Northern Arizona University

FLAGSTAFF INSTITUTION EMBARKS ON NEW HORIZONS NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY OF LEARNING FOR STATE

It was one of the loveliest Augusts within memory. The forest greenery was unusually vivid and the mountain breezes seemed possessed of exaggerated personality. It was as if the frontier town were waiting for something out of the ordinary. Perhaps it had to do with the summer traffic of tourists which was uncommonly brisk in 1913. Maybe it was that flowery article in the Flagstaff paper, flattering and auspicious: "High up in the Sky City where the air is always cool and fresh and pure, and the stately pine ever breathes forth its health giving fragrance, in the protecting shadows of the majestic San Francisco Peaks, lie the Northern Arizona Normal School, one of the youngest but one of the most promising of all western schools."

If ever there was proof of the adage, "Great oaks from little acorns grow," it would be the development of that normal school from a one-building affair, relatively crude, limited in enrollment, to what is now Northern Arizona University (NAU).

Approximately sixty-five years have passed since the institute with a faculty of two opened its doors and welcomed a handful of students. Scant registration is now an alien situation at Flagstaff, where a single decade (19541964) saw total enrollment magnify tenfold. In the fall of 1965 the full-time on-campus student enrollment totaled 5,000, and extension, correspondence, and special adult evening classes added another 1,000, making a total enrollment of 6,000.

From the leafy campus one can see the snow-covered San Francisco Peaks (Arizona's highest) in the distance. The Grand Canyon, Indian reservations, national parks and monuments, the famed Sunset Crater and all manner of natural wonders, including the Petrified Forest, are close at hand. In a sense the campus stretches far beyond its legal boundaries, offering a geological and botanical wonderland to students. No one is likely to deny that Flagstaff's pride occupies an enviable site, but if final achievement, status as a university, has come to pass (the effective date is May 1, 1966), the passage of time preceding this rank has been marked by more-than-routine historical interest. The early years especially were characterized by struggle, indifference and, on some occasions, open hostility.

The acorn was planted on September 11, 1899, when those few students sat in stiff-backed chairs and listened to the faculty, the lonely two: President A. N. Taylor, from Jamestown, New York, and Frances Bury from Tempe, where a normal school which, in time, would evolve into the Arizona State University, was founded in 1886.

In his statement to the Secretary of the Interior in 1893, Governor L. C. Hughes reported that the Seventeenth Territorial Legislature had authorized a "Reform School" to instruct boys from the ages of eight to sixteen in varied trades, as well as tending to their general education. Flagstaff was selected as the location. The school and grounds were to be one-half mile south of town. Provisions were later made for the acquisition of a 130-acre farm, the start of the present 270-acre campus. Matters with the Reform School didn't fare happily. In fact, they fared hardly at all. Money allotted for construction purposes was promptly exhausted, leaving the edifice but partially finished. The Nineteenth Territorial Legislature decided that the Reform School was unneces-sary, and compounded cancellation by announcing that the building would be put to use as a mental asylum.

The news caused resentment in Phoenix, where the state hospital had operied in 1887. Another asylum, even a "branch," would be superfluous. Phoenix newspapers had no hesitation in pointing out that Flagstaff was too remote to merit consideration. Nor did the future capital city particularly care for the prospect of another normal school, sinte one already was in existence - and very close to Phoenix. If funds were to be appropriated, the money should go where it was needed, and it was not needed in that isolated, though picturesque, hamlet of Flagstaff. The few hundred citizens of Flagstaff hadn't shown an abundance of interest for the "Reform School," although there was a feeling that it would help the town's economy. The asylum proposal met with about the same welcome, apathetic at best. However, there were other possibilities. In his 1895 report to the Secretary, Gover-nor Hughes stated that plans were under way to create a summer educational resort, a forum that would take advantage of Flagstaff's unique and wondrous surround-ings which were, indeed, a bonanza for any student of the physical world. Governor Hughes recommended that the federal government assist in establishing a National Summer School of Science.

