A Brief History of East Lansing

Category: M.A.C. People

  • Polly Akers, Chappie Chapman, and the Alfalfa Eta Society

    This is the story of two mischievous students at the Michigan Agricultural College, and a secret society that might never have existed. Among the many benefactors of Michigan State University, one of its more famous names is that of Forest H. Akers (1886–1966, M.A.C. w/’09). Akers, who worked as a salesman for Reo Motors before…

  • Professor Anna Bayha

    Anna Elizabeth Bayha was born at Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1886. She graduated from Ohio State in 1910 with a B.A. degree. For a few years she was an Assistant in Domestic Arts at Kansas State Agricultural College, and from around 1914 to 1918 was Instructor in Textiles and Clothing at the University of Minnesota.…

  • The other Mrs. Kedzie

    Starting in 1903 and continuing for many years afterward, items in the M.A.C. Record made frequent mention of an East Lansing rooming house known as “Mrs. Kedzie’s.” The assumption appears to be that everyone in that day knew who Mrs. Kedzie was. Today, even though her family name is well known, she is not. So…

  • Sarcastic Lad’s progeny today — a reconsideration

    In my article about Belle Sarcastic and Sarcastic Lad, reprinted in the Summer 2022 issue of the Spartan Dairy Newsletter, I wrote, “Today it is estimated that thousands of registered Holsteins worldwide can trace their bloodlines to Sarcastic Lad.” This bold claim was plausible given the available evidence, and I still believe it to be…

  • The Twenty-One

    The only women who were graduated from the Michigan Agricultural College prior to the Women’s Course When Williams Hall was completed in 1869, the Board of Agriculture decided the dormitory could accommodate female students in some of its first floor rooms, and ten women were enrolled in 1870. They only remained in school for that…

  • The Seeds of Knowledge, Sown Far and Wide

    A shorter version of this article was originally published as a tweet thread on 12 Feb 2022, the 167th anniversary of the founding of the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan. Michigan Governor Fred Warner (M.A.C. w/’84), in his speech at the Semicentennial celebration of the Michigan Agricultural College in 1907, said: You come…

  • John C. Holmes and the Founding of M.A.C.

    John Clough Holmes (1809–1887) was, by all accounts, the man most responsible for the establishment of the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan. Professor Beal called him “the most important agent” of the school, while President Abbot said, “To no one man is the College so much indebted as to John Clough Holmes.” Yet…

  • The Architects

    The earliest years of the Michigan Agricultural College were marked by a slow rate of construction, its buildings designed by several different architects. The original trio of buildings—College Hall, Saints’ Rest, the brick horse barn, all 1856—are generally attributed to John C. Holmes. These were followed in 1857 by a quartet of professors’ residences by Scott…

  • The Women’s Building — Morrill Hall (1900–2013)

    Women were first admitted to the Michigan Agricultural College in 1870, ten in that first year.† They were housed in the first floor of the new Williams Hall dormitory, but only for a year, after which the hall was assigned exclusively to men. As a result, none of the original ten completed a degree at M.A.C. In…