History of the Pennsylvania State University

The Pennsylvania State University was founded on February §≈ 22, 1855 by act P.L.46, No.50 of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania. Centre County became the home of the new school when James Irvin of Bellefonte donated 200 acres (809,000 m²) of land and sold the trustees 200 acres more. In 1861, Penn State graduated its first class, marking the first graduates of a baccalaureate program at an American agricultural college. On May 1, 1862, the school's name was changed to the Agricultural College of Pennsylvania, and with the passage of the Morrill Land-Grant Act, Pennsylvania selected the school in 1863 to be the state's sole land grant college. In the following years, enrollment fell as the school tried to balance purely agricultural studies with a more classic education, falling to 64 undergraduates in 1875, a year after the school's name changed once again to the Pennsylvania State College.

During this period, the college was financed by tuition and the sale of the land scrip which Pennsylvania received from the Federal government under the Morrill Act. The state did not appropriate funds for the maintenance of the college until 1887. However, the Legislature appropriated $50,000 to complete Old Main in 1860. In 1873, Rebecca Hannah Ewing became the college's first woman graduate.

George W. Atherton became president of the school in 1882, and began working to broaden the school's curriculum. He commissioned Reber to expand the mechanical arts program, who in 1884 proposed the construction of a building dedicated to the teaching of mechanic arts and filled it with carpentry and metalworking equipment obtained primarily through the donations of local industry. In 1886, the board of trustees approved the creation of a department of mechanical engineering. Shortly after, Penn State became one of the ten largest engineering schools in the nation. Atherton also expanded the liberal arts and agriculture programs, and as a result, was rewarded with regular appropriations from the state beginning in 1887. For this, Atherton is widely credited of saving Penn State from bankruptcy, and is still honored today by the name of a major road in State College and its suburbs, Atherton Street. Contrary to popular belief, Atherton Hall is not named after President Atherton but his wife Frances Atherton. Atherton's grave rests near Old Main, the University Park campus's central administration building, and is marked by an engraved marble block resting in front of his statue.

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