Following the university's founding in 1869, a campus was laid out on four city blocks and its first building, University Hall, was constructed. Built of wood and sun-dried bricks in what its builders termed the "Franco-Italian Style," University Hall was an impressive structure to young people visiting the capital city. One student, born and reared in a sod house, likened it to the Parthenon. This beacon of learning also dazzled young pioneer children, who would mount huge ash heaps in the back of University Hall to view skeletons in the state's first museum.