Construction on Old Main, the first building on the University of Arizona campus, began on October 27, 1887. This was the first building constructed on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson and is one of the oldest surviving educational structures in the western United States. Designed by Phoenix architect James Miller Creighton, construction began on October 27, 1887.
The original budget of $37,969 ran out before the roof was finished, and university officials—learning federal loans were available for agricultural schools—renamed the planned School of Mines to the School of Agriculture to secure funding. Federal funding completed the work and the building opened for the university's first class on October 1, 1891. Then the only building on campus, Old Main contained the classrooms, library, offices, and dorms where six faculty taught 32 students in 1891.
In 1919 the Alexander Berger Memorial Fountain was constructed in front of Old Main; Berger funded it as a memorial for 13 University of Arizona students who were killed in World War I. Old Main was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Notice the façade above you, then the Berger fountain just ahead, a memorial to 13 students lost in the war.