152 Years Ago This Northfield College Opened Its Doors

I missed it by a day, but it has been 152 years since Northfield College opened its doors to students, and is now known as Carleton College. A tweet by the Minnesota Historical Society yesterday shows a photograph of what was the original building which was the former American House hotel. Here's a brief history of how Carleton came to be. 

The school, which opened in 1867, started off as a prep school in Northfield with just 23 students enrolled. The person behind what was then known as Northfield College was Instructor Horace Goodhue Jr. The school was only known as Northfield College for about 4 years before a 'generous donation was made by businessman and manufacturer William Carleton in 1871.

Its facilities have gotten better than what was originally presented to those first students in 1867. It now takes up more than just a small footprint in Northfield as it now has a 1,040-acre campus, which includes an 800-acre arboretum.