page_title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of the statue of Henry G. Bennett, past president of Oklahoma State University and author of the campus master plan
context_page_description: Oklahoma State University is a public land-grant research university in Stillwater, Oklahoma. OSU was founded in 1890 under the Morrill Act. Originally known as Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, it is the flagship institution of the Oklahoma State University System. Enrollment for the fall 2019 semester system was 24,071, with 20,024 undergraduates and 4,017 graduate students. OSU is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
  The Oklahoma State Cowboys and Cowgirls' athletic heritage includes 52 national championships, a total greater than all but three NCAA Division I schools in the United States, and first in the Big 12 Conference. Students spend part of the fall semester preparing for OSU's Homecoming celebration, begun in 1913, which draws more than 40,000 alumni and over 70,000 participants each year to campus and is billed by the university as "America's Greatest Homecoming Celebration."
context_section_description: On December 25, 1890, the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature finally gained approval for Oklahoma Territorial Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) College, the land-grant university established under the Morrill Act of 1862. It specified that the college was to be within Payne County. Such an ambiguous description created rivalry between towns within the county, with Stillwater ultimately winning out. Upon statehood in 1907, "Territorial" was dropped from its title.
  The first students assembled for class on December 14, 1891. Classes were held for two and one-half years in local churches until the first academic building, later known as Old Central, was dedicated on June 15, 1894, on the southeast corner of campus, which at the time was flat plowed prairie. In 1896, Oklahoma A&M held its first commencement with six male graduates. The first Library was established in Old Central in one room shared with the English Department.  The first campus building to have electricity, Williams Hall, was constructed in 1900. With its turreted architecture it was referred to as the "Castle of the Prairies"; It remained standing until 1969. One of the earliest campus buildings was also a barn, used as part of an agricultural experiment station, which was served by a large reservoir pond created in 1895.  The barn burned in 1922, but the pond, enlarged and remodeled in 1928 and 1943, is now known as Theta Pond, a popular campus scenic landmark. In 1906, Morrill Hall was completed and became the principal building on campus. A fire gutted the building in 1914, but the outside structure survived intact, and the interior was reconstructed.
  On-campus housing at Oklahoma A&M College began in 1910, with the opening of the Boy's Dormitory. Later renamed Crutchfield Hall, the Historic American Buildings Survey said it was significant as "... the first permanent boy's dormitory in Oklahoma ... [and] the sole surviving example of a pre-1930 utilitarian dormitory that is characteristic of modified Italian Renaissance Revival architecture". Crutchfield Hall later served the School of Music and the College of Engineering, Architecture, and Technology before its demolition in 1955. Also opened in 1910 was the Women's Building, containing a dining hall, home economics classes, and a women's gymnasium, in addition to resident housing for female students. It was later named Garner Hall and survives to the present day as the Bartlett Center for the Studio Arts and houses the Gardiner Art Gallery. By 1919 the campus included Morrill Hall, the Central Building, the Engineering Building (now Gundersen Hall), the Women's building, the Auditorium (replaced later by the Seretean Center for Performing Arts), the Armory-Gymnasium (now the Architecture Building) and the Power Plant.
  At the beginning of World War II, Oklahoma A&M was one of six schools selected by the United States Navy to give the Primary School in the Electronics Training Program (ETP), also known as Naval Training School Elementary Electricity and Radio Materiel (NTS EE&RM). Starting in March 1942, each month a new group of 100 Navy students arrived for three months of 14-hour days in concentrated electrical engineering study. Cordell Hall, the newest dormitory, was used for housing and meals; lectures and lab sessions were held in the Engineering Building. Professor Emory B. Phillips was the Director of Instruction. ETP admission required passing the Eddy Test, one of the most selective qualifying exams given during the war years. At a given time, some 500 Navy students were on the campus, a significant fraction of the war-years enrollment. The training activity continued until June 1945, and served a total of about 7,000 students; among these was Robert B. Kamm, a future professor and president of Oklahoma State University. During some of the war years, the Navy also had a Yeoman training activity for WAVES and SPARS on the campus.
  Much of the growth of Oklahoma A&M and the campus architectural integrity can be attributed to work of Henry G. Bennett, who served as the school's president from 1928 
caption: Statue of Henry G. Bennett near Library Lawn at OSU
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