HomeMy WebLinkAboutSLO What Oct 2016
History of San Luis Obispo
Joseph A. Carotenuti
City Historian/Archivist
For the 3000 residents of the city of San Luis Obispo, the opening decade of the 20th century must have seemed
like a ten-year World’s Fair. The great icon of progress – the railroad – had finally connected along the coast
allowing for north-south state traffic – and then connections to the rest of the Nation - in March 1901. Almost
immediately after the welcoming whistle, another whistle announced the coming of the President of the United
States, William McKinley, and almost exactly two years later his successor, Theodore Roosevelt. Who would
have thought the rural community would be a stop along the presidents’ nationwide trips…let alone an hour
visit from each! They were the last Chief Executives to visit the County Seat.
Yet, more civic pride and progress was on the horizon. Among President Roosevelt’s remarks, he was sure to
add:
“I am glad to learn that the state of California is erecting here the polytechnic
institute for giving all the scientific training in the arts of farm life.”
By then, TR undoubtedly remembered he could have used some training in “arts of farm life” when he
reinvented himself in Dakota Territory after the debilitating loss of his wife and mother on the same day and
in the same house in 1884.
“There should be the same chance for the tiller of the soil to make his a learned
profession that there is in any other business.”
He didn’t have time to go into the extraordinary saga of one man’s quest to do good for his community that
unfortunately has failed to recognize the amazing generosity of spirit that founded today’s university.
The genesis for a school of advanced education began in 1893 when the prominent local 66-year-old resident,
Myron Angel, visited his hometown in New York to refresh his youthful memories. There he was most
impressed by the newly founded (1889) State Normal School. This in a community he once characterized as
an “unsidewalked, disorderly village.” Still operating, Angel not only praised its architecture, but more
importantly, its purpose to influence “the greatest good upon the people of the village and surrounding
country.”
The institution was a powerful symbol of PROGRESS and, for Myron, why couldn’t that progress be brought
west? Thus, began a decade-long effort to translate a dream into reality. At a time when most would welcome
a time to rest and enjoy the fruits of one’s life, Angel could only think of the generations he would never know
who would benefit from his quest for advanced education.
And quest it was. What he had envisioned was a
state normal school to educate teachers.
Unfortunately, other communities – with more
political clout – entertained the same notion.
Rather than enter into a losing political battle, the
goal changed and the first-ever state polytechnic
school was born. President Roosevelt had
knowledgeable “advance” men as when he spoke
about the school in May, the bill to establish the
institution had passed the legislature the previous
March. It would be two more years before the
first students were admitted to the pioneering
educational institution.
Contact: jacarotenuti@gmail.com 10/2016
HISTORY of SAN LUIS OBISPO