First faculty of the Agricultural College of Utah. Sanborn is shown seated at the center. (USU A-Board #1100)

The institution’s first president and director of the Experiment Station, J. W. Sanborn, laid the college farm out into “three-hundred plats . . . for . . . irrigation trials.” Sanborn published the results of these investigations in one of the Experiment Station’s first bulletins in 1893.

A native of New Hampshire, Sanborn came to Utah via Missouri where he had directed the College of Agriculture at the University of Missouri. He accepted the position as director of the Experiment Station in 1888 and was later appointed USU’s first president. He served jointly as president and director until 1896, when he resigned to return to New Hampshire. Sanborn remained a staunch supporter of the institution he helped establish and was honored in 1938 when he returned to campus to celebrate USU’s semicentennial.