One of the most significant questions facing the trustees of the infant Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania was where to locate the school. During the summer of 1855, they mulled over offers of land from Erie, Blair, Perry, Allegheny, Franklin, Dauphin and Huntingdon Counties before settling on the offer of Gen. James Irvin for 200 acres of land in Centre County. At the September 12, 1855 meeting of the trustees, Irvin offered an adjacent 200 acres for purchase at a favorable price, and the citizens of the County offered a further donation of $10,000 to the new school to help it with the expenses of constructing a college building. After several substitute motions failed, the board voted to accept the Centre County offer.

The College building (usually referred to today as the original Old Main) was designed by Hugh N. McAllister, a Bellefonte lawyer and local trustee. The massive five-story, five-bay structure was constructed of limestone quarried a few hundred yards away from the building to the southeast. It was built on a rise facing a large open field, initially planted in farm crops, but later in grass, and beyond that the main road from Bellefonte to Spruce Creek. This arrangement, and in fact the look and functionality of the building, followed the model of Princeton's Nassau Hall -- America's most imitated college building. For the students of the time, it was the college. It housed both student rooms and faculty apartments, cooking and eating facilities, classrooms, labs, the library and museum, literary society rooms, and the president's office.