DePauw University history

President Thomas Bowman proposed in 1861 that Greencastle and the Indiana Methodist Conferences should raise $60,000 for a new college building, but the outbreak of the Civil War postponed the project.

Women were first admitted in 1867.

DePauw is home to the first sorority in the nation, Kappa Alpha Theta, established in 1870.

In 1871, the construction of East College began.

East College was dedicated at commencement in 1877.

The Class of 1879 donated a bell that was hung, appropriately enough, in the building’s bell tower, which also houses a clock donated by the people of Greencastle.

The Scarritt Fountain, located near East College, was a gift from 1882 alumnus Winthrop E. Scarritt in honor of his brother Alfred, who died while he was a student at Indiana Asbury.

W.C. DePauw and his family took a special interest in the formation and progress of the School of Music, which was founded in 1884, and is one of the oldest in the country.

More than 100 games have been played since the rivalry began in 1890.

A massive granite boulder, given to DePauw in 1892, lays in front of East College and serves as an iconic gathering spot for DePauw students.

Reared in a prosperous family, Beard attended DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, and, after his graduation in 1898, he studied at the University of Oxford.

In 1899 he helped found a workingmen’s school in Oxford.

Old Gold Day was created in 1907 as a way to stop the increasingly violent freshman-sophomore class scraps and battles over possession of the opponent’s flag or claims of ownership of the Boulder.

Sigma Delta Chi, known today as the Society of Professional Journalists, was founded at the university in 1909 by a group of student journalists, including Eugene C. Pulliam.

In The Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy (1915), Beard placed somewhat more emphasis on the philosophical context of political struggles, but he nevertheless reaffirmed his view of the importance of economic interests in governmental action.

In 1917 Beard resigned from Columbia University in protest against the investigation and dismissal of several faculty members on charges of disloyalty and subversion.

He was a cofounder of the New School for Social Research in New York City in 1919.

The Monon Bell trophy, a 300-pound locomotive bell from the Monon Railroad, was introduced in 1932 at the suggestion of DePauw alumnus Orien Fifer ’25 in a letter to the editor of the Indianapolis News.

In 1934 he began writing a series of books and articles in which he attacked President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s foreign policy.

DePauw was home to the first 10-watt college FM radio station in the country, WGRE-FM, which went on the air in 1949.

Held in late April every year, DePauw’s Little 5 bike race has been a campus tradition since 1956, when the Union Board sponsored the race as a fundraiser for the American Cancer Fund.