CELEBRATION FOR THE AGES

BY MICHAEL CANDELARIA

1883 sure has a nice ring to it these days. For one, there’s the current award-winning “1883” Paramount+ original series. In dramatic fashion, the show allows viewers to hitch their wagons and head West through the Great Plains toward Montana, one of the final bastions of untamed America.

Then there’s Stetson, celebrating its 140th anniversary — as in established in 1883. Similarities between the two? Almost assuredly, no, except for the year, of course. And Hollywood just doesn’t do 1883 justice.

Hollywood doesn’t mention DeLand.

There is no retelling of how, on Nov. 5, 1883, Henry A. DeLand and Dr. John H. Griffith inaugurated DeLand Academy in a lecture room of the nearby First Baptist Church. In essence, that was the founding of Stetson University, which became a college in 1885. DeLand Hall was built in 1884, becoming the university’s first building and the oldest structure in continual use as an educational facility in Florida. In 1889, DeLand Academy was renamed John B. Stetson University in honor of the well-known hat manufacturer who gave generously of his time and means.

More Stetson history: In 1897, the business school curriculum was established, making Stetson’s School of Business Administration the oldest in Florida. In 1900, the College of Law was organized as the first law school in Florida. During the first decade of the 20th century, Stetson was the only college or university of 50 or more students in the Southeast that required Carnegie units for admission and four years of work for a Bachelor of Arts degree. Back then, the College of Arts and Sciences was the College of Liberal Arts. In the early years, Stetson was also one of the few coed universities in the South.

Since early in the 20th century, graduate classes leading to a Master of Arts have been offered, as well as other master’s degrees. In 1936, the School of Music, a longtime department of the College of Liberal Arts, was established as Florida’s first collegiate school of music.

The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Now, 140 years later throughout the Stetson community, that’s what 1883 really means, right?

Well, yes, plenty of other historic events occurred in 1883, such as in May 1883 when the Brooklyn Bridge in New York opened to traffic after 13 years of construction. The first electric lighting system using overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison in New Jersey, began service. The first vaudeville theater was opened in Boston. Also, in an ode to the burgeoning West, that year President Chester A. Arthur became the first sitting president to visit Yellowstone National Park.

Nonetheless, Stetson was established in DeLand — and it’s a cause for a yearlong celebration that culminates during Stetson’s Homecoming 2023, Oct. 20-22.

Editor’s note: Keep an eye out for details about the October celebration plans!

A brief collection of miscellaneous facts through the decades that might surprise you:

1880s

1887: The Stetson Reporter, Florida’s first college newspaper, is published for the first time.

1920s

1929: The Great Depression hits Stetson hard as it had other institutions nationwide. When John B. Stetson Jr., who followed in his parents’ footsteps as a generous donor, could no longer be counted on for funding help, the university’s finances fell on shaky ground. Nonetheless, his philanthropy, along with his family’s, left an indelible mark of giving — as evidenced by the university’s record-setting total of $52 million in fundraising for fiscal-year 2022.

1890s

1894: Stetson plays its first football game — an intramural game — in front of hundreds of spectators.

1900s

1905: Stetson University College of Law becomes the first law school in Florida to admit women. Florida’s first female lawyer graduated from the College of Law in 1908. The College of Law was founded in 1900, becoming Florida’s first law school.

1910s

1913: Flagler Hall (with students shown in front) is renamed to honor railway magnate Henry M. Flagler. The building, constructed in 1902, was originally called Science Hall. Henry Flagler financed the building but required that the university keep his $60,000 gift a secret. Following his death in 1913, the three-story classroom structure received its now-familiar name.

1930s

1930: Stover Theatre, built for the oldest collegiate theatrical company in the South, opens its doors. Originally called Assembly Hall, because Florida churchmen complained about the university’s building of a “theatre,” it was renamed Stover Theatre in 1938 to honor Stetson professor Irving Stover, PhD, who was head of the speech department from 1908 to 1964. He died in 1965 and was rumored to haunt the building.

1940s

1940: As the effects of World War II began to reach colleges across the country, Stetson’s enrollment drops from its highest-ever count to a mere 362 students in 1940. By the mid-1940s, however, a significant number of military veterans were enrolled as students, and in 1946 they constituted half of the student body — with enrollment reaching 2,554 in 1948, an all-time high at the time.

1950s

1951: The Holler Fountain is installed as the centerpiece of Stetson’s Quadrangle, now known as Palm Court. The art deco-style fountain was built in Central Florida in 1937 and was featured in the Florida display at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair in New York.

1980s

1982: Stetson becomes the first private college in Florida to host a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest honor society.

1990s

1995: After a long relationship, Stetson formally ends its affiliation with the Florida Baptist Convention.

2000s

2003: The Eugene M. and Christine Lynn Business Center becomes the first building in Florida to be certified as a green building by the U.S. Green Building Council under its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system.

2010s

2010: Stetson becomes a pet-friendly campus with the opening of its first pet-friendly residence hall.

1960s

1961: The university purchases a massive Beckerath Organ for use in the Elizabeth Hall Chapel (now Lee Chapel). A total of 56 crates were shipped from Hamburg, Germany, to DeLand, where three men spent two months assembling the organ in place.

1970s

1971: Stetson University’s Model U.S. Senate is founded by T. Wayne Bailey, PhD, a political science professor, and student John Fraser. It is the nation’s oldest collegiate-level model Senate.

2020s

2020-2021: Amid the COVID-19 pandemic — Stetson’s second pandemic in history — the university successfully maintains strict health protocols on campus.

Editor’s note: For comprehensive information about the history of Stetson University, go to https://www.stetson. edu/other/about/history.php.