History
Joseph Rothrock, an explorer, botanist and medical doctor founded the academy to train men for service in the state forests.
In May 1903, Samuel W. Pennypacker, governor of Pennsylvania, established the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy in Mont Alto. With the precipitous closure of the New York State College of Forestry at Cornell in the same month, the new Pennsylvania school became one of three forestry schools in the nation, along with Yale and Biltmore. George Wirt, the academy's first administrator, patterned the curriculum after curricula in Germany. All first year students were required to bring a horse with them to the academy until the late 1920s. The horses were used to fight forest fires in the Michaux State Forest.
The yearbook of the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy was called "The Oak Leaf". It was published in 1914, 1920, 1923 and 1927, and may now be viewed online through the Pennsylvania State University Libraries along with other items documenting the history of this campus.
In 1929 the Pennsylvania State College and Mont Alto merged to form the Penn State Mont Alto campus. Students were adamantly opposed to the merger, and they protested by hanging two state officials in effigy.
The campus closed from 1943 to 1946 because the students and faculty were fighting in WWII.
In 1963, Penn State Mont Alto became a Commonwealth Campus.
In 1997, Mont Alto joined the Commonwealth College, and began to offer baccalaureate degrees.
Read more about this topic: Penn State Mont Alto
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