Northwestern was founded on May 30, 1850 when nine men met in attorney Grant Goodrich's law office to discuss establishing an institution of higher education. Their hope was that Chicago, already a center of commerce, could become a center of learning as well. Chicago in 1850 was still a crude outpost - hardly a place of campus-like charm. But things were improving. As the hub of America's former Northwest Territory - a vast region of great future wealth - Chicago had attracted pioneers of ambition and intelligence who were now the boomtown's leading citizens. Northwestern's founders were just such pioneers. In addition to Goodrich, there was Orrington Lunt, a founder of the Chicago Board of Trade, who envisioned a university that would rival any institution in the eastern United States. And there was John Evans, whose medical skills were matched by his visionary gifts. Through the efforts of Evans, Goodrich, Lunt, and others, Northwestern University was officially established on January 28, 1851, when its Act of Incorporation was passed.
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