 Lincoln
Christian University (LCU) has said goodbye to the first building
built as part of its campus. Timothy Hall has been in the process of
demolition over the last month after multiple issues were discovered
that, in essence, “totaled” the building. Demolition was planned and
contracted before LCU’s October announcement of its cessation of
operations effective May of 2024.
Timothy Hall had served almost every function
necessary to college operations other than cafeteria and gym, which
were constructed shortly after Timothy Hall was completed in 1951.
According to Dr. Tom Tanner (LCU alum and LCU administrator for 33
years) in his book “Verses and Voices: The Story of Lincoln
Christian College and Seminary– 65 Years of Lincoln Leaders
1944-2009,” at its dedication on June 1, 1951, the Administration
building, as it was called then, “had room for three administrators,
12 faculty, 10 classrooms, and a library with 7,000 volumes.” The
cost to build it was “just over “$100,000, almost all of it coming
from small gifts from churches and individuals.” The school itself
was seven years old.
Over the next decade, the school grew from 250 to 500
students and a new Administration building was completed in 1960.
Timothy Hall then began immediate use as the home for Lincoln
Christian Seminary. At the rededication of Timothy Hall as the
Seminary building and dedication of the new Administration building,
Dr. Tanner reports that the campus newsletter records 3,000 people
from around the region attending the ceremony. Lincoln Christian
Seminary grew from 51 students to 100 over the next five years,
requiring greater space, and so Restoration Hall, the current home
of LCS, was built in 1965. Thus, Timothy Hall embarked on a new era.
Over four decades of LCU students will remember Timothy Hall not as
classrooms and offices, but as a dormitory. One end of Timothy Hall
briefly served as a women’s dormitory coinciding with the Seminary
usage, and then for one semester as a men’s dormitory before the
whole building became the first men’s residence on campus in August
of 1965.
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Timothy "The Hole" Hall at Lincoln
Christian College taken from social media.
A few years later the dorm received the name that it
would be known as for the duration of its time as a men’s dorm.
Dr. Tanner explains, “Actually, it was the local fire marshal who
coined the name. After inspecting the dorm in the fall of 1968 after
a prolonged power outage, he simply remarked, ‘What a hole.’ And the
name has stuck ever since.” “The Hole” was a men’s residence for the
next decades and operated much like a fraternity with traditions,
rituals, and occasional shenanigans. Residents were called “Holers”
and built a community and a loyalty that still resonates with LCU
alumni. In 2007, “The Hole” was
once again recommissioned, this time as the Timothy Center for
Global Ministry. It was refurbished with offices and a conference
room to house the Christian Ministries Field, which included
preaching and youth ministries, along with missions and other
departments. It came full circle providing space for faculty and
administrative offices as was part of its original purpose. It
continued under this use until May of 2022, when LCU restructured
and downsized, concentrating all offices and classrooms in
Restoration Hall and the Administration building.
Dr. Tanner’s retrospective on Timothy Hall was originally written as
an address at its recommissioning from “The Hole” to Timothy Center
for Global Ministry on Founders Day in May of 2007. His final words
of the address carry a new poignancy as the building is now a rubble
of bricks and metal and the school is in its final months. He
writes, “It is fitting we bid adieu to this dormitory today, for
‘adieu’ simply means ‘To God.’ Today, Timothy, we bid you adieu.
We give you ‘to God.’”
[Stephanie Hall]
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