page_title: History of Brigham Young University
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: History of Brigham Young University / Early years
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Brigham Young Academy, later to become Brigham Young university and Brigham Young High School.
context_page_description: The history of Brigham Young University begins in 1875, when the school was called Brigham Young Academy. The school did not reach university status until 1903, in a decision made by the school's board of trustees at the request of BYU president Benjamin Cluff. It became accredited during the tenure of Franklin S. Harris, under whom it gained national recognition as a university. A period of expansion after World War II caused the student body to grow many times in size, making BYU the largest private university of the time. The school's history is closely connected with its sponsor, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
context_section_description: BYU's origin can be traced back to 1862, when Warren and Wilson Dusenberry started a Provo school in a prominent adobe building called Cluff Hall, located in the northeast corner of 200 East and 200 North. Dusenberry paid the $50 a month in rent and manufactured the desks for the school himself. In 1865, despite popularity of the school, he left the school to enter into private business because of financial difficulty. In 1869, he started another school in Provo with his brother, this time in a different building.  This school flourished, so they expanded to a building called the Lewis Building on Center and 300 West, with an executive committee (with people such as K.R. Hopkins, Peter Stubbs, and Myron Tanner) elected to take care of the interests of the school. The school grew in popularity and acclaim, so when the University of Deseret was reestablished in March 1869, the popularity and quality of the second Dusenberry School made it a prime candidate to be the first branch of the university, and it was converted into the Timpanogos Branch. Enrollment eventually eclipsed 300, surpassing even the University of Deseret.
  Then on October 16, 1875, after some financial difficulties forced another closure, Brigham Young, LDS Church president (who owned the building and had been lending it rent free to the school), drew up and signed a deed of trust creating a new school, which idea he had been working on for some time.  This is the commonly held founding date of BYU. Young broke the school off from the University of Deseret and christened it "Brigham Young Academy.". The original board of trustees included "Martha Jane Knowlton Coray to represent women's interests."
  Classes at the new BYA commenced January 3, 1876. Reed Smoot was the first of 29 students to register for classes on that day [he graduated from the BYA high school in the Class of 1880]. Warren Dusenberry served as interim principal of the school for several months until April 1876, when Young's choice for principal arrived, a German immigrant named Karl G. Maeser. In January 1884, a fire started in a chemistry lab and destroyed the Lewis Building. Students temporarily held class in three separate locations before relocating to a warehouse on University Avenue. The students attended class in the ZCMI warehouse until January 1892, when an elaborate brick and sandstone building called the "BY Academy Building" was completed.
caption: Brigham Young Academy
  ca. 1900
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