Commencement Ceremony Program

June 1, 1909

This is the program for the Utah Agricultural College’s fifteenth commencement ceremony. Students from both full and short courses were invited to participate with musical numbers and addresses. The addresses were presentations on the students’ theses. The musical numbers comprised both of solos and groups. President John A. Widtsoe presided and conferred the degrees to the graduates.

Commencement Week Program

Local Newspaper

Special Event

The “A” on Old Main, the school’s first senior gift, was installed on the tower’s west face.

Old Main was the first building built on the campus of the Utah Agricultural College and is currently the oldest functioning academic building in Utah. The cornerstone was laid on July 27, 1889, and the current south wing was completed on February 22, 1890. The entire building was finished in 1902 and contained the entirety of the college.

Over the years, Old Main has served many purposes ranging from classrooms to administration to a makeshift hospital during the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1919. Overall, it has housed nearly every department on campus.

The “A” on top of Old Main measures 12 x 14 feet and originally contained 146 candlelight bulbs. The original “A” was built on the west side of the tower and the remaining three “As” were added in later years. During the summer of 2010, the “A” was upgraded to LED lights to make the white and blue lights more brilliant.