The Brigham Young College was charted on 6 August, 1877, by President Brigham Young of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, just twenty-three days before he died. On that day, President Young deeded more than nine thousand acres in south central Cache County to a group of trustees for the establishment of a college.
Apparently planned in imitation of Oberlin College, the basic philosophy expressed in the deed was that an institution of higher learning would be established on the property which would then be worked by the students themselves. The sale of student-raised produce was to provide operating funds for the college.
Laudable in conception, the full plan never materialized. The trustees rented space in Logan in Lindquist Hall on the corner of 200 North and 100 East, the former home of the Logan City Corporation. Classes opened in the Hall on September 9, 1878. From 1882 to 1884, classes met in the basement of the Cache Tabernacle in Logan.
While the college was meeting in the Tabernacle, a large building was built on the corner of 100 West and 100 South in Logan. Into this “East Building,” the B. Y. C. moved with the opening of the 1884-85 school year. The family of LDS Apostle Moses Thatcher donated the land for the new building, and shortly afterward added to their gift until the B. Y. C. came into possession of a thirty-three acre tract.
It was this gift of land (and apparently the influence of the Thatcher family) which effectively negated the idea of a permanent site for the college on the 9,642 acre farm. The land meanwhile was rented to farmers, the rent providing a small income for the institution. In the early years of the 1890s, the farm was sold to the renters, apparently to avoid a contest for title with the Central Pacific Railroad. The funds realized from the sale of the land enabled the construction of the West Building in 1898-99.
Until 1909, the college offered four years of high school training in addition to the four years leading to the Baccalaureate Degree. In that year the Church Board of Education, which had overall supervision of the college, eliminated upper division work. Henceforth, the B. Y. C. became a Junior College. In addition, a normal course for teacher training was an added to the college. Increased enrollment and stiffened requirements for teacher certification compelled the Church Board of Education to extend normal school training.
In 1909, as public school education increased in quality, the first year of high school instruction was eliminated; and in 1920 the second. On 31 March, 1926, the LDS Church Board of Education voted to discontinue Church high schools and academies. The loss of the Baccalaureate degree in 1909 was fatal. While the State of Utah assumed support of Weber Academy, Snow Academy, and Dixie Academy, it made no effort to perpetuate the Brigham Young College since the state-supported Utah Agricultural College was also in Logan.
The forty-eighth annual commencement of the Brigham Young College on May 23, 1926, was its last. Much of the college equipment and library were sold at a nominal price to the U. A. C. (now Utah State University), while the campus itself became the home of the Logan Senior High School.
For more information on the history of the Brigham Young College see:
Bennet, Ernest J. “The Life and Educational Contributions of Joseph Jensen,” M.S. Thesis, Dept. of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, University of Utah, Salt Lake City (1956).
Brigham Young College Bulletin, Final Volume, Final Number. Logan(1926).
Garr, Arnold K. “A History of Brigham Young College,” M.A. Thesis, Dept. of History, Utah State University, Logan (1973).
Hansen, John A. “The History of College and Young Wards, Cache County, Utah,” M.S. Thesis, Dept. of History, Utah State University, Logan (1968). Hansen gives details on the early history of the Church Farm which formed the land endowment of the Brigham Young College.
Sorensen, A.W., “Brigham Young College,” pp 349-369, in Joel E. Ricks, ed., History of a Valley: Cache Valley, Utah-Idaho. Logan(1956).
Whitney, Orson F. “Brigham Young College, A History,” American University Magazine, June 1896
The Brigham Young College Papers of the Special Collections Division of the Merrill Library, Utah State University, is the end result of the combination of two major and several minor collection. In 1926, when the BYC. was closed, the major part of its library was sold for a nominal sum to the USU library. As a result, the University came into a sizeable collection of BYC publication. While the passage of time resulted in some attrition, the remaining items were transferred to the custody of the Special Collections Division in 1966.
In May 1968, Mr. Peter A.C. Pedersen, President of the Brigham Young College Alumni Association delivered the collection of BYC materials in the possession of the Association to the USU Special Collection Division with the specific understanding that they be maintained as a separate collection within the Library.
At various times former students and faculty members of the BYC have given items to the collection. Chief among these have been Dr. Joseph Geddes, Mrs. Ada England Worrell, and Mr. Norman Salisbury.
The Manuscript Collection of the Brigham Young College contains yearbooks, publications by students and the college, artifacts, and records from the BYC and from the Brigham Young College Alumni Association. It covers the history of the College from its beginnings in 1877 to its final memorial service in 1926 and even to class reunions in the 1960s. Most of the collection consists of publications, such as the student-edited Crimson and Crimson Annual, and the official College Bulletins and Catalogues.
