A History of Lehigh University by Catherine Drinker Bowen

Catherine Drinker Bowen reflects on her childhood at Lehigh under the presidency of her father, Henry Sturgis Drinker (1905-1920). She writes:

In 1881 the University Grounds were described as "a wilderness." Indeed, all of the University acres back of Packer Hall remained a wilderness until 1906. The writer of this book was eight years old when Dr. Drinker removed his household from Delaware County to Number Three, University Park, and if our readers will pardon a digression into the personal, she well remembers her disgust when, a year after his arrival, they began to build the road back of the president's house. It cut straight across a brook well stocked with salamanders and crawfish, and spoiled the best part of her fishing.

By that road the southern boundaries of the campus were broken, and year by year the University pushed up the hill, laying roads and erecting buildings, clearing and pruning and planting, until a mountain park was developed which, excepting Cornell and Leland Standford, is rivalled by no university in America.

*Image from Special Collections, Reference Number BA47_41