Montana State University

Establishment of the college Montana Hall, the second building constructed on campus: The Office of the President is located here. Montana became a state on 8 November 1889. Several cities competed intensely to be the state capital, the city of Bozeman among them. [ 11 ] In time, the city of Helena was named the state capital. As a consolation, the state legislature agreed to put the state's land-grant college in Bozeman. Gallatin County donated half of its 160-acre poor farm for the campus, and money for an additional 40 acres, which had been planned to hold a state capital, was raised by the community, including a $1,500 donation from rancher and businessman Nelson Story, Sr. [ 12 ] This land, as well as additional property and monetary contributions, was now turned over to the state for the new college. MSU was founded in 1893 as the Agricultural College of the State of Montana . [ 13 ] It opened on 16 February with five male and three female students. The first classes were held in rooms in the county high school, and later that year in the shuttered Bozeman Academy (a private preparatory school ). The first students were from Bozeman Academy and were forced to transfer to the college. Only two faculty existed on opening day: Luther Foster, a horticulturist from South Dakota who was also acting president, and Homer G. Phelps, who taught business. Within weeks, they were joined by S. M. Emery (who ran the agricultural experiment station) and Benjamin F. Maiden (an English teacher from the former Bozeman Academy). Augustus M. Ryon , a coal mine owner, was named the first president of the college on 17 April 1893. Ryon immediately clashed with the board of trustees and faculty. Where the trustees wanted the college to focus on agriculture, Ryon pointed out that few of its students intended to go back to farming.

While the rapidly expanding faculty wanted to establish a remedial education program to assist unprepared undergraduates (Montana's elementary and secondary public education system was in dire shape at the time), Ryon refused. The donation of the Story land to the college occurred in 1894, but Ryon was forced out in 1895 and replaced by the James R. Reid , a Presbyterian minister who had been president of the Montana College at Deer Lodge since 1890. The college grew quickly under Reid, who provided 10 years of stability and harmony. The student body grew so fast that the high school building was completely taken over by the college. A vacant store on Main Street was rented to provide additional classroom space. Both the Agricultural Experiment Station (now known as Taylor Hall) and the Main Building (now known as Montana Hall) were constructed in 1896, although the agricultural building was the first to open. Both structures were occupied in 1898. The university football team was established in 1897, and the college graduated its first four students that same year. The curriculum expanded into civil and electrical engineering in 1898.

Mission Revival-style Hamilton Hall, the first campus dormitory, was constructed in 1910. Reid resigned for health reasons in 1905 and was succeeded by James M. Hamilton , an economist. Determined to make the college into a school of technology, he rapidly expanded the curriculum areas such as biology, chemistry, engineering, geology, and physics. [ 14 ] Hamilton also devised the university motto, "Education for Efficiency", which the college continued to use until the 1990s. [ 11 ] Further marking this change in direction, the school was officially renamed the Montana College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1913 [ 15 ] (although that name was in widespread use as early as 1894). The college's first great rapid expansion of physical plants also began under Hamilton. Constructed during this time were Linfield Hall (1908), Hamilton Hall (1910), and Traphagen Hall (1919). The giant whitewashed "M" on the side of Mount Baldy in the foothills of the Bridger Range was first built in 1916, and in 1917 ROTC came to campus for the first time. Iconic barrel vaulted Romney Gym, home of the 1928 national champion Bobcat basketball team, was constructed in 1922. Hamilton resigned in 1919 to become Dean of Men, [ 14 ] and his successor was agricultural expert Alfred Atkinson . Atkinson's tenure lasted 17 years (1920 to 1937). A firm believer in Hamilton's vision for the school, Atkinson worked hard to continue the rapid expansion of the campus. The iconic, barrel-vaulted Gymnasium Building (now Romney Hall) was built in 1922, replacing a dilapidated "drill hall" and giving the school's men's basketball team its first home court. [ 16 ] The Heating Plant, Lewis Hall, and Roberts Hall followed in 1923. By the 1920s, the school was commonly referred to as Montana State College ( MSC ). Herrick Hall followed in 1926. The college was justifiably proud of its academic accomplishments, but its sports teams entered a golden age as well.

In 1922, Atkinson hired George Ott Romney and Schubert Dyche as co-head coaches of the football and men's basketball teams. Between 1922 and 1928 (the year he departed Montana for Brigham Young University ), Romney's football teams compiled a 28–20–1 record. This included the 1924 season in which his team went undefeated until the final game of the year. As a co-head basketball coach, Romney's teams compiled a 144–31 record and invented the fast break . After Romney left, Schubert Dyche coached the "Golden Bobcats" team of 1928, which had a 36–2 record and won the national championship. [ 17 ] In his seven years as a basketball coach, Dyche's teams compiled a 110–93 record (this included the dismal 1932–33 and 1933–34 seasons), but won their conference championship twice. In 1930, the college built Gatton Field, a football field on what is now the site of the Marga Hosaeus Fitness Center. In one of President Atkinson's last accomplishments, the Dormitory Quadrangle (now Atkinson Quadrangle) was built. [ 16 ] The first three decades of the 20th century were rowdy ones on the college campus. Bozeman had a large red-light district by 1900, alcohol was plentiful and cheap, and there was little in the way of organized entertainment such as theaters to occupy the student body. President Reid spent much of his presidency cracking down on dancing, drinking, gambling, and prostitution by students. President Hamilton sought to improve the atmosphere for women by building Hamilton Hall, which was not only the first on-campus housing for students but also the first all-women's housing on campus. Access by men to Hamilton Hall was strictly limited to young teenage boys (who acted as servants); adult males were permitted only in the first-floor lounge, and only on Sundays. Atkinson Quadrangle was built on the location of the College Inn, also known as the "Bobcat Lair," a popular student drinking and dancing hangout. [ 18 ]