When I was looking through pictures for evidence of those palm trees behind the Physics Amphitheater, I ran across this one. You can just see a piece of the circle of little trees here, but as I looked at it I got more interested in where the photographer was when it was taken.

This just doesn’t look like an aerial to me–I suspect the photographer was on the roof of the Mech Lab or up in the Campanile. I also think the picture was taken at a very early date, maybe as early as 1915. The foreground is still kind of messed up from the Physics Building construction and the landscaping is rudimentary. I doesn’t look like the oaks had yet been planted. Also, the building across Main Street from the Administration Building seems to be one of the farmhouses that were there before we were–maybe the one on the right in this April 1912 picture looking up Main towards downtown:

In any event, if you look out a second floor window in the Mech Lab today and point your camera in the same direction, this is what you will get:

Amazing.

Bonus: Lots of hustle and bustle on campus this summer. They seem to have started working on the site preparation for the statue of Edgar Odell Lovett that will be installed later this year.