Weber State University, 120 years of progress

OGDEN -- Sides of beef and a timely mortgage on the principal's house played their part, but you could say beer saved Weber State University.

It was Utah beer, 3 percent alcohol, but beer is beer.

Whether it hoists a brew or something else, Weber State University's celebration of 120 years must include the times it dodged obliteration. Each time, it endured through doggedness and ingenuity.

Consider the founding.

In 1888, Wilford Woodruff, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, asked the church's stakes to open academies.

On Sept. 10, Weber Stake President Lewis W. Shurtliff called a high council meeting to consider the matter; on Sept. 19, a board of education was appointed.

William Z. Terry, says in "Weber College, Items of Early History," that they picked Louis F. Moench, a well-known and well-regarded Utah educator, as principal even though Moench was serving in the church's German and Swiss mission. Moench got back to town Dec. 10, was appointed Dec. 19, and the school opened its doors Jan. 7, 1889, in the Second Ward Meeting House. There were three full-time teachers, including Moench, and 98 pupils.

The second term began March 18 with a "Ladies Department" of 22 students offering lessons in "fancy work."

Walter Kerr, in "History of Weber Stake," says, "Those early struggles caused endless hardships for faculty members. Their pay was often irregular, and the church donations were mainly tithing orders, which were of little value."

The budding school hit a wall when the fourth term opened April 8, 1890.

For space reasons, the school had moved to the Ogden Tabernacle. On May 2, Stake President Shurtliff told Moench that school in the Tabernacle jeopardized the religious status of the building.

The school had to go, but where?

Nobody knew. After commencement on May 9, the school closed for a year and leaders started looking for a new home.

A lot at the corner of 25th Street and Jefferson Avenue was selected. The LDS Church gave $5,000 for a new building, and the stake raised $5,000 by selling land.

That was not enough. Kerr says board members and Moench signed for a loan of $10,000 to complete the edifice, mortgaging their homes to the school's future.

The academy reopened Nov. 23, 1891. In 1892, his health injured by the struggle, Moench resigned as principal. He was replaced by future LDS President David O. McKay. Moench returned in 1894 and served until 1902.

The major next test came in 1933.

The Great Depression was on. Utah banks were failing, unemployment was rife, and the Legislature was asking for 15 percent wage cuts for all state employees.

The state's church-owned colleges were not immune.

To stabilize funding for the colleges, State Sen. Ira Huggins, of Ogden, proposed that the state take over their funding. To pay for them, he introduced a bill to allow the manufacture of 3.05 percent beer in Utah for sale to states that had legalized beer sales.

The beer would be a stable source of income and brewing it would provide jobs. The bill was pushed through and, on July 1, Weber became a state-funded junior college.

The switch made Weber eligible for state and national relief programs, but in his "Weber State College, a Centennial History," WSU History Professor Richard W. Sadler says money went only so far.

Sadler reports that the school newspaper, the Weber Herald, related what new coach Reed Swenson (for whom the school's gym is now named) found when he asked to see the school's football equipment.

"He was shown one jersey, one pair of pants and one shoe. When he asked where the other shoe was, he was told not to be so extravagant, that there is only one punter on a football team and that he only punts with one foot."

A picture from the period shows students paying tuition in vegetables and meat, including a whole side of beef.

But with preservation came growth, to the point Weber was in danger of outgrowing its buildings.

In the 1939-40 school year, the college formed a committee of citizens to help the Manual Training Program build one home a year. Local contractor Earl S. Paul was chairman of the committee and the first home, at 2933 Brinker Ave., was built.

In a history of his work, Paul wrote that while helping build the home "I came to realize the great need for a larger site for Weber College. In its crowded condition there was no room for it to grow and become a great educational institution, which it was destined to become."

He recommended to college President H. Aldous Dixon that a new site be found and was made chairman of the site committee.

Paul set his eye on land owned by John M. Mills east of Harrison Boulevard, but Mills declined to sell.

"I knew Professor Mills," Paul wrote. "I knew of his great love for education. He was a public spirited man. I appealed to him as a man who has always worked for the benefit of education.

"After this much persuasion he finally said 'I will sell you 75 acres on the north side of my property for the sum of $75,000.' ''

In February 1947, Paul toured the site with Dixon.

"It was a most beautiful site with its covering of sparkling white snow. It truly was an inspirational scene to behold," he wrote. "I visualized in my mind a campus with beautiful buildings and grounds. I turned from this scene to President Dixon and said, 'This is the place for Weber College.' "

Residents and businesses of Ogden raised $100,000 to buy Mills' land and eight smaller parcels. The Ogden Rotary Club raised another $25,000 to build the entrance gate, and the first buildings went up.

All seemed fine, but the cement on the new gate was barely dry when, in 1951, Gov. J. Bracken Lee decided it was time to give Weber back to the LDS Church.

Sadler says Lee was "an antagonist of both public and higher education during his two terms," which ended in 1957. He had already earned scorn in Weber when he vetoed a 1949 bill to make Weber a four-year college.

In 1951, Lee started a bill to turn Weber, Snow and Dixie colleges back to the LDS Church to save money.

Sadler says Lee just didn't like education. The bill "was a reflection of his anti- intellectual attitude."

Public furor defeated that bill, but the idea wasn't dead, and in 1953, in a special session of the Legislature, Lee pushed through another bill.

Weber County was outraged. Ogden resident Bernie Diamond was executive secretary of the Ogden Chamber of Commerce. He said the chamber geared up to fight.

"If he did that it (WSU) would never have become a university," Diamond said. "I guess he didn't think (Weber) would grow into anything."

Diamond said he and then-Ogden Standard-Examiner Publisher Abe Glasmann joined forces with the communities around Snow and Dixie colleges to push a ballot initiative to force a statewide vote.

"The paper put just an awful lot of effort into that," Diamond said. More than 57,000 signatures were collected. In the November election of 1954, "with Abe and the paper's support, we really beat them badly," 120,683 to 79,955.

"The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of keeping Weber as a state institution," Diamond said, "and of course time has proven that was the right decision."

The school hasn't faced any more threats since then. In 1990, the Utah State Board of Regents voted to change its name to Weber State University, agreeing with the argument that it, along with several other colleges in the state, had grown so large and diverse that they qualified for the broader title. The change, which took effect Jan. 1, 1991, made WSU more competitive in applying for federal grants and attracting students.

Under pressure from the state's two research universities, the Regents did limit WSU to remaining a teaching university.

As such, it has grown to fill a unique niche in Utah's educational mix. It offers very few graduate degreeand no doctoral degrees, but has 23,000 full and part-time students, a high percentage of whom are adults getting education for career advancement or second careers.

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