Original Building of the University of Southern California

A tenth of the town turned out to watch the cornerstone go down on September 4, 1880. The land came from three men who agreed on little else: Ozro Childs, a Protestant nurseryman, John G. Downey, an Irish Catholic former governor, and Isaias Hellman, a German Jewish banker. Fifty-three students walked in that October, into a building that held the classrooms, the chapel, and the library at once. It has been moved around the campus more than once and is still in use.

What the plaque says

Dedicated on September 4, 1880, this original building of the University of Southern California has been continuously in use for educational purposes since its doors were first opened to students on October 6, 1880, by the university's first president, Marion McKinley Bovard. The building was constructed on land donated by Ozro W. Childs, John G. Downey, and Isaias W. Hellman under the guiding hand of Judge Robert M. Widney, the university's leading founder.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chavez Ravine — 4.5 mi
  Three Mexican American neighborhoods cleared for public housing that was never built, then traded to a ballclub.
• Campo de Cahuenga — 9.5 mi
  The treaty that ended the fighting in California was signed on this ground, and the building it was signed in is now under the boulevard.
• Colorado Street Bridge — 11 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.
• Domínguez Rancho Adobe — 11 mi
  The first Spanish land grant in California contained the whole harbor, and in 1846 fifty Californio lancers turned back three hundred Marines on it.

More markers nearby

• Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — 0.4 mi
• St. Vincent's Place — 2.5 mi
• The Mirror Building (Site of Butterfield Stage Station) — 3.1 mi
• La Mesa Battlefield — 3.2 mi