The Colorado territory legislature passed an amendment on March 14, 1876 to establish the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, and the Colorado Agricultural College (now Colorado State University) in Fort Collins. Boulder and Canon City had competed for the site of the University of Colorado. Canon City in Fremont County was awarded the new Colorado State Prison as a consolation prize. Fremont County currently contains 15 prisons.
The cornerstone for Old Main was laid on September 20, 1875. The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) was established by legislative decree on March 14, 1876, five months before Colorado became a state on August 1, 1876. Old Main was completed on April 18, 1876 and CU opened its doors on September 5, 1877.
Old Main housed the entire university until 1884, including classrooms, living quarters for the president, a library, science labs, and a chapel. The cost of attending CU in 1878 for a full year was $118 - $250; Adjusting for inflation, this amounts to $3348 - $7093 in 2022 dollars.
CU hired its first female professor Mary Rippon (1850 – 1935) in 1878. She was the first woman to teach at a state university in the United States. The Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre was completed in 1939. No plays were staged there due to the war until 1944 when Romeo and Juliet was performed. The event was so popular that it was followed by The Merchant of Venice in 1945 and Henry IV, Part I in 1946. The widely acclaimed Colorado Shakespeare Festival, formally established in 1958, has performed plays there nearly every summer since.
The Heritage Center located on the 3rd floor of Old Main, contains artifacts, photographs, and memorabilia from 150 years of local Boulder history and includes:
- A moon rock from the 1971 Apollo 15 mission, on loan from NASA’s Johnson Space Center;
- Tributes to CU’s 20 astronauts including Kalpana Chawla who perished in the 2003 Columbia explosion; Ellison Onizuka who perished in the 1986 Challenger explosion; Jack Swigert, the command module pilot of the fateful 1970 Apollo 13 mission who spoke the famous words “Houston, we’ve had a problem”; and Scott Carpenter who piloted the spacecraft Aurora 7 in the 1962 Project Mercury mission, the fourth crewed flight of Project Mercury to orbit the earth. Incidentally, Carpenter’s childhood home was on the corner of Aurora and 7th in Boulder.
- Legendary big band leader and trombonist Glenn Miller attended CU for three semesters in the 1920’s before dropping out and heading to Los Angeles to pursue his dreams. On February 10, 1942 his famous song Chattanooga Choo Choo had sold 1.2 million copies and became the world’s first “gold” record. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) created and trademarked the metal-based scale we now use to measure music sales (e.g. gold, platinum records) and awarded the first official gold record to Perry Como on March 14, 1958 for his hit record Catch a Falling Star. Como was gifted a gold-sprayed record of Miller’s 1942 hit in recognition of the first real gold record.
In 1942 Glenn Miller enlisted in the Air Force. The Glenn Miller Air Force band performed more than 800 performances over half of which were broadcast to millions of listeners. Glenn Miller’s plane disappeared over the English Channel in December 1944. You can visit the Glenn Miller Ballroom in the University Memorial Center (UMC) on campus.
- The CU mascot Ralphie: In 1888, silver and gold became the university’s official colors. No formal mascot was named and so the CU athletic teams were called the Silver and Gold. For the next 60 years students adopted several unofficial mascots including a dog, a goat and a donkey. In 1934 the Silver and Gold student newspaper sponsored a contest to select an official mascot and offered the winner a $5 prize. Three entries had suggested the winning mascot of the buffalo. It was determined that Andrew Dickson’s suggestion had arrived first and he was declared the winner. Weeks later a group of students paid $25 to rent a live buffalo calf and a cowboy handler to appear at the final football game that year where CU beat the University of Denver 7-0. A series of buffalos then stampeded on and off Folsom Field through the 1960s.
Ralphie I was donated and served from 1966-1978. She was originally named Ralph until it was pointed out that he was a she. The name was changed to Ralphie. Ralphie I became a national celebrity in 1970 when a group of Air Force Academy cadets kidnapped her and paraded her around USAFA’s Falcon Stadium sandwiched between two buns and a six-foot bottle of ketchup. CU proceeded to beat the Falcons 49-19.
All of the Ralphies have been female. Ralphie has frequently made the top ten list of “Greatest Live Mascot of College Football.” Ralphie V was retired in 2019. Ralphie VI was born on May 27, 2020. And after a two-year gap due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she made her debut in Folsom Field at the start of the Fall 2021 season. Go Buffs!
To qualify for this cache:
1) Take a picture of yourself, part of yourself (you do not have to show your face), or your GPS either in front of Old Main or sitting beside the bronze sculpture of the famous American Poet who won four Pulitzer prizes (South side of Old Main) and post it with your log;
2) (Optional) Share your favorite quote or words of wisdom in your log.
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference” – Robert Frost
Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.