Iowa TV Schooltime : Landmarks in Iowa History - Ames Part 1

you it's TV school time w movie TV in association with Iowa State Teachers College presents another program in the eye over TV school time series landmarks in Iowa history today's topic is aims your teachers are her fake and William Dreyer of Iowa State Teachers College hello boys and girls well today we are practically in the shadow of the wo I not quite of course but we're here in ames where wo I TV is located the studio of wo I TV is just a short distance in that direction and of course the transmitter is about three miles outside the city limits are vain but it's very convenient for the station today because we're so close I wonder if you've ever seen this building back here when you visited Ames this is known as the farmhouse it isn't really a farmhouse now it is the home of dr. Andre who is the Dean of the School of Agriculture but this is the oldest building on the Iowa State College campus and this was here at the time the college began the building replaced by this building was of course even older and that original building was a stagecoach inn and a place for changing horses for the stagecoaches and at one time over a hundred years ago robert e lee who was at that time an army engineer and who later became as you know the commander of the forces of the Confederacy in the civil war robert e lee stopped here while he was making a survey for the army so this is historic Brown this is a very important landmark in Iowa history but we're interested in it because it was the first building on the Iowa State College campus now most of you boys and girls know where Ames is but let's just get it located on our map because that's something we do every week this white dot is Ames and of course the campus of Iowa State College is a couple of miles west of the city of Ames Ames is about 40 miles north of Des Moines and Ames is one of the three institutions of higher learning maintained by the state of Iowa the other two are in Iowa City and Cedar Falls the state university was founded in iowa city in 1847 Iowa State Teachers College was founded in 1876 an Iowa State College was founded in 1858 now I'd like to have my friend dr. Williams dryer tell you the story of Iowa State College and its beginnings and I think he's an ideal man for that would you come in dr. dryer so the boys and girls can meet you this is dr. William Dreyer of the department of education and psychology at the Iowa State Teachers College but he is especially well qualified to tell you the story of an Iowa State College because he went to college here at Iowa State College and got his first degree at Iowa State so he can tell you a great deal about the beginnings of Iowa State College would you do that dr. dryer certainly well at saw he's fun to be back at Iowa State College where I attended 1936 to 1940 the beginnings of Iowa State College came with the beginnings of the state you remember that the state of Iowa came into the Union in 1846 and at that time the capital was located here at Iowa City the year after that the state university was founded at iowa city but the legislatures and other people in the state were very interested in trying to find a place and establish his school of agriculture and they thought in 18 of 48 47 it was two years after the state was founded 47 that up here at Fort Atkinson that if the Congress would give them that land that they could found a school of agriculture there but that didn't work out it remained until the year of the 1848 when the University when the capital move from Iowa City here to Des Moines and we had the first meeting of the state general assembly in Des Moines for the real beginnings of Iowa State College 1857 when the state capital was moved that was right I was that 14 I misunderstood you thank you it was 1847 and then the 1857 we want to get our dates straight here because that's very important in Iowa history then after the first General Assembly a mech here at Des Moines we had the beginnings end from three farm legislators they came here from Scott County and from cedar county and from Fayette County at that time the very early beginnings there were only one railroad track running through the mine only about four through the state of Iowa and they came to Des Moines probably on their stagecoaches and after they had arrived in Des Moines these three farmer legislatures met in their rooming house on the banks of the Des Moines River and we are told that they met there in February for 1858 and they discussed there that night what they could do to help establish a colleague of Agriculture because they knew there had been about 50 schools established in this in the state 50 college is only two were in operation but none has nearly been established for the working people and so they plan that the next day they would introduce a bill which would create the State College of Agriculture and farms and they did that of course there were lots of people in the General Assembly who didn't think that this was the right time to start a new school a new college for the state to support but when the mr. GU it was Benjamin goo from Scott County who proposed it and made his first speech there and as I as a farmer legislature he reminded the people that 9 out of 10 the people of Iowa were farmers and they felt that this school would be a special benefit to the farmers and to the laboring people so that tough in March 22nd of that year 1858 the bill was passed and signed that was the date it was signed and so that's the birthday of Iowa State College March twenty seconds 1858 can you boys and girls figure out how old the college would be this year you see they establish the school the college that was called the College of Agriculture and farm and we have here a little map which I think will be interesting to see because it shows the map and we can at the map of the area and you can see very dimly there the section line there was two complete sections and a half a section with the railroad tracks going through I wonder how many acres that would be can you figure that out two sections to have sections be about three little or three sections of land and this was a railroad track going through that led to the town of ames which was over in this direction but in 1858 and the years passed that the legislature of the General Assembly appropriated certain amount of money but they really didn't have enough money in enough resources to do more than start the farm it wasn't until 1862 when President Lincoln signed the morale morrill land-grant act which authorized each state to help a sum of land which would be used to secure funds for the State College of Agriculture that we had resources to begin to build buildings and to begin to build a a main class building but then of course they were stopped by the civil war at that time and so it wasn't until the 1869 11 years after the college was founded that the first president came to Iowa State Teachers College Iowa State College at Ames and we had then the opening of classes and in that first class we are told that there were 127 freshman students in this group of 127 they came from all over Iowa and they were boys and girls men and women young men and women and so Iowa State College became the first land grant school to offer education to develop to both men and women and they were admitted only on the basis of their studies without regard to any previous experience other than that they could qualify scholastically you