Located in a parking lot is an interpretive display near some architectural remnants. The placard reads:
THE ORIGINAL MEN'S GYMNASIUM
The Gym Stones were once part of the foundaton for the original men's gymnasium that faced the Stanford museum. By the 1906 earthquake, gymnasium construction was almost completed. After its massive structural failure the gym structure was deconstructed in hopes of rebuilding on the old foundation. The remnants foundation remained a visible campus ruin for 102 years until Stanford began an archaeological dig in 2008 in preparation for the Bing Concert Hall construction.
This assemblage represents roughly one fifth of the original gymnasium footprint. Grand cast iron columns were tenuously mortared in place atop the granite bases. At the time, it was believed that oversized elements would allow a building to withstand lateral stresses, but the earthquake abruptly disproved this.
To get a feeling for what the massive relic was, granite column bases excavated in the dig have been placed on this adjacent site in their original footprint, spacing and relation to the swimming tank. Since Jane Stanford embraced the Victorian notion of hygiene as a way to civilize and refine 'rough, western' students, the original pool was designed as a public bath house rather than a lap pool for active recreation.