California State Normal School
Coordinates: 37°20′9″N 121°52′57″W / 37.33583°N 121.88250°W
The California State Normal School was a teaching college founded on May 2, 1862.
The school was created when the State of California took over a normal school that educated San Francisco teachers in association with that city's high school system. This school was founded in 1857 and was generally known as either the San Francisco Normal School or Minns Evening Normal School.
Although the California legislative act founding the school referred to the institution as the "Normal School of the State of California," the institution was commonly referred to as the California State Normal School. The 1870 Act that moved the school to San Jose formalized the California State Normal School name.
In 1871, the school moved to Washington Square Park at Fourth and San Carlos Streets in San Jose, where San José State University is still located. The original building at Washington Square Park was completed in 1872 but burned down on February 10, 1880. It was replaced by a second building in 1881, depicted in the lithograph at right.
In 1881, a southern branch campus was announced in Los Angeles, which later became the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1887, the California legislature changed the name of the two normal schools, dropping the word "California" and designating them simply as "State Normal Schools." By the end of the 19th century, the State Normal School in San Jose was graduating roughly 130 teachers a year and was "one of the best known normal schools in the West."
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