The collection has been divided in three series: Brigham Young College Publications and Papers, Student Publications and Organizations, and Artifacts. Series I contains the official publications which began in 1884 with the Prospectus. The following year the publication was changed to the Circular and remained so until 1894 when it was renamed The Catalogue of the Brigham Young College. Starting in 1902, the College began publishing a quarterly Bulletin which remained essentially the same until the College closed in 1926. In each year, Number 1 was generally the Catalogue. Numbers 2, 3, and 4 were usually a “President’s Report,” an “Alumni Edition,” and a “Student Directory,” respectively, though the order occasionally switched and there was the occasional special edition. The collection of Bulletins is divided between individual bulletins and bound bulletins. Generally the bound bulletins were bound by type, as in Series I, Box 7 where the Catalogues are bound, or in Box 8 where the Student directories from 1910 to 1919 are bound together. Others, such as Series I, Box 6, contain the chronological run. Special Collections received these volumes already bound and in some cases the binding was done rather haphazardly. Thus some of the bound volumes of Bulletins are out of order, but the Index below contains the volume, numbers, and dates for all bound volumes. Also included in Series I are Council and Trustee meeting records and Registers for the administration of the College. Box 11 contains manuscript items such as histories, correspondence, and commencement programs. Also included in Box 11 is a recorded speech by Professor William O. Robinson given at a reunion in 1969 about his years teaching at the BYC.
Series II primarily contains The Crimson in its monthly and yearly form. The Crimson was published from 1904 to 1926 and contains essays, short stories, poetry, and other items produced by the students. Beginning in 1913, the students published The Crimson Annual, a yearbook for the college. The issues of The Crimson are also separated in bound and unbound copies. The bound copies are generally in order. Also included with these bound volumes is a bound copy of Volume I of The College Record, a student publication that lasted for only a year in 1892. This volume was bound with the 1884 Prospectus, and the Circulars for 1884, 1885, 1890, and 1891, as well as copies of several state and federal laws and LDS Church policies that pertain to the school. In the manuscripts are the minutes and constitutions for five student organizations, the Beacon Light Society, the Webster Literary and Debating Society, the Philomatic Literary Society, the Phae Pollo Lyceum, and the BYC Athletic Association. Boxes 5 and 6 pertain to the Brigham Young College Alumni Association and includes its constitution, its treasury records, invitations, and correspondence. Following that is the run of Crimson Annuals from 1913 to 1926 excepting 1922 and 1923 (a number of surplus copies have been transferred to Book Collection #57 which contains yearbooks from around Cache Valley). From 1924 to 1925, The Crimson was published in newspaper format. Those are stored separately along with diplomas and certificates. Finally, two boxes contain a card file kept by the Alumni Association. The first is a record of those who have donated to the BYC Endowment Fund, and the second contains a partial list of graduates, from A to G, and a list of past faculty.
Series III contains artifacts, including such items as banners and flags, as well as a robe, two mugs, and some stationary. One box contains original blueprints and surveys for the college lands and its buildings. All the photographs that were originally part of this collection have been put into their own collection as the Brigham Young College Photograph Collection, USUSC P0008. Special Collections also has three trophies from the College which are currently stored in the basement in the “Amazon Mine.” In additions to these two collections, items with relevant information are contained in other collections at Utah State. There is a Miscellany Book in USU Spec Coll, Mss 238, no 106 which was written by a student at the BYC and contains sports scores and classroom notes. Also, there is an interview with Joseph Meyrick (USUSC PAM C235) who graduated from the BYC in 1920, and relates some stories about life and school in Logan in the early twentieth century.
Series I: Brigham Young College Publications and Records
Box I: Circulars, Catalogues, and Bulletins, 1885-1912
Box 2: BYC Bulletins, 1912-1917
Box 3: BYC Bulletins, 1918-1923
Box 4: BYC Bulletins, 1923-1926
Box 5: Bound Catalogues (no 1 of each Bulletin)
Box 6: Bound Bulletins/Catalogues
Box 7: Bound Catalogues
Box 7a: Bound Catalogues
Box 8: Bound Bulletins, Student Directories and Alumni Editions
Box 9: Bulletins and Trigonometry Book
Box 10: Oversize Notebooks and Documents
Box 11: Papers and Official Announcements
Series II: Student Publications and Organizations
Box I: The College Record and the Crimson (Bound)