Note and newspaper article about the McDonald's on the site of where basketball was first played (December 8, 1995
Description:
This three-page document includes copies of a note written by Frank A. Wolcott and an article written by Frank Thomas and published in the Dec. 8, 1995 Springfield Union-News. The article is titled "It's the birthplace for hoops and fries: Thanks to Springfield College's Frank Wolcott, a new McDonald's restaurant is honoring the birth site of basketball." The article talks about the opening of the McDonald's on the site of the building, the School for Christian Workers Building, where basketball was created on Mason Square. The building has been known by many different names over the years including the Winchester Square Building, the Mason Square building and the Armory Hill building. Construction on the building was completed in the spring of 1886 and it was dedicated on June 1 of that year. The building consisted of a reading room, gymnasium, parlor, a recitation room, an amusement room and fifty sleeping rooms. The Armory Hill YMCA also rented rooms in the building. In 1891 James Naismith, while a faculty member at the school, invented the game of basketball in the gymnasium of the building. In 1890 the School for Christian Workers separated into two schools which continued to operate out of the same building, the YMCA Training School and the School for Christian Workers. In 1896 the Training School, now Springfield College, finished the transition to its new location on Alden Street and in 1897 the School for Christian Workers became the Bible Normal College and moved to Hartford, Connecticut. The original building was torn down in 1965 to create a parking lot. In 1995, McDonald’s Corporation bought the land, excavating the original foundation and bricks before building a restaurant on the site. Today, there is a monument commemorating the site as the birthplace of basketball.
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