Lyceum-The Circle Historic District, Historic landmark district at University of Mississippi, Oxford, US.
Lyceum-The Circle Historic District is a group of eight historic academic buildings and monuments arranged around a central lawn on the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford. The buildings form a ring around this open space, which serves as the physical center of the university grounds.
The Lyceum Building went up in 1848 as the first structure on the university grounds, and the surrounding campus grew outward from that starting point over the following decades. The area gained national recognition after events in the 1960s tied it directly to the American civil rights movement.
The open lawn of The Circle is a gathering spot where students walk, sit on the grass, and cross between buildings throughout the day. Several monuments placed around the grounds mark moments from the civil rights era that visitors can read and reflect on during a walk.
The district is at the center of campus and easy to reach on foot from any direction. Visiting early in the morning or late in the afternoon on a weekday generally gives you more room to walk around and read the monuments without crowds.
The Lyceum Building was used as a hospital during the Civil War, and bullet marks said to be from that era are still visible on some of its columns today. This makes the building one of the few academic structures in the American South that carries physical traces of wartime use.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
