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Your Path to...."The
Beginning of Adrian College"
The Michigan Historic
Site sign on Madison Street summarizes
the College's history.
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Adrian College evolved from
a theological institute founded by the Wesleyan
Methodist denomination at Leoni, Michigan, a
small town east of Jackson, in 1845. In 1855
this institute united with the Leoni Seminary,
a Methodist Protestant institution, to establish
Michigan Union College.
Legend states that members
of the College became concerned about the environment
at Leoni, which was nicknamed "Whiskey
Town." In 1859, this concern and other
circumstances made it advisable to relocate
or close. In the same year, Dr. Asa Mahan, pastor
of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Adrian
and a well-known educator, was encouraged by
citizens of the community to establish a college.
Mahan had served as the first president of Oberlin
College and, before that, as an officer of Lane
Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Dr. Mahan and his colleagues
invited the officials and those who supported
the closing of Michigan Union College to join
in establishing the new college at Adrian. After
the invitation was accepted, the story says,
the library holdings were loaded on an ox-cart
in March 1859, and transported 60 miles to the
new campus site on the west side of Adrian.
On March 28, 1859, Adrian
College was chartered by the Michigan legislature
as a degree-granting institution with Dr. Mahan
as its first president. Through a series of
consolidations and denomination unifications,
the College has maintained its relationship
with The United Methodist Church.
For almost 100 years, the
campus consisted of several brick buildings
stretching along Madison Street. Most of today's
campus was woods and fields. In the mid-1950s,
the College, encouraged by the generosity of
Ray W. Herrick, embarked in a building program
that established the basis for the current campus.
Today, when students walk
in the area bounded on the east by Madison Street
and edged by Downs Hall, Valade Hall, Cornelius
House and Herrick Tower, they tread on the same
ground that students hurried across in 1859
as they rushed to classes, meals and social
events. Now, however, the campus consists of
100 acres, over 20 academic and service buildings
and 10 residence halls, plus apartments and
themed housing.
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