The Ohio State University

At a glance

Overview

The Ohio State University began as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, created by the Ohio legislature's Cannon Act on March 22, 1870, to receive Ohio's share of the federal land-grant fund. Its trustees chose the Neil farm, about two miles north of Columbus, bought 331 acres from nine owners, and opened the doors of a still-unfinished University Hall to students on September 17, 1873, with Edward Orton as first president. The legislature renamed the school The Ohio State University on May 1, 1878, and a curriculum fight won 8 to 7 by the 'broad gauge' trustees made it a general university rather than a farm school. Hayes Hall and Orton Hall, both finished in 1893, are the oldest buildings still standing; the original University Hall was torn down in 1971 and replaced by a near copy in 1976, and the green that became the Oval was first called by that name in 1910. The Columbus campus enrolled 60,046 students in 2023, with 65,405 across all campuses.

The name

Founded as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College under the federal land-grant program. On May 1, 1878, the legislature renamed it; the university archives say 'The' was part of the renaming legislation, and the Board of Trustees minutes record that it 'shall be known and designated hereafter as The Ohio State University,' with 'The' inside the quoted name, which is why the university treats 'The' as part of its name. In 1986 a new logo was introduced to move away from the 'OSU' mark, used since 1977, because OSU could also mean Oregon State or Oklahoma State. (source)

Native American history

No Native American village, mound or burial is recorded on the campus land itself in published sources. The campus lies on the east bank of the Olentangy River, which pioneers called the Whetstone, a short way above the Forks where it meets the Scioto. Alfred Lee's 1892 history of Columbus says Franklin County once had nearly a hundred earthworks and mounds, most leveled by plows, road builders and canal engineers before anyone recorded them. The nearest recorded earthwork up the same river was a rectangular enclosure with a 20-foot truncated mound on the Olentangy about a mile west of Worthington, surveyed by Charles Whittlesey for Squier and Davis. In the historic period, Jeremiah Armstrong, taken captive by Wyandot warriors in 1794, recalled that his adoptive Wyandot family camped and raised corn near the Forks, where the Ohio Penitentiary later stood. Lee's history says the 1795 Treaty of Greenville released all Native lands in the Northwest except reserved tracts in Ohio's northwestern corner, which places the Columbus area inside that cession.

• Worthington earthwork (Olentangy enclosure and truncated mound): earthwork, Banks of the Olentangy about one mile west of Worthington, upriver from the campus, Pre-contact (mound builder); surveyed by Charles Whittlesey before 1848
• Wyandot camp near the Forks of the Scioto and Olentangy: camp, Near the later site of the Ohio Penitentiary, Columbus, 1794-1795
• Treaty of Greenville cession: treaty, All of Ohio except reserved tracts in the northwest corner, August 3, 1795

Stories

Choosing the Neil farm, and the spring that sold it

In September and October 1870 the new trustees weighed offers from Clark, Champaign, Montgomery and Franklin counties, including Springfield's offer of $200,000 or more in bonds and a farm near town. Franklin County won the county vote, and on the fourth ballot for a site the Neil farm north of Columbus beat the Stimmel farm, 12 votes to 3, before a final 14-to-1 vote. The university's official 1920 history records that while touring the sites the trustees drank from the spring at the Neil homestead, and that trustee Daniel Keller of Fairfield County sat down beside it and said it was hard to get a Dutchman away from a spring like that. Keller also said the site was far enough from the city that students' study habits would not be disturbed by city life. In June 1891 former trustee John R. Buchtel, by then nearly paralyzed, had himself carried to the spring to drink and retell the story; days later a city sewer through the campus struck its source and dried it up. The spring was restored before the end of 1892, and it later fed Mirror Lake. (source)

