Miami Milestones Miami University was chartered by the Ohio General Assembly, February 17, 1809. Collegiate instruction began November 1, 1824, after years of fund-raising, interrupted construction and operation of a log cabin preparatory school on the college grounds.
"Old Main," the first classroom building on the campus.  It was later named Harrison Hall after Benjamin Harrison, an 1852 MU graduate.

• Perpetual rental of the lots of the township was to endow the university abundantly forever.  By 1959, rental income didn't even pay for mowing the grass.  The land rental did, however, help finance Miami's reopening in 1885 after a twelve-year closing brought about by post-Civil War financial difficulties.
• Direct State support began in 1885 with appropriation of $26,000 for expenses and repairs, followed by the promise of annual appropriations.
• Coeducation and football both began in 1888.  The first coed was Ella McSurely, a professor's daughter.  The first football game was a scoreless tie with the University of Cincinnati, beginning the oldest continuing rivalry west of the Alleghenies.
• Full-fledged coeducation came with the establishment in 1902 of the Ohio Normal College, which also resulted in the designation of the older academic organization as the College of Liberal Arts.
• Separate schools came with growth: the School of Business Administration in 1927, School of Education in 1928, School of Fine Arts in 1929.  Graduate study was introduced in 1946.

(source: Oxford Sesquicentennial , 1959)

 © 2000 by the Butler County Historical Society