Class members included Rosa Jacobs (front row center), John B. Elgin (front row right), James K. Weatherford (top row right), Thomas C. Alexander, and Alonzo J. Locke.
Harvey L. McAllister, known as "Pap Hayseed," graduated from OAC in 1897 with a degree in agriculture. He served in the Spanish-American war and then worked as a farmer in Lexington, Oregon. Thomas Edward Palmer was a 1900 graduate of OAC in electrical engineering and served as the leader of the cadet band his senior year.
Burkhart was a member of the Corvallis College Class of 1871 and was from Lebanon, Oregon. He was elected as the Alumni Association’s first vice president after its founding in early 1873. He also served on the college’s board of trustees in 1887 and 1888.
This greenhouse complex was part of an expansion of college agricultural facilities that began in 1889. Standing on the right is George Coote, instructor in horticulture. The Administration Building (Benton Hall) is in the background.
Originally named Cauthorn Hall and was later named Fairbanks Hall. It was constructed in 1892 as a men's dormitory. Women lived in the dormitory from 1912 until the early 1930s, when it was converted into a classroom building. The building is now home to the Art Department.
Eddy Elbridge Wilson was born in Corvallis in 1869 and was a student at Oregon State when the school was still known as Corvallis College. He graduated in 1889. Later an attorney and bank executive, Wilson was heavily involved with numerous campus and community organizations, as well as the State Game Commission. He twice served on the OAC board of regents -- from 1906 to 1915 and from 1924 to 1929. Wilson died in 1961.
The shop was located in the 1889 section of the original Mechanical Hall. This, along with other shops, served as the labs for students studying mechanics and mechanical engineering.
John Fulton (Class of 1892), who taught chemistry at Oregon State for several decades, is standing, center-right, wearing a cap. F. L. Washburn taught zoology and entomology classes in the 1890s. Many of the zoological specimens in this photograph later became part of the collections of the Horner Museum.
In addition to classroom and lab work, OAC students studying entomology in 1890 were required to do fieldwork during their third year. According to the 1890-91 college catalog, “each student will, under the instructor’s direction, learn how to work with insecticides, and will be required to carry on experiments to discover the best means of preventing insect ravages.”
Sarah Finley was the daughter of a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Despite health concerns that precipitated the Finleys’ return to California in 1872, she lived to be 89 years old, passing away in 1937. Finley was a leader of the suffrage movement in Sonoma County, California. Thomas Houseworth & Co. was one of the leading photography studios in San Francisco in the 1870s and 1880s.
This image shows some of the preparatory and college level students enrolled at the time. The 1872-73 college catalog lists ninety-eight students at all levels, including twenty-six “agricultural students.”
From back left: Frank Cauthorn, Newton Addison Thompson, George P. Lent, and Isaac Jacobs. Addie M. Allen and Minnie M. White are the women in the photo. Addie M. Allen married Newton Addison Thompson and Minnie M. White married O.A.C. Pres. B. L. Arnold.
This building was erected in 1907 as the Benton County National Bank, and became the Benton County State Bank in 1916. The basement featured a barbershop and Turkish baths. A street light hangs over the intersection of 2nd and Madison.
Members of the OAC quartet: 1st tenor John Fulton; 2nd tenor Professor Berchtold; Pianist Ora Spangler; 2nd bass Harley. R. Clark; 1st bass Will H. Bloss.
The 1891-92 catalog, in which this photograph is published, described the greenhouse as "large and well supplied with many varieties of choice plants." Students were required to work five hours per week without pay; additional labor was paid at the rate of fifteen cents per hour. George Coote was born in Kent County, England in 1842 and (according to Lucy Skjelstad) worked as the gardener for Charles Darwin before emigrating to America. He arrived in Corvallis in 1877 via the Isthmus of Panama and farmed in an area west of Corvallis near Yaquina Bay until his appointment to the College faculty in 1888. He laid out the college grounds, erected and supervised the greenhouses, and taught in the Horticulture Department until 1908 when failing health forced him to take a leave of absence. He died several months later in November 1908. One of his daughters was married to Emile Pernot, the college photographer.