Join UAF's 100th birthday celebration today
May 2, 2017
Happy birthday, UAF!
On this day 100 years ago, a college in the small mining town of Fairbanks was born.
Today we celebrate UAF’s birthday and all the progress since with an event beginning
at 1 p.m. in Centennial Square, between Wickersham Hall and the Gruening Building.
Chancellor Dana Thomas, UA President Jim Johnsen, Professor Terrence Cole, alumni
Peter Van Flein and Lorna Shaw, and student Esau Sinnok will share observations about
the university’s past and present. A stand-in for Territorial Gov. John Strong will
re-enact the signing of the bill creating the college.
Strong signed the bill to create the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines
on May 3, 1917, despite having many reasons not to do so. The Legislature hadn’t provided
enough money, he said. Enrollment projections were too rosy. Building materials would
be hard to get because the U.S. had just entered World War I. Fairbanks would be too
remote until the railroad arrived.
Nevertheless, Strong wrote in a letter to legislators, he would accept their judgment
and approve the law.
It was the bill’s second close call. In fact, its arrival on Strong’s desk that spring
was only due to a last-minute vote switch provoked by an unrelated dispute.
The Legislature had earlier killed a bill giving Alaska’s mining companies credit
for federal taxes they paid on stamp mills. Rep. C.K. Snow, I-Ruby, led the charge
to kill the credit. Snow also was a leading opponent of the college.
Rep. Monte Benson, R-Douglas, who sponsored the mill credit, got mad at Snow for killing
his bill, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported on April 26, 1917. So, even though
Benson also had opposed the college, he voted for it to spite Snow.
The House voted 9-7 in favor of the college bill. Had Benson voted “no,” House members
might have tied at 8-8, which would have killed the bill.
"Gosh, but we had a close call!" was the News-Miner's headline.