Montana Tech history

In 1893 the Montana Legislature provided funding to establish the school in Butte.

As part of its historic mining collection, the Library also retains original textbooks, such as the 1894 edition of the Manual of Microchemical Analysis by Heinrich Behrens, used in the first geology classes taught at the school.

1897: The School of Mines Building (Main Hall) becomes the first building constructed on campus.

The challenge of developing the collection began in 1900 when Professor Alexander Winchell was "building up" the library.

5 described in the 1903 Catalogue?

For the next six years, enrollment grew but the amount of library information in the Catalogues lessened, and the collection count remained stagnant at its 1909 level of 9,000.

1919: A bill enacted by the Legislative Assembly of Montana in 1919 created the Montana State Bureau of Mines and Metallurgy.

Her librarian position remained vacant, but another Administrative Officer, W. Milton Brown, assumed duties as the registrar in 1928.

In addition to articulating the purpose of the academic library, by 1930 Miss Bedinger completed the monumental task of re-cataloging the 10,000 items in the library.

Finally in 1938, 15 years after planning started, construction began on the Library and Museum Building. It was funded by the State Legislature and the Public Works Administration, a Federal agency created under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 during the Great Depression as a means of providing employment and improving public welfare./4/

A correspondence on March 25, 1937, between Miss Bedinger and Snead & Company, a New Jersey library furniture company, indicated that she was getting price quotations on shelving for the planned building.

Finally in 1938, 15 years after planning started, construction began on the Library and Museum Building.

1943: Montana School of Mines becomes a Naval College and offers the V-12 program, which guarantees an officer replacement program for the Navy and Marines during World War II.

By the 1940s the School of Mines library owned valuable journals and United States Geological Survey publications. It is unclear from the Catalogues whether the practice started with Miss Crouch or her successor, Loretta Buss Peck, who came to the school in 1944.

One former student, 1952 School of Mines alumnus Bob Toshoff, declares in a personal interview that his favorite thing about the library was "the librarian.

1962: Lighting of the “M” on Big Butte.

1965: Montana Tech opens Alumni Coliseum, which was first intended to be used for football games and American Legion baseball games.

The January 14, 1972, issue of the school newspaper, The Amplifier, contained a story about the new assistant librarian, Miss Jodi Gouwens.

On March 11, 1975, Fred DeMoney, the President of what is by now called Montana Tech, testified before the Finance and Claims Committee and the Joint Long-Range Building Subcommittee of the State Legislature.

The technology changes, but the authority of the campus committees does not. For example, in 1978, the Head Librarian, Jodi Gouwens, received a memo from the Dean of Academic Affairs, Roy H. Turley, in response to her request to purchase typewriters for the library.

The university became affiliated with the University of Montana in 1994 with a reorganization of the Montana University System.

In 1998 Frank Gilmore becomes chancellor.

Association of College and Research Libraries. "A Guideline for the Appointment, Promotion and Tenure of Academic Librarians." (June 2005). 2 Feb.

In 2010 the Natural Resource Building (NRB) opened which now accommodates the Bureau of Mines and the Petroleum Engineering Department.

2011: Chancellor Frank Gilmore retires after 13 years at Montana Tech.

2012: Montana Tech’s two-year campus is renamed Highlands College of Montana Tech.

2014: The Materials Science Ph.D. Program’s first students begin studying at Montana Tech.

2015: Montana Tech breaks ground for the newest building on campus, the Natural Resources Research Center (NRRC). The NRRC will provide laboratory space for natural resources and energy undergraduate and graduate education and research on campus.

2016: The Natural Resource Research Center (NRRC) opens on the campus of Montana Tech.

In 2017 the Montana Board of Regents designated Montana Tech as part of Special Focus Four-Year Universities, the only such designation in the Montana University System, in recognition of Tech's focus on engineering, applied science and health science.

2018: At their May 2018 meeting, the Montana Board of Regents unanimously approved Montana Tech's formal name change request.