The History of Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy

Authors

Phelps County Historical Society

Streaming Media

Files

Description

The Phelps County Historical Society was organized on August 26, 1938, for the purpose of collecting, preserving, organizing, and publishing in legible and available form the rich historical materials that relate to the people and the institutions of Phelps County, Missouri, and the immediately surrounding territory.

Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy -- sometimes called the “Rolla School of Mines” -- is a world-famed scientific and engineering school that has grown up within the borders of Phelps County. It is not in any sense a local institution, but was established in 1870 and has since been maintained jointly by the State of Missouri and the Federal Government, under the provisions of the Morrill Act of 1862, according to which such Land Grant Schools have been established.

Because this institution is so noteworthy, and also because the people of Phelps County in 1870 had so great a part in fixing its original location; and because, ever since 1870, the people of this locality have fought consistently to preserve and build up this institution, the attention of the Phelps County Historical Society early became centered in the writing of a suitable history of this School. It is hoped that the narrative contained within these covers will adequately meet the need for such a history.

For some ten years, beginning in 1929, Dr. Clair V. Mann and his wife, Bonita H. Mann, engaged in intensive research to discover and collect suitable material from which a complete history of the School of Mines could be written. They were able to find and accumulate a vast number of authoritative documents, and obtained many first-hand interviews with former Directors, faculty members, and early graduates of the School. By 1939 they had succeeded in writing and copyrighting a complete historical manuscript embodying a thorough summary of all of these materials, and covering two main periods: (1) that from 1712 to 1870, during which time the idea of a School of Mines in Missouri was brought forth and matured; and (2) the period from 1870 to 1937, during which period the School was actually established and developed to its present proportions.

Publisher

Phelps County Historical Society

Publisher Place

Rolla, Missouri

Comments

Edited and Published by Phelps County Historical Society at Rolla, Missouri

Printed by Mid-State Printing Company, Jefferson City, Missouri 1941

Recommended Citation

Phelps County Historical Society, "The History of Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy" (1941). History of the University. 4.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/university_history/4