This was an appealing idea, and it quickly took the fancy of the local populace. This was what Flagstaff wanted, or something close to it. Governor Hughes' assessment of the area was honest and his proposal logical and correct. As if to back up the report, Dr. Percival Lowell and Alvan G. Clark had arrived months earlier to establish an observatory on a hill eventually to be named "Mars Hill." Arizona was chosen because few better places on earth had an atmos-phere as transparent. Flagstaff's altitude of over 7,000 feet was added lure. Later a twenty-four-inch lens for a telescope arrived, travelling to Flagstaff in a Pullman palace car. The glass for the lens had been prepared in Paris, with the finishing process concluded in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. The lens was a rival to a forty-inch product in Chicago and a thirty-inch lens based in Imperial Russia. The publicity factor was not lost on the Flagstaff community. (Dr. Lowell was then considered as a leading, if not the leading figure on matters regarding the planet Mars. It was at the Lowell Observatory, in 1915, that he mathemati cally charted an unknown celestial body that would be discovered fifteen years later and dubbed "Pluto.") The prospect of a summer school, one devoted to the pursuit of scientific study and knowledge, prompted support in the form of two principal committees; one to solicit funds, another to acquire the services of professors and lecturers.

Boosters of the school took considerable joy in alerting citizenery to the fact that, because of the educational encampment, 500 “summer people” could be expected in July and August, adding almost in awe that each could be expected to spend an average of $50 a month! Today, the economic benefits to the community that accrue via university status for the “school on the hill” are substantial and progressively beneficial.

The first summer session, held in 1896, boasted the talents of distinguished teachers and scientists. The Lowell Observatory was unquestionably a drawing card. The vacation-time venture was a tremendous success, so much so that the following year one of the lecturers, Professor Scott of Princeton, returned with eleven of his students. West coast educators began to see the wisdom of seasonal symposiums and soon they, along with students, began to trek to Flagstaff where the cool weather was invigorating and conducive to study and field research.

It was reported in the Prescott Journal-Miner and republished in the Flagstaff paper of Editor C. M. Funston, a fiery partisan of all things that spoke well for Northern Arizona. The journalistic ballasts fired in the direction of Flagstaff sponsored return indignity. One thing was clear: Flagstaff was determined to fight for its school.

Work on the building, after much prodding, was further advanced. Some use would have to be found for the structure or the state would suffer a financial embarrassment that was bound to have unmuted repercussion.

Each town in the territory had its own axe in need of a whetstone. Phoenix was adamant that it should have the sole asylum in the state. Newspapers echoed the pixilated sentiment of the Phoenix Enterprise: “ . . . all physicians were agreed that Phoenix was the proper place for all the insane people, and no sane men would permit any of them to be sent to Flagstaff.” Prescott, maybe realizing that things were not going to be as simple as first thought, abandoned its idea for a summer school and began lobbying for the new Territorial Adventurous scholars like Professor William Libbey, also of Princeton College, and Frederick W. Hodge wrote glowingly of the natural phenomena to be observed and studied in the Flagstaff region. Their writings and exploits, e.g., discovering ancient Indian dwellings and artifacts, scaling unconquered mountain walls by means of extension ladders, stout ropes and boatswain's chairs received national coverage.

The Summer School of Science had taken hold of Flagstaff's imagination, all right. The community had no intention of enjoying a time of some innocence. There was work to be done. But the optimism was short lived: The town of Prescott announced it was considering a plan to establish a summer school. This was the design of the Board of Trustees of the Territorial Normal School in Tempe. The services of the Tempe faculty were offered free of charge and the people of Prescott were asked to give a building and provide accommodations. The plan Penitentiary. (The town never got its wish. The selection went to the farming community of Florence.) Flagstaff had to get something. After all, it did have that building on the knoll, empty and waiting. But the townsfolk were unwilling to accept anything. They wanted that school.

Matters came to a head with the reprinting of an editorial from a Prescott paper. In link fashion the piece originated with the Phoenix Enterprise. For Flagstaff Editor Funston composed the lead-in: AN ARIZONA FIASCO. Flagstaff's Golden Opportunity to Secure a Summer School.

WHAT A PRESCOTT PAPER HAS TO SAY. The Reform School Is Neither Useful Nor Ornamental, and Is a Waste of the People's Money - Prescott's Claim.CONTINUED/ Page 28