Welcome Center for the Office of Admission, making it the first stop for most prospective students and families visiting campus.

Just east of University Hall is Merrick Hall, named after former OWU President Frederick Merrick. Thanks to an $8-million donor gift, the building was renovated and reopened in fall 2015, after being closed for nearly 30 years.

The first floor of the historic building contains offices, casual spaces to relax, and a small cafe. The second floor contains innovative classroom spaces created with input from OWU faculty. The third floor features an eye-catching 22-foot ceiling and is used for special events.

The building, which opened in 1873, was built using materials quarried at what is now Delaware’s Blue Limestone Park.

West of the stadium is Edwards Gymnasium, a building central to Battling Bishop athletics since it opened during the 1905-1906 school year. The building stands as an example of the shift to standardized physical education, rather than informal sports and military training that occurred at the turn of the century. The building was fully renovated and reopened in fall 2015. The donor-funded project included repairing its second-floor basketball court and restoring its previously boarded-over skylight. Simultaneously, the university renovated its former natatorium to create the adjacent Simpson Querrey Fitness Center, which houses the state-of-the-art Jannuzi Dance Studio.

Adjacent to Stuyvesant Hall, the Student Observatory is used regularly by the university’s astronomy students. Built in 1896, the on-campus observatory was funded by Hiram M. Perkins, professor of mathematics and astronomy; his wife, Caroline Barkdull Perkins; and his sister, Sarah P. Howard. The student observatory originally was called “Perkins Astronomical Observatory,” but it was renamed the “Student Observatory” after the second, larger Perkins Observatory was built south of Delaware in 1923-1924. The student observatory features a 9.5-inch refracting telescope.