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Show Struggle Fills SU History Sacrifice and enduring struggles have made Southern Utah State College the institution that it is today, a solid, four-year institution offering bachelors' degrees in over 35 academic areas. Nothing has come to SUSC easily. From the very first Southern Utah State has had to struggle. Even the site of the college was determined only after bitter competition among several southern Utah communities. Once Cedar City was chosen as the site (and at that time Cedar City was only a two-store village with about 300 men and boys mostly employed in fanning and ranching), the struggle only increased in-creased in intensity. A State Building, or Else ... Late in December of 1897, the Utah State Attorney General sent word that unless a state-owned building was completed by the time for school to start the following September, Cedar City would lose the right to be home of the new institution. In an almost al-most unbelievable dead-of-winter logging operation lumber was hauled from the mountains (up to 10,000 feet in elevation) to the east of Cedar City. A local historian (Inez Cooper) wrote of the venture: It was the dead of winter and there were no building materials left in town. They had no money and in any event, they were miles from the railway terminal in Milford. The only available project they could begin at once was to send volunteers thirty-five thirty-five miles into the mountains to get out the lumber that had been left at the Jensen Sawmill on the Mammoth when snow began to fall. Old Sorrel Saved Their Lives Two parties of men left Cedar City for the Mammoth, one on January 5, 1898, to break trail and load the lumber. Caught in a heavy snow storm, the men barely escaped with their lives. But for one horse, Old Sorrel, which had the instinct to fight snow, all would have been lost. However, they did open the road, brought back the lumber and reported that many things were necessary to make the project feasible. Only under the most urgent pleading of the Committee would they even consent to go back. Accordingly, everybody went into action. The blacksmiths made sleigh runners and the metal parts for broken harnesses. The harness makers made horse blankets from dam canvas left over at the Co-op Store from the summer's irrigating. Food, hay, and grain were provided. Teams and drivers were recruited. And the lumber crew left Cedar City well equipped for the job ahead. They stayed in the mountains all winter, cutting trees, sawing logs into boards, and hauling the lumber, in relays, to town. Blocks Organized, Food Dispensed Meanwhile, the women of the Relief Society donated what they had cleaned and stored to be converted, at the Co-op, into cash for the necessary purchases. The choir, band, and dramatic society put on entertainments and donated the proceeds to the fund. Women knitted socks and mufflers and made warm shirts. One man donated a large pile of precious scrap metal he had meant to sell for badly needed money. Each block was organized to send food by the week to the men in the mountains. The food was collected at a conveniently located home and containers were dispensed from there when they returned empty. When spring came, the activity continued. Men quarried rock, dressed it, and hauled it to the site. Others stationed themselves in the south fields where good clay abounded and made bricks, thousands of them, by hand, turning them every day until they were sun-dried and then firing them in a kiln built on location for the purpose. A storm once ruined several thousand brick which were nearly ready for firing, and all that work had to be re-done. Ten-Year-Old Boys Played 'Horse' Carpenters, bricklayers, masons worked feverishly on the building build-ing itself with hand-operated hammers, saws, and wheelbarrows. Ten-year-old boys played horse for the hod carriers, helping to pull the heavy barrow loads of cement while a man pushed up to the masons on the walls. Little girls carried lunches to fathers and brothers. Mothers added to their regular duties the farming aided by the boys not old enough to work on the school. Older girls kept house and gardened and looked after the children. When finish lumber was needed, one man donated the wood he had been carefully seasoning for his coffin. A woman with six children in two small rooms gave the wood that was to have been a new kitchen with cabinets. Music Of Hammer And Saw The building was almost ready in September when school started, start-ed, but the students attended the first few days to the music of hammer and saw as the last bit of finish work was completed. The citizens had saved their school! Continued on page two Struggle Accents SUSC Progress ' Continued from page one Cause for celebration. Everyone turned out to the dedicatory exercises, banquet and dance. School and community have worked together ever since, each helping the other in whatever way comes to hand; and Old Main, a monument to pioneer faith, dedication, and workmanship, still stands. First Diplomas In 1900 The first graduating class from what was to eventually become Southern Utah State College received diplomas in June of 1900. The school-called the Branch Normal School-functioned under the University of Utah. In 1913 control of the school was shifted to Utah State University, Uni-versity, and the name was changed to Branch Agricultural College Col-lege (BAC). It was in 1953 that the name was changed to College of Southern South-ern Utah, and in July of 1969 that the name was changed again, this time to Southern Utah State College. SUSC severed ties with Utah State University and became an independent, degree granting four-year liberal arts college in 1965. Prior to 1965, SUSC was a two-year institution. Between 1953 and 1971, SUSC grew from an enrollment of 360 students to just under 2,000 students. The fall 1974 enrollment enroll-ment is expected to be approximately 1,700. SUSC Students From "Almost Everywhere" Southern Utah State College students come from everywhere ... . well, almost everywhere. Last fall quarter SUSC welcomed students from 27 of Utah's 29 counties; from 28 different states; one U.S. territory, Puerto Rico, and from seven foreign countries. As might be expected most of SUSC's students come from Utah, 1259 of them last fall. Also as expected, most of the Utah students come from Iron County, 555 of them last fall.- Other major "feeder" counties from Utah include Salt Lake, Washington, Utah, Millard, Sevier, Garfield, Beaver and Davis. Nevada, California and Arizona are the home states for most of SUSC's out-of-state students. A breakdown of the fall quarter, 1973 Thunderbird student body: |