At his death in 1879, George Metzger, class of 1798, bequeathed his personal land and $25,000 to the town of Carlisle for the purpose of opening a college for women. To this end, a four-story, brick façade Victorian house was constructed at a cost of $30,000 on the two acres of Metzger property on North Hanover Street in 1881. On September 28 of that year, the Metzger Institute, a College for Young Ladies, was opened. The building provided Metzger students with a gymnasium, a dining room, and a library, as well as classroom and dormitory space. The rest of the campus included a tennis court and gardens. However, in 1913, as the Institute was struggling for funding, its trustees decided to lease the building rent-free to the local Dickinson College. The College would receive all income from the house, as long as the building was being used for the education of women.

From this time onward, Metzger Hall was home to the women of Dickinson College. As Metzger was six blocks from the main campus, residents dined, exercised, and entertained within its walls. By 1963, however, the building was in disrepair and only housed freshman women; representatives of the College therefore symbolically returned the building’s key to the Metzger Trustees that year. The property was sold shortly thereafter, and the building was subsequently razed to make way for fast-food restaurants and a gas station.

Built next to the Upper Quads, construction on McKenney Hall began in 1972. McKenney Hall was completed in 1973 and the dedication ceremony was held on October 13th, 1973.

McKenney Hall was named in appreciation of W. Gibbs McKenny ('39), a member of the Board of Trustees since 1954, and his wife Florence Rea McKenney. W. Gibbs McKenney's father, Walter Gibbs McKenney also attended Dickinson and was a member of the Class of 1903.

Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania purchased the former residence of Bradford O. McIntire from his estate on June 5, 1948. The house, located on South College Street, cost $15,000, and alterations made afterward cost an additional $6,000.

McIntire House first served as a men’s dormitory, and then was home to the Commons Club from 1950 until 1952. In 1953, the house was renovated for use as a women’s residence. The College later sold the house in 1973.

One of ten residence halls that originally made up the College’s Fraternity Quadrangle, McClintock Hall (Quad 5) was first occupied by the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity in September, 1964. The building was later converted into a coeducational residence, and in the year 2000 was completely remodeled and joined with Baird Hall to form a single, larger residence hall.

McClintock Hall was named for John McClintock, a Dickinson faculty member who taught mathematics as well as the classics between 1836 and 1848, and then served on the Board of Trustees from 1849 to 1859. The building was designed by Howell Lewis Shay and Associates and constructed at a cost of approximately $200,000.

Built as a dormitory for men, Malcolm Hall was completed in September 1966 and dedicated on May 6, 1967. It was designed by Elmer H. Adams and constructed at a cost of $475,000.

The building, situated on the former site of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house at the southwest corner of High and Mooreland Streets, was named in honor of College President Gilbert Malcolm, class of 1915, who had served the college in various administrative capacities for four decades.

"Lovers' Lane" was a tree-lined path in the John Dickinson campus at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania that provided a direct route from the main campus entrance at the corner of West and High Streets to East College. The path apparently was the favorite spot of many a college student, a place to while away the hours with friends or perhaps even with young ladies, possibly giving rise to the name. The path seems to have fallen out of favor with the student population, however, after the First World War.

The re-landscaping of the quadrangle in 1929 and the removal of many of the trees in that area of the campus have effectively erased any trace of the once-infamous "Lovers' Lane."

Originally a storage facility for Byers Lumber Company, the Lumberyard was included in the land purchase made by the College for the construction of the Kline Life/Sports Center. This storage building was later renovated and made into a student social center, which opened on April 21, 1989. Less than five years later, on January 18, 1994, the Lumberyard collapsed when the ice and snow that had accumulated swiftly during a severe winter storm proved too heavy for the building’s roof to support. In 1995 the Depot, a new student social center, was constructed on the site that the Lumberyard had occupied.

One of ten residence halls that originally made up the College’s Fraternity Quadrangle, Longsdorff Hall (Quad 6) first opened its doors to students in September 1964. Longsdorff, one of the six “upper quads,” first served as home to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, and later became a residence hall for both men and women. The hall is named for Zatae Longsdorff, class of 1887, the first woman to graduate from Dickinson College.

The building was designed by Howell Lewis Shay and Associates and was constructed at a cost of approximately $200,000.

Dickinson College acquired this house on West Pomfret Street, formerly the home of Samuel M. Hepburn, on May 16, 1893, for $5,000, the mortgage being signed by President George E. Reed and Professors Henry C. Whiting and Bradford O. McIntire. A local fraternity, Alpha Zeta Phi, initially occupied the building, but it was turned into a residence for women in 1895.

The house was called “Ladies’ Hall” until February 7, 1905, when it was renamed to honor John Zacharias Lloyd, a recently deceased Methodist clergyman and trustee who had made a $10,000 bequest to the College. The house was sold in 1919, and ultimately razed fifty years later.

The College acquired Landis House, the former home of Merkel and Mary Lamberton Landis, on January 25, 1968, at a cost of $26,000. The house is located on the southeast corner of Pomfret and College Streets, across from the Benjamin Rush Campus. Since its purchase, the Landis House has served Dickinson College in various capacities, including being the home of the economics department and the first residence of the Community Studies Center. In 2010 the building was renovated and became the location of the Women's Center, the Office of Diversity Initiatives, the Conflict Resolution Center, and the Rape Advocate's office.