The building was named for Physics and Astronomy professor Lucien I. Blake in 1898. This radically different building was completed in 1895. It was so different, that many students didn't care for it at all. A student paper published in 1895 said, "The sandstone front of the physics building looks like a speckled chicken. The iron in the stone shows more plainly than the stone itself. If there be no lotion that will remove these blemishes, let a screen be put before the building. The Regents should think twice before accepting unconditionally the sorrowful looking structure with its chubby, freckled face, its one eye with a cross above it and its monstrous hat."

Image taken from E.F. Caldwell's "A Souvenir History of Lawrence, Kansas, 1898."