History of Kentucky State University
The State University of Kentucky owes its origin to an act of Congress, passed July 2nd, 1862, by which each state in the Union was given 30,000 acres of land for each of its Senators and Representatives in Congress.
Kentucky received as her allotment of Public Land 300,000 acres, which had it been judiciously and economically managed, would by this time have produced an annual income of more than $400,000. It was, however, so administered, by the Commissioners appointed for the purpose of disposing of the land that onby $165,-000 were realized from the original magnificent endowment. This being invested in Kentucky State Bonds, now produces an income of only $9,900.
In 1865 the General Assembly of Kentucky passed an Act establishing the Agricultural and Mechanical College, but it made the grievous error of attaching it to a denominational institution instead of placing it upon an independent footing. Thirteen years later, its connection with Kentucky University was dissolved by the Legislature and the question of its re-location was submitted to a Commission appointed for that purpose.
Pres. James K. Patterson who had become President of the institution in 1869, appealed to the citizens of Lexington and the County of Fayette to make an effort to retain it here. The City of Lexington offered the City park of fifty-two acres as a site for the college, and voted $30,000 in City Bonds. This was supplemented by $20,000 in County Bonds from the Fiscal Court of Fayette County. These offers were accepted by the General Assembly, and Lexington. and Fayette Count}' retained in their midst, the germ of what was destined to be one of the greatest educational institutions west of the Alleghenies.
In 1880, the first buildings were erected upon the spacious grounds, so soon to be transformed into a beautiful University Campus. During the same year, the proceeds of a tax of one-twentieth of a mill for the further endowment of the college was obtained from the State. Two years later, the denominational colleges of this state made a united effort to procure the repeal of this tax, on the ground that they would in the future be unable to compete with a college organized, administered and sustained by liberal appropriations from the State. Failing in this, they next attacked the Constitutionality of the Act. Pres. Patterson personally conducted the fight on the part of State College and won the ease in the Chancellor's Court in Louisville, and in the Court of Appeals of the Commonwealth, maintaining the Constitutionality of the Act against some of the ablest members of the Bar, namely, Judge Lindsey, Col. Bennett H. Young, Judge Humphreys, and James Trabue.
From its very birth, progress has been the watchword of thos3 into whose hands the destiny of the institution was intrusted. Immediately after its establishment upon an independent basis, a policy of expansion and growth was instituted which lias been persistently followed until now, Kentucky has at the head of her system of Education, a University of which she may well be proud
Pres. Patterson resigned the presidency in 1910, after a splendid service of forty-one years. Judge Henry S. Barker of the Supreme Court of Kentucky succeeded him. A man of schj'arly attainments coupled with great executive and judicial ability, President Barker is especially fitted for the position which he now so ably fills. Through his kind, genial manner, and loving disposition, he has secured for himself a place in the hearts and lives of every member of the Student Body.
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