The story of the founding of the (new) University of Chicago is a good one. Embarrassed and publicly humiliated by the failure of the (Old) University of Chicago in 1886, supporters of the new institution had significant difficulty matching John D. Rockefeller's pledged endowment of $600,00—a true metric crap-ton of money at the time—but match it they did. And then some. UC went on to become one of the finest institutions in the world.
The Wiki has a good entry about the history of the school with these tidbits about its founding:
The modern university replaced the defunct institution of the same name; to avoid confusion it was legally renamed Old University of Chicago. Graduates of the Old Chicago University were later assimilated into the ranks of the alumni of the University of Chicago.
The university's founding was part of a wave of research university foundings that started with Cornell University (1865) and Johns Hopkins University (1876) emulating the research-oriented German universities such as the Humboldt University of Berlin. Incorporated in 1890, the university dates its founding as July 1, 1891, when young William Rainey Harper became its first president. The first classes were held on October 1, 1892, with an enrollment of 594 men and women and a faculty of 120, including eight former college presidents.
I'm a proud alum of its Law School. When we arrived on campus in the wee hours of a crisp fall morning in 1976, my roommate and I were overcome by the brooding sense of power in the Oxfordian Quad. That feeling never dissipated. At the time, UC was in Year 2 of a three-year "austerity" budget, during which the university added a million books to the Regenstein Library, built a Brain Surgery Research Institute, and added several hospitals to their sprawling medical complex. It was an intoxicating place to learn.
This piece—titled In Nomine Conditoris, Latin for "in the name of the founder"—celebrates the interior of the campus' non-denominational Gothic Revival Rockefeller Chapel, with a focus on the importance of literal and metaphorical light in the purpose of a university. It is a soaring majestic cathedral in the very grand European tradition. Enjoy!
