Unseen Occidental

Professor of Classics William D. Ward is a seminal figure in the early development of Occidental College. He arrived at Occidental in 1906 as dean of faculty, having previously served as president of the College of Emporia in Kansas (which closed its doors in 1972). Ward pivoted to the classroom in 1909, brought about the revival of Greek drama on campus, and personally discovered the site of Remsen Bird Hillside Theater when surveying the property that would become Occidental’s third and permanent home in Eagle Rock.

In a 1914 essay titled “Occidental College: Its Place and Purpose,” Ward wrote: “The ideal college is popularly supposed to be located near the eastern seaboard, miles away from the city, and overrun with the ivy and traditions of several generations. Accepting this as the orthodox view, the claims of Occidental must rest largely upon sheer nonconformity.

“To begin with, it stands on the border of Los Angeles, not only fronting the Pacific, but purposely convenient to an urban population. Just below stretches a city of half a million, to which swift accretions are constantly being made from every part of the world. During the tourist season, the onlooker is forced to marvel at the human species, apparently metamorphosed into birds of passage, and all winging their flight to the same spot, drawn by the gentle luxe of the Southland.

“Here men are gathering, and here, as long as natural conditions remain the same, they will continue to gather here, if anywhere, their spiritual and intellectual needs must be met. It is a noble philanthropy, we admit, which, after planting a rustic Eden and hedging it about, offers the student its shelter for the four years of the college course. And yet, not to mention the failure of the original Eden experiment and of many such experiments since, thousands of our future citizens must be educated in the city or not at all.”

Ward was nothing if not prescient in recognizing the potential growth of Los Angeles into a world-class city,  and was quick to recognize the College’s place in it: “In the new Occidental campus, various advantages of city and country are combined. Another 90-acre tract equal in charm and adaptability it would be hard to find in Southern California. Though reached by a five-cent trolley ride from any part of Los Angeles, it lives quite removed from the turmoil, and so close to nature, that it smells of the wildflowers. … Spread out among the hills, with the mountains in the background, and from its highest eminence, catching occasional glimpse of the sea, the situation is one of unsurpassed beauty well deserving the admiration bestowed upon it by visitor after visitor.”

Prior to moving to Eagle Rock, Occidental called Highland Park home on 23 acres of land in the heart of a developing community. What was campus life like in those days? Thanks to Hugh McNary of the Class of 1914—who studied in Highland Park and was part of the first class to graduate in Eagle Rock—we have a window into that world.

A history and economics major at Oxy, McNary played football, ran track, and spent two years as photographer for La Encina, where a number of these images were first published. He committed many more to a scrapbook—an album that was purchased on eBay nearly a decade ago by the Eagle Rock Valley Historical Society. Local historian Eric Warren ’69 worked with Special Collections to identify a number of the images at the time of his 50th reunion. Take a look for yourself: In the timeless words of Maya Angelou, “You can’t really know where you’re going until you know where you have been.” 

Occidental’s new campus in 1913, above, with the frameworks of Johnson, Fowler, and Swan halls taking shape. Developers W.A. Roberts and James G. Garth purchased 200 acres of land in Eagle Rock in 1909, 75 acres of which they deeded to Occidental in January 1910. The College bought 13 additional acres soon after, and a gift of another 3 acres “completed what is now the beautiful new 90-acre campus, which prominent educators have pronounced second to no other college site in the country,” Roberts and Garth declared in an ad in the 1913 La Encina. The developers created two subdivisions totaling 306 lots surrounding the nascent campus, at prices ranging from $500 to $1,500.

Members of the Class of 1914 pose for a photo in 1911 on the Highland Park campus. (They were part of the first class to graduate on the new campus in Eagle Rock.). Among the highlights of the 1910-11 academic year: a “big” Glee Club concert at Temple Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles; a lecture by Professor of Mathematics Ernest Allen on the total solar eclipse on April 28, 1911; and a celebration of President John Willis Baer’s 50th birthday. Occidental’s sixth president (1906-1916), Baer oversaw the move from Highland Park to Eagle Rock. Fondly referred by students as “Prexy," Baer “deserves to be regarded as one of the College’s truly great leaders,” volunteer College archivist Jean Paule wrote in her biography published in 2000.

An unidentified Oxy hurdler (quite possibly Harry Kirkpatrick 1914, a four-sport star at Oxy who went on to have a career as an award-winning scientist and physicist) clears the high hurdles during practice on a track in Highland Park. Coach Joe Pipal’s 1913 squad was considered to be “the best balanced team that Occidental has had in many years,” according to the 1914 La Encina. The Tigers continued to compete in Highland Park until construction on Patterson Field was completed in 1917.

Before there was Oswald, this was one of the earliest iterations of Oxy’s beloved bengal mascot—one of many similarities between the College and a certain Ivy League university. Maybe too many: In an open letter to the newspaper titled “Should Occidental Copy Princeton?” a number of “Occidental men at Princeton” bristled at the idea of their alma mater being referred to as “the Princeton of the West”: “It shows a humiliating lack of originality and self-respect to mimic another college, assuming, for the sake of argument, that we have the right to usurp what belongs to others.

For more photos, check out the Fall 2024 edition of Occidental magazine in print or on ISSUU.

Main photo: Professor William D. Ward at his desk in the Hall of Letters on Occidental’s Highland Park campus. Ward is best remembered today as the co-author of “Occidental Fair,” which would supplant the official College hymn, “Hail to Occidental,” by Dan S. Hammock 1905 and Williel Thomson 1910, as well as an earlier ode to the College composed by William Stewart Young and Walter S. Young titled “Occidental Mine!”