Date Built: 1915
Address: 517 W. Main Street
Named For: John Todd Stuart, Class of 1826
Current Use: residence hall for upperclass students
Standing on the north side of Centre’s campus, Stuart Hall was built in 1915. It was a private residence until 1949. It became the residential house Beta Theta Pi, from 1949 until 1962. Eventually, Centre moved its fraternity houses to “Greek Row” on the south side of campus, and the Beta fraternity house was sold to Preston-Pruitt Funeral Home. It functioned as a funeral home from 1962 until 1992. Centre rebought the house in 1992 and turned it into the Centre Shoppes, a coffee shop and the college’s bookstore. The Shoppes remained until 2005, when Centre turned Stuart Hall into an upperclassmen dormitory, housing approximately twenty-three students each school year.
There is a highway marker from the Kentucky Historical Society in front of the hall commemorating John Todd Stuart, a friend of Abraham Lincoln who persuaded Lincoln to pursue a career in law.
You can read about “The Ghost of Stuart Hall”