Opening day in an unfinished building

When the college opened on September 17, 1873, the only way to reach it was the Worthington Pike, now High Street, described in the 1920 university history as worn out, deeply rutted and often deep in mud, with a toll gate at what became Eleventh Avenue. University Hall stood among piles of brick, lumber, sand and pipe, and most of its doors had not yet been hung, because the contractor had missed his deadline. The trustees opened anyway, since waiting for the building would have cost a year. That same history counts seventeen people who presented themselves on the first day and about fifty enrolled over the first year; the university archives today give the first-day figure as 24. The first faculty numbered seven, with President Edward Orton himself teaching geology, mining, metallurgy and mineralogy. (source)

University Hall: the whole college under one roof

The first University Hall opened in 1873, a year late because brick and limestone were hard to get to the site. For years it was essentially the whole university: students lived in the east-wing basement, which residents called Purgatory, and on the first floor; faculty lived upstairs; the basement held a cafeteria and an armory, with the cadets' rifles stored beneath President Orton's office and the cannon kept on the lawn. Mechanical engineering worked in the west-wing basement on the theory that the stone foundation would keep the forges from starting fires. The building later housed the print shop that turned out the first editions of The Lantern, and it saw commencements, a birth, two marriages and three funerals. Sagging floors closed it in May 1968, and it was razed in 1971 and replaced in 1976 by a building that copies its face. (source)

Orton Hall, a building laid out like the rocks of Ohio

Orton Hall was authorized by the legislature in 1891 and opened in August 1893, named for Edward Orton, the first president and first geology professor. Its architects, Joseph Yost and Frank Packard, built it of Ohio building stone set in stratigraphic order, Silurian at the base up to Carboniferous near the top of the tower, so the walls read as a section of Ohio's Paleozoic bedrock. The grotesques high on the tower depict animals of the later Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. The museum says it was the first building erected in Ohio to house a museum, and Orton's son, Edward Orton Jr., taught the first university classes in ceramic engineering inside it. The bell tower's chimes, added in 1915, weigh a total of 7.5 tons according to the university archives. (source)

'Jeff,' the ground sloth from a Holmes County ditch

Late in 1890, workers digging a drainage ditch on a Holmes County farm threw aside large bones, and on December 19 they uncovered about a third of a skeleton before snow stopped the work. Ohio State president Edward Orton visited on December 27 and four days later read a paper on the find to the Geological Society of America in Washington. The bones were three molars and a partial skeleton of Megalonyx, the giant ground sloth Thomas Jefferson had described in 1797, and the teeth confirmed it was a plant eater. Columbus businessman Emerson McMillin paid Ward's Natural Science Establishment of Rochester to mount it, and it went on display in Orton Hall in 1896, mounted upright on its hind legs with its tail resting on the ground. Except for a loan to the Ohio History Center from 1982 to 1984 it has stood there ever since, known to generations of students as 'Jeff.' (source)

Broad gauge against narrow gauge

From the start, Ohioans argued over what the new college should teach. A 'narrow gauge' faction wanted only agriculture and the mechanical arts; a 'broad gauge' faction wanted English and ancient and modern languages as well. Trustee Joseph Sullivant led the broad-gauge side, and the board adopted a wider program by a vote of 8 to 7. The university's own history page credits that vote with Ohio State's continuing liberal-arts offerings. Classes began at the new college on September 17, 1873, when 24 students met at the old Neil farm two miles north of Columbus. (source)

