The foundation of Northwestern University can be traced to a meeting on May 31 , 1850 , of nine prominent Chicago businessmen , Methodist leaders , and attorneys who had formed the idea of establishing a university to serve what had been known from 1787 to 1803 as the Northwest Territory . On January 28 , 1851 , the Illinois General Assembly granted a charter to the '' Trustees of the North-Western University '' , making it the first chartered university in Illinois . The school 's nine founders , all of whom were Methodists ( three of them ministers ) , knelt in prayer and worship before launching their first organizational meeting . Although they affiliated the university with the Methodist Episcopal Church , they favored a non-sectarian admissions policy , believing that Northwestern should serve all people in the newly developing territory by bettering the economy in Evanston . John Evans , for whom Evanston is named , bought of land along Lake Michigan in 1853 , and Philo Judson developed plans for what would become the city of Evanston , Illinois . The first building , Old College , opened on November 5 , 1855 . To raise funds for its construction , Northwestern sold $ 100 " perpetual scholarships " entitling the purchaser and his heirs to free tuition . Another building , University Hall , was built in 1869 of the same Joliet limestone as the Chicago Water Tower , also built in 1869 , one of the few buildings in the heart of Chicago to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 . In 1873 the Evanston College for Ladies merged with Northwestern , and Frances Willard , who later gained fame as a suffragette and as one of the founders of the Woman 's Christian Temperance Union ( WCTU ) , became the school 's first dean of women . ( Willard Residential College ( 1938 ) honors her name . ) Northwestern admitted its first female students in 1869 , and the first woman was graduated in 1874
Great Chicago Fire
Great Chicago Fire
Northwestern University