Wikipedia

Montana State University (MSU) is a public university located in Bozeman, Montana, United States. It is the state's land-grant university and primary campus in the Montana State University System, which is part of the Montana University System. MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 51 fields, master's degrees in 41 fields, and doctoral degrees in 18 fields through its nine colleges.

Almost 15,500 students attend MSU, and the university faculty numbers, including department heads, are 743 full-time and 411 part-time. The university's main campus in Bozeman is home to KUSM television, KGLT radio, and the Museum of the Rockies. MSU provides outreach services to citizens and communities statewide through its eight Agricultural Experiment Stations and 60 county and reservation Extension Offices.

Montana became a state on November 8, 1889. Several cities competed intensely to be the state capital, the city of Bozeman among them. In time, the city of Helena was named the state capital. As a consolation, the state legislature agreed to put the state's land-grant college in Bozeman. Gallatin County rancher and businessman Nelson Story, Sr. had agreed to donate about 160 acres for the site of the state capital. This land, as well as additional property and monetary contributions, was now turned over to the state for the new college.

MSU was founded in 1893 as the Agricultural College of the State of Montana. It opened on February 16 with five male and three female students. The first classes were held in rooms in the county high school, and later that year in the shuttered Bozeman Academy (a private preparatory school). The first students were from Bozeman Academy, and were forced to transfer to the college. Only two faculty existed on opening day: Luther Foster, a horticulturalist from South Dakota who was also Acting President, and Homer G. Phelps, who taught business. Within weeks, they were joined by S.M. Emery (who ran the agricultural experiment station) and Benjamin F. Maiden (an English teacher from the former Bozeman Academy). Augustus M. Ryon, a coal mine owner, was named the first president of the college on April 17, 1893. Ryon immediately clashed with the board of trustees and faculty. Where the trustees wanted the college to focus on agriculture, Ryon pointed out that few of its students intended to go back to farming. While the rapidly expanding faculty wanted to establish a remedial education program to assist unprepared undergraduates (Montana's elementary and secondary public education system was in dire shape at the time), Ryon refused. The donation of the Story land to the college occurred in 1894, but Ryon was forced out in 1895 and replaced by the Rev. Dr. James R. Reid, a Presbyterian minister who had been president of the Montana College at Deer Lodge since 1890.

The college grew quickly under Reid, who provided 10 years of stability and harmony. The student body grew so fast that the high school building was completely taken over by the college. A vacant store on Main Street was rented to provide additional classroom space. Both the Agricultural Experiment Station (now known as Taylor Hall) and the Main Building (now known as Montana Hall) were constructed in 1896, although the agricultural building was the first to open. Both structures were occupied in 1898. The university football team was established in 1897, and the college graduated its first four students that same year. The curriculum expanded into civil and electrical engineering in 1898.