Colorado College - Nugget Yearbook (Colorado Springs, CO)

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w O w O u o Q O -i o u

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Color fro Col lege Tc.tr ool; llattapt-Stfrct COLORADO COLLEGE IN 1882. Past, Present an future By Erle V. Painter. Colorado College is the oldest institution of higher education in the State. This familiar legend we find inscribed in the front of our catalogues, and all like appropriate places. And to those of us who have entered in but recent years, a conception of this beginning very probably embraces the present Cam- pus, with, perhaps, the exception of Palmer Hall. A little curiosity, however, very quickly shows us our mistake. Established in 1874. Colorado Springs itself but three years old. Colorado not admitted to Statehood until ' 76. Denver approximating some ten thousand inhabitants, the Springs boasting but fifteen hundred. Ever notice from one of the many vantage points of the nearby mountains what a little splash on the rolling landscape before you Colorado Springs really makes? Cut that m half, divide the remainder by two, bunch what is left around Pike ' s Peak and Cascade Avenues, and your first result will leave the Campus somewhere a mile or so to the north, out on the prairie, lost in weeds, sagebrush and sand. So let us forget the reality of today and go back to the beginning; to Colorado Springs in ' 74 — a clump of log cabins and shacks, sunshine and dreams, dreams, dreams. Prof Kerr, the oldest professor now resident in the Springs, talks most interestingly of those early days. He says: I came over to Colorado Springs, was told that there were here two thousand people. There did not appear, however, to be more than half that number. It becoming known that I had been connected with the University of Mis- souri, and was the head of the Normal School in southeast Missouri, everybody seemed to think he must talk school to me, and the main subject I heard discussed was the mak- ing of this prospective city a great center of learning. One man, I think it was Major McAllister, said: ' There are millions of people who cannot live in the East and who are looking for just such a place as this, where they can enjoy, without money and without effort, the grandest mountain scenery of the world, drink the life-giving waters of Man- ltou, charged with sulphur for the skin, soda for the stomach, and iron for the blood; where they can grow strong and happy in the finest climate ever let loose from the hands of the Creator, and where, under their own watchful eyes, they can give their children a princely education. ' I ventured to ask where the College buildings were. ' Don ' t have any, ' was the reply. ' Don ' t need any, yet. A room or two will be enough to start with. This is a land where things grow. All that is necessary here is to plant the seed — college seed, if you please — sprinkle a little water over it, and it will grow. I tell you it will grow. ' Well, I didn ' t dare say it wouldn ' t. The man was too much m ear- nest, and I was too far away from home. Speaking of life in those days, he says: In 1875 I was living in the frame house 14

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now on the southeast corner of Yampa and Nevada. This was, at that time, the far- thest house north; and is still standing, a relic of those early days. Coming home one evening about dusk I found the doors and windows barricaded with chairs, tables, and, in fact, about all the movable household furniture, Fffecting an entrance, I found my children in a terrible fright, caused by the appearance of some five hundred Indians, who were encamped a few hundred yards from the house. They were Utes, camping as is Indian custom, on the outskirts of the town, while they did their trading, buying of supplies, etc. This was the last visit of Indians in a body to the Springs. The place where they encamped is the site of the present Science Building. When the Colorado Springs townsite was laid out, it was agreed on the part of the projectors that they would do three things to make good homes for all comers. First, they should have a temperance community. This was assured by a clause in the sale of any land that it reverted to the Colorado Springs Company if saloons were erected on it. Second, they would beautify the town. Third, they would have an intelligent com- munity, and the very best educational privileges. When, therefore, the Association of Congregational Churches of Colorado instructed a committee with Prof. T. N. Haskell as chairman to ascertain what opportunities there were for founding a higher institution of learning in Colorado under Congregational aus- pices, the founders of Colorado Springs made them an offer, including a college site of twenty acres, with seventy acres of unsold lots within the corporation limits. Proposals had been received from Greeley and from several other places, but at the General Congregational Conference in Denver, January 20, 1874, it was decided without a dissenting vote to undertake at once the establishment of a Christian College in Colorado under Congregational auspices, having a board of trust not less than twelve, nor more than eighteen men, two-thirds of whom must be members of evangelical churches, and that Colorado Springs was the most suitable site for it. The need and purpose of such a college is spoken of in the first catalogue pub- lished. It was very natural that the General Conference should decide to undertake at once to establish a Christian college in Colorado. It is true that there are few Con- gregationalists in Colorado, and that they are not wealthy; but Congregationahsts were few and poor in Massachusetts when they founded Harvard, and fewer and poorer in Connecticut when they laid the foundation of Yale. The demand here is greater than it was in the colonies. Colorado had last year a school population of 1 6,000. It surely is not too soon to make provision for the liberal education of some of these youth. New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming with a combined population of about 400,000, need a college nearer than the distant Pacific coast. New Mexico needs common school teachers in great numbers to prepare her population for the duties of citizens. These teachers ought to be prepared for their work in an institution very near her borders. New Mexico will need, also, preachers of the gospel to save her people from the infidelity which so often succeeds release from the thralldom of superstition. 1 he College was under no ecclesiastical or political control. Members of different churches and of no church were on its Board of Trustees. Its Faculty was to be selected with no other limitations than that they should be Christian men, with special fitness to teach the studies of their department. Quoting from The Mecca of February 22, 1902: To be a Christian college, then, was the ideal originally proposed for it. The sense in which its founders understood the terms ' college ' and ' Christian ' is well indicated 16