COLLEGE ARCHIVES

BY DR. MARK MILLER, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND DAVID BITTLE COLLEGE HISTORIAN

The Seventies — not the age of disco, platform shoes and Watergate, but the 1870s — was a critical decade for Roanoke College. It was a fight for simple survival from the shadows of the Civil War, the struggle through the dislocation of Reconstruction and the final redemption by the end of the decade. With so much that could have gone badly wrong, it was amazing that the College emerged on the other side.

When Congress passed the Morrill Act in 1862, the nation was deep in the Civil War. The statute was a measure to establish the land grant college network.

Like other southern states, Virginia looked forward to sharing in the bounty of that federal program. In 1870, when Virginia was recertified, the state assembly lost no time in applying for their fair share. But lacking the resources in the war-torn Old Dominion to open a new university, the state decided to auction off different components of the Morrill Act to individual colleges that were interested in competing.

Roanoke College President David Bittle was ready to pounce. The first contract offered was an agricultural program. To improve the College’s chances, Bittle hired a professor of agriculture, arranged to lease hundreds of acres for the range, con

tracted for barns and outbuildings, and was prepared to rent a herd of critters just to get it going. Judgment day appeared, and the state declared it wasn’t prepared to make a decision. So Bittle fired the professor, canceled the lease on the land and buildings, and stopped payment on the rented animals.

Then the state announced the awarding of another contract, this time for a mining program. Bittle hired a professor of mining, arranged for site contracts and equipment for field and laboratory, and waited for a decision. Once again, the state balked. So Bittle fired that professor and canceled the purchase order for all the spelunking supplies.

Several months passed and the state was at it again: a proposal for a “normal” school or a college of education. This time, Bittle listed himself as a professor of pedagogy and hired an assistant professor to bolster the application. The state bailed out again.

By 1872, the state had reconsidered its piecemeal approach and decided it had the resources after all to open its own proper new school, and Virginia Tech was born. There was some pushback on Bittle from the Board of Trustees as a result of his freewheeling, program-building, contract-chasing endeavors. In an effort to contain the president, the Board formed an executive committee to monitor and to control its chief executive.

Bittle drew up what would have been the greatest building of any college in the South in the 19th century. Originally, the building was to be named after Salem’s most famous son, Gen. Andrew Lewis. Bittle figured that fundraising in Salem for Andrew Lewis would have to be as good as it gets, and he was right. In the next year, the money rolled in.

The massive complex would host a library and a museum on its flanks. The central hall would have exhibit space on the main floor, and upstairs, a Grand Hall with a fine stage and seating for more than a thousand people. Impressive!

Then, in September of 1876, Bittle died suddenly. A bereaved Roanoke College felt the right thing to do was to rename the building after him. There went the fundraising. The townspeople could hardly complain about their donations being retitled, but they felt no further obligation to contribute. As a result, the only portion of the building the College could afford to build was what today is Bittle Memorial Hall.

Over the next two years, the College foundered in its search for new leadership, finally turning to a 32- year-old former assistant to Bittle, Julius Dreher, to pick up the pieces. Dreher turned out to be a brilliant choice and continued in that post for a quarter of a century, retiring in 1903.

Roanoke College survived the Seventies, but just barely, emerging in 1878 intact and on more stable footing. RC