From a men’s boarding club to the university Commons: 1897-1919 club emphasizes eating together
In the early years of the University of Wyoming (UW), the school struggled to enroll students. The world-wide depression in the mid-1890s had been especially hard on their recruitment efforts.
Mostly Laramie enrollees
Most of the students were from Albany County, with only a few from outside Laramie willing to enroll. In addition, most of the university students were actually Preparatory School juniors and seniors, and thus not yet freshmen.
But a decade after the university opened, the number of students was finally growing. In 1897, 150 new students enrolled, including 90 out-of-towners. The task of helping that many students find board and room was assumed by Grace Raymond Hebard, who had a paid position as secretary to the board of trustees.
J. F. Crawford, editor of the Saratoga Sun who traveled that fall to Laramie to follow up on three of the Saratoga students, described how Hebard had “toiled away her entire summer vacation going from house to house, hunting up places and writing to the students and arranging for them to come.” He humorously estimated that she traveled from 50 to 75 miles on the streets of Laramie, needing wheels so that the city would not sue her for wearing out the streets.
Boarding Club founded
Tuition was free at UW, but board and room came to $17 a month. A room cost 75 cents a week and board came to an additional $13 a month. With cost savings in mind, faculty helped the male students from out of town organize a boarding club.
Professor Gilkeson was its president, but the students handled all of the management, including the purchasing of bulk food, paying the rent and the cook, and soliciting memberships. Upperclassman Joe Orr, a student from Pennsylvania, was credited for his substantial work in organizing this club for the benefit of out-of-town students.
By November of 1897, thirty students belonged to the club, paying $11 a month. That number represented a good percentage of the out-of-town male students. Fees were waived for the two members who acted as waiter and steward. The students secured a house at the southeast corner of Ninth St. and Thornburgh Ave. (now Ivinson Ave.) near Old Main. The house was an investment of UW professor John Conley, who owned two properties in the neighborhoods near the university. They engaged Mrs. Slack to be their cook. They rented rooms elsewhere in town.
Social Functions
After its first successful year, the boarding club continued to exist as an informal group for another decade. The premises changed from time to time but remained close to the university. In 1898, its second year, the boarding club met at the Allen house at 719 University Ave. which the club used on and off for several years. In January 1903 the club moved from the Hegewald house on Sixth St. to St. Matthews Hall on Fourth St.
The boarding club was designed to act as a social group in addition to organizing meals. In the second year, a table was established where diners could only speak in German. The unofficial university mascot, a dog named Frtiz, often ate there.
In 1902, interestingly, six women were members, but on the whole, club membership remained male. In the first decade of the boarding club’s existence, the Laramie Republican occasionally reported on its social activities, often referring to the club by the names of the cook or perhaps the house owner: e.g., Knapp, Stafford, and Reger.
The students hosted faculty from time to time, and faculty returned the favor. Members would challenge other student groups to form baseball or basketball teams for friendly games. Sometimes, the boarding club was identified by the Laramie Republican as the “varsity” club, which might have been a reference to the number of athletes who belonged.
The only time the club was closed down for meals was in the spring of 1903 when the measles spread throughout the student body.
Acting as an unofficial university photographer, agriculture professor B. C. Buffum took a photograph of some 1897 club members arrayed in front of the Conley house near Old Main. He also snapped a photograph of the 1899 club inside and in front of the Allen house. Buffum was a frequent guest at the dinners, and he and his wife would also host boarding club students at their home.
Recognized Student Group
In 1908, the boarding club began to assume more formal relationships with the university. That year, Merica Hall, the first dormitory for women, opened for business.
By this point, the university had an official registrar, Frank Sumner Burrage, who was the successor to Grace Hebard as the paid secretary of the Board of Trustees. Affectionately known as “Uncle Sumner,” he was, effectively, the dean of student affairs and excellent at the job. He managed the girl’s dormitory, and he also began to assist the men with the boarding club business of locating sources for food and supplies. He changed its name to the Men’s Commons.
