{"nrhp_refnum":"86003144","name":"Military Drill Hall and Men's Gymnasium","other_names":["Kenney Gym Annex and H.E. Kenney Gynmasium"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1402--1406 W. Springfield","address_restricted":false,"city":"Urbana","county":"Champaign County","state":"IL","lat":40.11292996000003,"lon":-88.22777868099996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-11-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Two linked brick buildings at 1402-1406 West Springfield in Urbana, Illinois, on the University of Illinois campus: the Military Drill Hall (1890, Nathan Clifford Ricker) and the Men's Gymnasium (1902, Nelson Strong Spencer), now the Kenney Gym Annex and Kenney Gymnasium.","why_significant":"The Drill Hall is presented as perhaps Ricker's finest engineering work, with a wood and steel truss system that leaves the interior free of columns, which was progressive for the 1890s. The adjacent Men's Gymnasium, designed by Ricker's former student Spencer, echoes Ricker's exterior style and engineering approach. Together they show Ricker's influence on structural design and architectural education at the university.","narrative":"Two connected brick buildings on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana began as separate structures. The Military Drill Hall, built in 1890 to a design by Nathan Clifford Ricker, is a one-story building with a mansard roof and a wood and steel truss system that spans the interior with no support columns. Such a large open space was advanced for its time and served military training. In 1902 Nelson Strong Spencer, a former student of Ricker, designed the two-story Men's Gymnasium next door. It borrowed the Drill Hall's rusticated base and arched windows, and it also used a trussed roof and a column-free activity floor. A passageway joined the two after 1914, when the Drill Hall became a gymnasium annex. They are valued for Ricker's engineering and for his influence on architecture teaching at the university. Both are still in use for physical education.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Military Drill Hall, Nathan Clifford Ricker; Men's Gymnasium, Nelson Strong Spencer","architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","B","C"],"status_note":"Both buildings operate as a single structure today, used for physical education; the Drill Hall interior and the exterior of both buildings are described as largely unaltered.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.527736-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/45/8907/28890745/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/86003144.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86003144/a8907f142c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86003144/a8907f142c-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.5","author":"Ragib Hasan, en:User:Ragibl cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:22, 30 October 2013 (UTC)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kenny_Gym_Annex_UIUC_crop.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Ragib Hasan, en:User:Ragibl cropped by Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:22, 30 October 2013 (UTC)</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.5</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kenny_Gym_Annex_UIUC_crop.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28890745","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenney_Gym_and_Kenney_Gym_Annex","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6390890"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/champaign-county/military-drill-hall-and-mens-gymnasium-86003144/"}