This sign sits on the corner of Erie and Hannah street, and it welcomes everyone, alumni and students alike, to the college (Photo by Taylor Dietz).
On Feb. 25, 1861, on a campus with only three buildings and 290 students, Principal Thomas Sinex and Board of Trustees member William H. Brockway obtained a charter from the state. This charter officially joined the Wesleyan Seminary and Female College to create Albion College. Albion college could then give out full four-year degrees to both men and women.
“The institution had changed from a locally supported seminary, similar to what we might call a high school, to an institution of higher education worthy of the title of college, granting degrees to both men and women,” said Issac Kremer, Albion Alum and creator of the Albion Interactive History.
This meant that the school no longer was a seminary with a principal, but a college with a president. Once college status was reached, Albion College began to grow into what it is today. These archival images capture how campus life changed soon after and photography became more popular.
Students participate in a campus baseball game on what will become the quad in 1904 with the predecessors to Vulgamore, Robinson and the KC in the background. These and the Bell House, a building where a bell would toll to notify students when class was, were the only buildings on campus at the time because of little state funding (Photo courtesy of Albion College Archives and Special Collections).The Observatory was built with help from Samuel Dickie, who served as president from 1901-1921, who at the time was a professor of mathematics. The Observatory was fitted with the last telescope made by Alvan Clark, which was later identified as a “Rembrandt” in the 1960s (Photo courtesy of Albion College Archives and Special Collections).Thomas Sinex was Albion College’s fourth principal and the first president from 1854-1864. He and William H. Brockway strived to get more funding for the school and succeeded by elevating the status of the college (Photo courtesy of Albion College Archives and Special Collections).The Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) fraternity house is dusted with snow in 1911. ATO was the first fraternity to provide housing on campus after President Ashely proposed it to the Board of Trustees in 1899 (Photo courtesy of Albion College Archives and Special Collections).A nineteenth-century chemistry class utilizes the McMillan Chemical Laboratory. The lab was built in 1893 through a donation from U.S. Senator James McMillan (Photo courtesy of Albion College Archives and Special Collections).
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