Oklahoma Journeys
Week of December 9, 2008
Oklahoma A & M Formally Opens December 14, 1891
Educational breakthroughs make the news this week! As if trying to survive wasn’t enough early day residents of the Oklahoma Territory also took on higher education as a top priority. A state university was one of the top prizes that a new town could hope to obtain. Stillwater, O.T., managed to land the agricultural and mechanical college and that’s the topic of this week’s Oklahoma Journeys from the Oklahoma Historical Society.
From the Oklahoma Historical Society, this is Oklahoma Journeys. I’m Michael Dean.
As towns began forming in the newly opened Oklahoma Territory in 1889, they of course searched for ways to remain or become attractive to settlers and economically viable. Having your town selected as the site of a state institution or agency went a long way towards ensuring the survival of your town, and politicians fought long arduous battles as they tried to locate these political plums within their own jurisdiction. For Stillwater such a victory wasn’t likely, as the town didn’t even have access to a rail line. Still, town leaders began lobbying for either a state college, a penitentiary or some other state entity. To better ensure success Payne county citizens joined up with Logan County to help each other out. The plan worked and while Logan County was given the territorial capital, Payne County, Stillwater specifically, received the Agricultural and Mechanical College and Experiment Station.
The territorial legislature agreed on Payne county as the site for Oklahoma A & M as long as citizens would donate at least 80 acres and supply a minimum of $10,000.00 to construct the first college building. However the $10,000.00 bond issue vote the proposal failed, and the future of the college in Stillwater looked bleak. A second vote saw the proposal pass but the town ended up $320.00 short of the necessary figure. Some generous giving by local businessmen brought the amount to the needed $10,000.00 and the endeavor was underway.
The site for the college was selected by a committee and four landholders just north of Stillwater each donated twenty acres to make up the required eighty acre campus. In that day the college was seen as being far north of town and not actually in Stillwater. Today, of course, the town completely surrounds the once-distant institution.
The first class of Oklahoma A & M was made up of students pulled from the local high schools, and the first meeting of the college took place in the Congregational Church. The high schoolers were given a term of advanced instruction and then presented with week-long exams. Those students that passed then became the first freshmen class of Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College.
It was in this week of December…. December 14, 1891, that the first class of Oklahoma A & M met together for class making the school the oldest state institution of higher learning in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Historical Society along with the Oklahoma Higher Education Heritage Society maintain an active role in preserving the history and culture of higher education in our state, and the Oklahoma History Center on NE 23rd Street just east of the state capitol features education as a prominent part of one of the museum galleries.
Oklahoma Journeys is a production of the Oklahoma Historical Society, dedicated to the collection, preservation, and sharing of our state’s past. I’m Michael Dean.