In his autobiography, Charles Blanchard recorded his first impressions of Wheaton and the Illinois Institute, which was to soon become Wheaton College.

I remember most vividly the utter dreariness of the prospect….It was a little huddle of frame houses on the wind-swept prairie. Many trees had been planted but they were so small as to produce no impression upon the landscape. The ground was low in and about the town on which water stood the year around. A single building, small, in ill repair and in every way forbidding stood in the midst of a campus which was and is one of the most beautiful spots in the world.