President Diehl was particularly concerned about ensuring unity and consistency of design. When the first buildings were being planned in the early 1920s, architect Henry Hibbs chose for the walls a uniquely colorful sandstone with a range of reds, yellows, and browns from a quarry near Bald Knob, Arkansas. To ensure a continuous supply, Rhodes purchased the quarry. After the state decided to build a highway through the quarry in the 1960s, Rhodes was forced to sell the property. Since then, the college has been able to continue the uniformity of its buildings by sourcing the sandstone for the college's new buildings from other quarries within a five-mile range of the original source.