Ball Brothers Intervene
On July 25, 1917 local industrialists the Ball Brothers, founders of the Ball Corporation bought the Indiana Normal Institute out of foreclosure. For $35,100, the Balls bought the Administration building and surrounding land bordered by Reeves Avenue (now University Avenue), McKinley Avenue, Riverside Avenue and Tillotson Avenue, except for the northwest quadrant which was kept as a wildlife preserve (Christy Woods).
The Balls, who were active donors to the state and national Republican Party, contacted newly-elected Indiana governor James Putnam Goodrich, a fellow Republican who was born and raised in the nearby town of Winchester. The Balls proposed giving the school directly to the state. In a lesson learned from the failed 1909 attempt to get state control of the normal school, the Balls wanted to avoid another appropriations bill debate in the Indiana General Assembly.
In early 1918, during the Indiana General Assembly's "short session," state legislators accepted the gift of the school and the land by the Ball Brothers. The state granted operating control of the Muncie Campus and school building to the administrators of the Indiana State Normal School in Terre Haute.
On June 17, 1918, the first students started enrolling at the Indiana State Normal School, Eastern Division. Its initial enrollment was 235 students. Its primary purpose was to serve as a college to educate teachers for the public schools in the surrounding communities including Muncie, Anderson, Richmond, Marion, Gas City and as far away as the boom towns of Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.
The school grew slowly over the next few years to an enrollment of more than 400, helped along by its status as a state-funded college. During this time, the Ball family continued to be benefactors to the school. They donated the funds to build Ball Gymnasium.
The close relationship between the Balls and the school led to an unofficial moniker for the college as many students, faculty and local politicians casually referred to the school as "Ball State" as a shorthand alternative to its longer, official name. During the 1922 short session of the Indiana legislature, the state renamed the school as the Ball Teachers College. This was in recognition to the Ball family's continuing beneficence to the institution. During this act, the state also reorganized its relationship with Terre Haute, and established a separate local board of trustees for the Muncie campus.
In 1924, the State Teachers College Board of Trustees in Terre Haute, Indiana hired Benjamin J. Burris as the first president of the state-funded college. The Ball Brothers continued giving to the university and partially funded the construction of the Science Hall (now called the Burkhart Building) in 1924, an addition to Ball Gymnasium in 1925. By the 1925-1926 school year, Ball State enrollment reaches 991, with 697 women and 294 men.
Read more about this topic: History Of Ball State University
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