Campus of Michigan State University
The campus of Michigan State University is located in East Lansing on the banks of the Red Cedar River, and comprises a contiguous area of 5,200 acres (21 km2), 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) of which are developed. Built amid virgin forest, the campus opened in 1855 with three buildings, none of which remain. As an agricultural college, the campus was originally located several miles outside of the city of Lansing, but as the population of the college grew, the city of East Lansing developed just north of the area's main avenue.
As the campus of a large university, MSU has many facilities that serve not only the school, but the entire metropolitan area. Public venues on campus include a football stadium, multipurpose arena, ice arena, concert hall, hotel, and golf course. The campus also has its own power plant, laundry service, incinerator, and Amtrak train station.
In terms of infrastructure, there are 556 buildings: 100 for academics, 131 for agriculture, 166 for housing and food service, and 42 for athletics. Overall, the university has 22,763,025 square feet (2,114,754.2 m2) of total indoor space. MSU also owns 44 non-campus properties, totaling 22,000 acres (89 km2) in 28 different counties. However, the size of the campus, combined with its curving roads and lack of a centralized quadrangle, can make it difficult for newcomers to navigate.
Before the white settlement of the region, the area that is now East Lansing was a combination of dense virgin oak forest and tamarack swampland. In July 1855 a 677-acre site just north of the Red Cedar River was recommended to the State Board of Education, the report to the board noted that except for the occasional clearing the land was dense hardwood forest. It was in one of these "oak openings" that the school built its first three buildings in 1856: a multipurpose building called College Hall, a dormitory building later known as "Saints' Rest," and a barn. College Hall contained classrooms, offices, laboratories, a library/museum, and a multifunctional lecture hall/chapel. It was also one of the first buildings in America to be used for the teaching of scientific agriculture.
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