Author: Dane Skorup (Dane Skorup)

1857 — Michigan State Sen. Edmund Burke Fairfield, while still president of Hillsdale College, proposes that the state university be opened to women, reflecting Hillsdale’s own charter. The issue is tabled almost unanimously.   1893 — The role of women in American higher education in the 19th century expands with the creation of the Hillsdale...

1874 — The great fire. Following the financial panic of 1873 (the most severe until the eve of the Great Depression), Hillsdale College’s original central hall caught fire from an unknown source in the early morning. The intense heat woke the few students still lodging inside during vacation, some of whom escaped right away. Others...

1910 —  A fire destroys Knowlton Hall (pictured), one of the original Second Empire structures designed to complement Central Hall in the mid-1870s. Alumnus Wallace Heckman, business manager and counsel at the University of Chicago, said, “Bear in mind it is the buildings only that can burn—the College is indestructible.” Knowlton was originally home to...

1919 — Lt. Stephen Jessop, a Hillsdale College student and soldier of World War One, lives to tell his tale back on College Hill. Jessop had survived bombings and a poison gas attack as part of an ambulance corps on France’s front lines. When his vehicle was destroyed and the driver killed, he carried wounded...