On University Day, April 23, 1906, students, faculty, and trustees gathered for the laying of the cornerstone for the 1906 addition to Estabrook Hall. The cornerstone, of pink marble, is at the northwest corner of the building. The north face of the stone is inscribed Estabrook Hall / This stone laid April 23, 1906. The west front of the stone is inscribed Building Committee, Brown Ayres, James Maynard, Hu L. McClung, Charles E. Ferris, superintendent; Thomas and Turner builders.
A lead box containing the following items was placed behind the cornerstone: Blount College sketch; an inauguration record; the 1905–6 catalogue; a summer school class catalog of 1906; a copy of the Sentinel, April 21, 1906; a copy of the Journal and Tribune, April 23, 1906; faculty pictures; a picture of Brown Ayres; an impression of the seal of the university; an invitation to University Day; a program for University Day; an engineering manual, 1906; pictures of Estabrook Hall, 1899 and 1906; a statement by Dr. Ayres; and a bookplate from the library. The foreman of the pattern shop soldered the box closed and handed it to the Honorable Seymour Mynders, state superintendent of public instruction, who laid the cornerstone on behalf of the governor. He was handed a trowel made in the mechanical shop of the university by Joseph A. Smith, the foreman of the machine shop. The trowel was of steel, with the handle formed from a broken gunstock. On the trowel was the inscription “This trowel was used by Seymour A. Mynders, superintendent of public instruction, representing the governor of the state, to lay the corner stone of Estabrook Hall, the first building of The University of Tennessee erected by legislative appropriation—April 23, 1906.” The trowel was then presented to Mynders.