 However, by the 1890s, the university was on the brink of financial collapse, until Robert Sommers Brookings, president of the Board of Trustees, undertook the task of rebuilding the universities finances, and acquiring land for a new campus.Brookings was instrumental in raising money for the university, since Eliot, the primary fundraiser for the university, had died.Washington University spent its first half century in downtown St. Louis bound by Washington Ave., Lucas Place, and Locust Street.