Brigham Young College

Brigham Young College was a college and high school in the western United States, located in Logan, Utah. It was founded by Brigham Young on 6 August 1877, 23 days before his death. He deeded several acres of land to a board of trustees for the development of a college. This was just two years after he founded Brigham Young Academy in Provo in 1875, which became Brigham Young University in 1903.

The college was founded after the order of Oberlin College—the students' work would support the college and their needs. The plan was never fully worked out. The classes met in Lindquist Hall and started on 9 September 1878. Classes also met for a time in the basement of the Cache Tabernacle.

The school was established to provide higher education to the youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in northern Utah, southern Idaho, and western Wyoming. The BYC (as opposed to BYA, now BYU) had nearly 40,000 students in the period of its operation. Initially it was for preparing teachers (1877–1894), then offered college courses and for fifteen years (1894–1909) and granted bachelor's degrees. After 1909, the school operated as a high school and junior college.

In 1926, the Church Board of Education of the Church Educational System decided to discontinue its schools, except for Brigham Young University. When BYC closed, its buildings were sold to the city of Logan and were used as a high school, specifically Logan High School, the adjacent property. Following a nearby earthquake in the summer of 1962, the historical buildings were demolished and newer ones were erected. The original BYC library collection was given to Utah Agricultural College, also in Logan, now Utah State University. Demolition of the historical buildings should not be directly attributed to the 1962 earthquake. No major repairs were needed to continue using the auditorium, Nibley Hall, for example, until 1968. Mourning the removal of the evergreens and other large trees, in 1968, that had characterized the old campus, Weston Henrie, history teacher, told my class that the Logan School Board had offered property on the north side of town for replacing the high school. School officials voted to keep the old campus because of its charms and then had proceeded to destroy them anyway. The available property was used to replace the junior high—now Mt. Logan Middle School.