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Caption: Book - History of the University (Powell)
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Griggs and the Location of the University 515 DOCUMENT NUMBER 21 An interview of Allan Nevins with Clark Robinson Griggs reported in 1915 to the President of the University. It is essentialy the same as a communication written by Mr. Griggs, himself, to President Edmund J; James under date of June 8, 1904. The interview is a little fuller in details in regard to some events. Clark Robinson Griggs and the Location of the University —I— The Morrill Land Grant Act was signed by Lincoln July 2, 1862; and though Illinois delayed her acceptance of its benefits, all attempts to secure a dissipation of the funds made available fell through, and after the adjournment of the Legislature of 1865 it was apparent that the next session would witness the location of a single land-grant institution. Mr. Griggs remembers several mass-meetings held at different points in 1865 and 1866 by communities ambitious to secure the new college, and himself attended one at Bloomington. The State agricultural and horticultural societies, and various educational workers, were deeply interested in seeing laid the foundations of a sturdy center for the teaching of the practical arts. By midsummer of 1866 it was evident that Champaign, Morgan, McLean, Logan, and Cook Counties would be prominent in the contest. Interested persons in all these communities were trying to impress upon their fellow-citizens the importance of the matter. Nowhere did feeling become more lively than in Champaign County. The eastern portion of the State, it was felt, had been neglected in the allotment of the State institutions; it had a keener and more exclusive interest in agriculture than most others; and Messrs, Stoughton and Babcock, with the aid of other citizens of the County, had vindicated the region's zeal in education by the founding of the Urbana and Champaign University. Many people, moreover, had been stimulated by the movement for a railway from Danville through Urbana and Bloomington to Pekin to take thought for the future of the Twin Cities. During the summer a committee of citizens in Urbana was formed by the efforts of Judge Cunningham, Col. Sheldon and Henry Miller,
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