The need for a dormitory to house Dickinson School of Law students was recognized as early as 1898, twenty years before the Law School moved from its original home in Emory Hall, located at the corner of South West and West Pomfret Streets, into its current home in Trickett Hall on South College Street in Carlisle. An editorial in the February, 1898, issue of The Forum, the forerunner of Dickinson Law Review, asked "[d]oes the law school need a dormitory? To one mingling with the students of the law school, this question comes most frequently, in fact it is a question on the minds of not a few of the present attendants of the law school."
The editor offered several arguments in support of a law school dormitory:
(1) Dormitories are essential elements to a well regulated educational institution. (2) The student body would be intact. (3) College students are obliged to room in dormitories and are thus kept under the direct management of the faculty. Why not law students? (4) Association of student with student is conductive to the intellectual health of all concerned. (5) It would increase the attendance of our rapidly growing and prosperous law school. (6) Students coming to the school would not be inconvenienced by being compelled to hunt rooms which, as is very often the case, are unsuitable. (7) The student body would gladly welcome such an acquisition as filling a much needed want.
The editorial noted that "buildings in close proximity to the law school 'are for sale which would be most appropriate for our required dormitories.”
The Dickinson School of Law's Board of Trustees apparently considered the need for a dormitory for "many years." In October, 1932, the school purchased a portion of the Mooreland Tract fronting on College Street that would eventually serve as the site of the school's dormitory. However, the purchase was apparently not originally intended for dormitory purposes; a 1934 architectural drawing by F.P. Dempwolf of York, Pennsylvania, depicted a "Memorial Library" on the site.
Following the Second World War "increasing demands by the Army Post and by the industries in Carlisle" and an increased law school enrollment combined to create a severe housing shortage for law students in the borough. In 1946, law school Dean Walter Harrison Hitchler informed the Board of Trustees that he was having difficulty locating housing for his students. The need for the law school dormitory that had been proposed almost a half-century earlier now became critical, not only for housing purposes but also because residential accommodations on the campus were seen as creating "a better study atmosphere and a more fruitful experience in living" for the law students.
In 1946, the Trustees appointed a committee to explore the possibility of erecting a dormitory for the law school. The committee, after careful study, recommended "that the project be undertaken when material and labor were available and that the alumni be invited to share in the costs by voluntary contribution."
Philadelphia architects Walter Karcher and Livingston Smith designed the dormitory, keeping with Trickett Hall's colonial-style architecture. The blueprints called for five interconnected buildings built around a central courtyard, capable of housing 90 students. The structure also included a first-floor apartment for Dean Walter Harrison Hitchler and a student lounge/drawing room. Ground for the new building was broken in February, 1951, and the cornerstone was laid in a special ceremony on June 2, 1951. Among the items placed in the cornerstone by Pennsylvania Governor and Dickinson School of Law alumnus John S. Fine were photographs of the Law School's Board of Trustees, a 1951 Law School yearbook, a current issue of the Dickinson Law Review, photographs of the dormitory site and a copy of the Holy Bible.
On 14 September 1906 William Trickett, dean of the Dickinson School of Law, wrote a letter offering a faculty position to a young lawyer then living in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trickett proposed that the young man—Walter Harrison Hitchler—teach courses in criminal law and equity. "I think you will like the work," wrote Trickett. "It will be useful to you, and may be the initiation into a career as professor of law, that may be lifelong and honorable."