University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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and was played n a tcU where Lift Football was rMjh and tmgfe in the S:ience A tin. of the CMIDUS await 1900. token fiw the Mr near what is on the ROTC gun Bart- ;THE UNIVERSITY Bv 1874 the University of California consisted of two buildings, South and North Hall, but in the succeeding years Harmon Gymnasium appeared and Bacon Hall was constructed to be used as the University Library. During this period the only buildings in Berkeley were a French restaurant at the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Allston Way, whose prices were too ex- orbitant for the college student, and a hotel capable of accommodating twenty persons. As a result, most of the students were forced to commute from Oakland by horsecar, a trip of approximately one hour and a half. By joggling the horsecar from its track, students often manufactured excuses for being late to classes. In the early days of the University cinch notices were not mailed to students, nor were they called for surreptitiously at the Recorder ' s office. Instead they were posted on the old North Hall bulletin board for all the world to see, and the man who posted these glad ridings was fittingly nick- Classes in HM| lnlum all ftt newest the days the Greek Tbeatt Mn rallies were heU wa Ike fwthall is ariy-OBtncb Califtmu Hall.

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In 1S74 the Berkeley campus consisted of North Hall (right) and South Hall, which is still in use. At the turn of the century a flagpole occupied the site where the Campanile now stands. To the left is Bacon Hall, and North Hall (right) was later replaced by the Library. THE HISTORY OP In less than a century the University of California has grown from the smallest institution of higher learning in the world to the largest. The present University, with over fifty-two million dollars worth of property and equip- ment, had its beginning in 1853 in an old Oakland fandango house where the Contra Costa Academy was started. Later a larger site was secured and the Academy became a college which was formally chartered in 1855 as the College of California. Instruction was started with six faculty members and eight students, in great contrast to the three thousand faculty members and twenty-seven thousand students of today. The founders offered the College as a gift to the State of California in 1867, and a year later a charter for the University was granted by the State Legislature. The site of the present Berkeley Campus was chosen by officials of the College of California who, standing by Founders ' Rock, dedicated the land to the use of higher education in this state. Students study in Bacon Hall when it was the Uniyersity Library. Stylish hats were worn by Uniersity men, as exemplified by this Astronomy class. A great crowd assembled in 1899 in front of Bacon Hall to hear President Benjamin Ide Wheeler ' s inaugural address.

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On February 29, 1916. 2500 students armed themselves with picks and shovels and marched to Charter Hill to construct the Big C trail. In a period of two short hours the six-foot trail, complete with bridges, drains and stiles, had been completed. named The Angel of Death . During this era, an undergraduate who had attained the lofty state of a junior purchased a gray top hat, decorated it to his fancy, sat on it before anyone else had the opportunity, and then wore it everywhere as a sign of his advanced social position. Seniors sported equally dilapidated black silk hats. When the classes of 1907 and 1908 proposed building the Big C , strenu- ous faculty criticism ensued which held that the color of this landmark would mar the beauty of the hills. Taking no heed of this artistic opposition, the C was built on March 18, 1905 by two hundred underclassmen who relayed buckets of gravel and concrete up Charter Hill in a drenching rain. The path up the side of the hill was constructed by twenty-five hundred students who strung themselves up to the Big C along a pre-arranged route on the morning of February 29, 1916. At the end of two hours a six-foot gravel trail had been made, bridges and drains had been built and stiles constructed. Benjamin Ide Wheeler came to the University in 1899 and served as president during the years of the University ' s greatest development as it was in this period that student self-government was initiated and the campus grew through private gifts and increased state financial aid. Charles Franklin Doe contributed one-half of the cost of constructing the one and a half million dollar University Library, which was completed in 1911. The With money provided by jane K. Sather, construction of the Campanile, or Sather Tower, was begun in 1914. The cornerstone for Wheeler Hall was laid in March. 1916, by President Benjamin Ide Wheeler. The pushball contest was a highlight of the Soph-Frosh brawls of many years ago.