Worcester State University

Founded in 1874 as the Massachusetts State Normal School at Worcester, WSU was the fifth of nine teacher training colleges in the state.[3] Spurred by the success of a city-run normal school founded two years earlier, its school committee successfully petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for a state-sponsored institution in Worcester.[4] The original campus was located in a Second Empire-style stone building on St. Ann's Hill, near the city's downtown. By 1900, the campus included a president's house, the "Stoddard Terrace" residence hall, and a turreted gymnasium annex. This site would serve WSU for nearly sixty years until the current Chandler Street campus opened in 1932.[5]