In the 1910 WYO yearbook, which had been founded in 1909, the editors dedicated a half page of “roasts” to the Men’s Commons, including a humorous set of menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
By 1913, the WYO yearbook fully acknowledged the student group by including a formal photograph and names in the yearbook section that featured other student groups. The following September, the student newspaper, the University Student, reported that the Men’s Commons was the most desirable eating place with good food at reasonable costs. Situated at the old Corthell House at 815 Grand Ave., the club held had 22 members.
“The house has been completely refurnished and is now splendidly equipped for use as a boarding club,” said the paper. “The university has even purchased an entire set of Community silverware, dishes, tables, chairs.” The cook was Mrs. Sturgeon.
In December of 1913, the Board of Trustees voted to include the Men’s Commons in the university’s official business, equivalent to the women’s dormitory, under the auspices of Burrage.
In a 1914 lengthy article entitled “Commoners Organize,” the University Student reported that the Men’s Commons had adopted a set of regulations and an honor system to ensure “good fellowship” and disciplined behavior during their meals and social parties. Vulgar language and obscene stories were prohibited on the lower floor of their premises at the Corthell house. There was to be no roughhousing or walking across the lawn. Dishes were to be left on the table.
A point system was designed for assessing punishment. An accumulation of more than 25 points in a two-week period resulted in a kangaroo court. A judge appointed by the president of the group presided over the proceedings and assessed fines for a guilty verdict.
As a more or less official university student group through the years of its existence, the men’s boarding club was an alternative to another type of social group, the Greek system of fraternities and sororities.
Between 1903 and 1910, two fraternities and two sororities were founded, and three more were established by 1920. It appears that some of these Greek organizations provided boarding opportunities for their members, especially when they rented houses near the university. All of these groups, including the Men’s Commons, sponsored frequent social parties that included faculty and both male and female students.
Benefits to the community
The existence of organized groups of students needing a place to meet represented an important investment opportunity for Laramie property owners, with the Greek groups and the Men’s Commons competing for space.
The Corthell house on Grand Avenue is an example. Attorney Nellis Corthell and his large family had moved from their town house to a farm in West Laramie soon after 1910, but they kept ownership of the town house. The Sigma Beta Phi fraternity, founded in 1903, used the Corthell house on Grand Avenue in 1912, no doubt because Robert Corthell was its president. But then the next year, the Men’s Commons took over that space and remained there for two years.
In 1917, after a large increase in the number of students, the two women’s dormitories, Merica and Hoyt Halls, had filled up, so the university rented the Corthell house as an annex for women’s students.
In addition, of course, the boarding club throughout its years employed cooks and housekeepers, an important source of income for women.
Never finding a permanent location, the Men’s Commons continued to meet in various spots, now with the assistance of “Uncle Sumner” Burrage. In the 1915-1916 school year, they rented the J. T. Holliday home at 719 Grand Ave.
In 1918, they used what was called the old Student Army Training Corps (SATC) building That year, the students received assistance from the YMCA, which provided furnishings for the building.
A Commons for All
By 1919, the Men’s Commons had officially become a university-wide Commons, open to all students, male and female, who wanted to eat their meals with other university students. The Commons remained at the former SATC site northeast of Old Main, where the Berry Center currently resides.
The dining rooms at the women’s dormitories, Merica Hall and Hoyt Hall, were no longer needed. In its first years of operation, the university Commons was managed by Dean of Women Emma Howell Knight, who regularly advertised positions in the Laramie Boomerang for women to work in the dining hall. The Commons also provided board for the significant number of summer school students that the university attracted every year.
Until the erection of the first men’s dormitory in 1928 (now called McWhinnie Hall), the existence of a Commons for daily meals continued to play a significant role in helping out-of-town male students to integrate into the community and university, develop long-lasting social relationships, and persist to graduation.
By Jane Nelson
Caption: UW boarding club members, taken in 1897 in front of the Conley house at the southeast corner of Ninth St. and Thornburgh Ave. (now Ivinson Ave.).
