How Suzzallo Got Its Name In 1915, when the brand new UW leader,
Henry Suzzallo, saw the Seattle campus for the first time, he
was in a state of shock. A graduate of Stanford and Columbia, he
beheld a hodge podge of buildings and architectural styles.
Sunlight illuminates the pinnacles and towers of Suzzallo. Photo
© Loyd C. Heath. The setting "disturbed me greatly when I first
came," he later wrote. "The campus was naturally beautiful, but
the buildings were ugly." Many buildings were left over from a
fair held six years earlier and these temporary structures were
showing their age. Suzzallo felt that a campus of beauty would
enhance the intellectual and moral growth of his students. In
his view, the extra expense of terra cotta statues, hand-crafted
chandeliers and massive stained glass windows was worth every
penny in a place like the Main Library. At a cost of $894,000,
the library was the most expensive structure ever built on
campus up to that time. That Suzzallo championed these
"extravagances" irked l