Timeline

• 1862: President Abraham Lincoln signed the Land-Grant (Morrill) Act on July 2, 1862, the federal law that made the Ohio college possible. (source)
• 1870: On March 22 the Ohio legislature passed the Cannon Act, creating the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College and a Board of Trustees to choose a site, a president, a faculty and a curriculum. (source)
• 1870: On September 21 the trustees chose Franklin County over Clark County, and in October, on the fourth ballot, they chose the Neil farm north of Columbus, confirmed 14 votes to 1. (source)
• 1871: On January 20 Attorney General Francis B. Pond reported clear title to the 331.11 acres bought from nine owners for $117,508, and the trustees accepted the deeds. (source)
• 1873: The college opened to students on September 17 in University Hall, which was still surrounded by building materials and had most of its doors not yet hung. (source)
• 1874: President Edward Orton and the first faculty were formally installed on January 8 in the Senate chamber of the Ohio Statehouse. (source)
• 1874: Collecting began for what became the Orton Geological Museum, housed in University Hall until 1893. (source)
• 1878: On May 1 the legislature renamed the college The Ohio State University. (source)
• 1878: A committee of three students picked scarlet and gray for the ribbons on the first graduates' diplomas after learning Princeton already used orange and black. (source)
• 1879: The university graduated its first woman. (source)
• 1891: On November 17 a new building was named for Rutherford B. Hayes, former president of the United States and a university trustee. (source)
• 1891: A city trunk sewer dug through the campus struck the source of the Neil homestead spring and dried it up within days; the spring was restored before the end of 1892. (source)
• 1893: Hayes Hall was first occupied on February 1, after heat reached the building; Hayes had died in January without seeing it finished. (source)
• 1893: Orton Hall, designed by Yost & Packard and built of Ohio stone laid in stratigraphic order, opened in August to hold the geological museum, the library and classrooms. (source)
• 1893: A campus master plan proposed grouping buildings around a central open space, the start of what became the Oval. (source)
• 1896: The mounted skeleton of a giant ground sloth (Megalonyx jeffersonii) dug up in Holmes County in 1890 went on display in Orton Hall, where it has stood almost continuously since. (source)
• 1909: The cornerstone of the first Ohio Union, now Hale Hall, was laid on April 12; it opened in spring 1911 as the first student union built at a state university. (source)
• 1910: The central green was first referred to as 'the oval' in university records. (source)
• 1915: The Orton Hall chimes, a gift of the classes of 1906-11, 1913 and 1914, were dedicated on June 15 at spring commencement. (source)
• 1916: Ohio State was elected to the Association of American Universities. (source)
• 1920: The semi-centennial opened with 'Jubilee Day' on October 13, drawing alumni back to the Long Walk, the Hollow and the Spring. (source)
• 1948: The 75th-anniversary celebration, dated from the 1873 opening, began October 14 and 15 under the motto 'Growth through Service.' (source)
• 1965: Brutus Buckeye made his first appearance, walking down the Ohio Stadium ramp on October 30 at the homecoming game against Minnesota. (source)
• 1968: University Hall was closed in May after its north-wing floors sagged and fire became a concern. (source)
• 1970: On July 16 University, Hayes and Orton Halls were listed together on the National Register of Historic Places. (source)
• 1971: The original University Hall was demolished, and the building was removed from the National Register. (source)
• 1976: A new University Hall, nearly an exact copy of the original on the outside and modern inside, opened on the same site. (source)
• 1987: A fully automated system took over the Orton Hall chimes, which had been played by hand from the top of an 80-foot climb. (source)
• 2023: Autumn enrollment stood at 60,046 on the Columbus campus and 65,405 across all campuses. (source)

Sources

• library.osu.edu: founding of ohio state faqs
• archive.org: historyofohiosta01menduoft djvu.txt
• news.osu.edu: history
• library.osu.edu: faqs
• library.osu.edu: original university hall razed 40 years ago today
• library.osu.edu: twelve days of buckeyes orton halls 12 chimes have rung for nearly a century
• ortongeologicalmuseum.osu.edu: orton hall landmark building
• ortongeologicalmuseum.osu.edu: edward orton
• ortongeologicalmuseum.osu.edu: history jeff giant ground sloth
• design.osu.edu: history hayes hall
• library.osu.edu: semi centennial 1920
• library.osu.edu: diamond jubilee
• news.osu.edu: ohio state reports increase in new first year students growth on regional campuses
• archive.org: historyofcityofc01leea djvu.txt
• en.wikipedia.org: Ohio State University
• en.wikipedia.org: History of Ohio State University
• en.wikipedia.org: University Hall (Ohio State University)
• en.wikipedia.org: University, Hayes and Orton Halls