Salina Post proudly presents Flashback Friday in partnership with the Smoky Hill Museum. Enjoy a weekly tidbit of local history from the staff at Salina Post and the Smoky Hill Museum as we present "Salina-Flashback Fridays."
By SALINA POST
Early in Salina's history, the first college arrived in 1884, named Salina Normal University.
Salina Normal University was a "normal school" — a type common in the 19th century that focused on training elementary teachers, but the school offered other degrees.
At 100 S. College Ave., the more than five-acre campus sat at the west end of Iron Avenue between State Street and University Place.
The university housed four floors with a tall center steeple towering over the town with two additional stories.
According to the March 6, 1884 edition of the Saline County Journal, the university housed 60 to 70 students in its dormitory wing and could accommodate 500 to 600 students for classes.
The college offered two primary courses, a normal college course and a commercial college course. The normal course would focus on training new elementary teachers, while the commercial course would teach "those that wish to be skilled in the method of system, order and details of practical business life."
Other departments at the college included classical, philosophical, scientific, preparatory, elocutionary, engineering, music and art.
Just 20 years after construction finished at Normal University, the building burned down on Sept. 4, 1904.
According to the Salina Daily Union edition on Sept. 5, 1904, the building caught fire around 1:15 a.m., and by the time fire crews arrived at 1:20 a.m., the fire had already overcome the building.
"The burning of this college is a serious loss to the city — not so much in dollars and cents directly but in cutting off a large revenue to many people in the city, and by the loss to general business which is brought in by several hundred students annually," the Salina Daily Union said.
All students and staff safely exited the building with no reported injuries.
After the college burned, the board of trustees met to discuss what to do next with the facility and students — which included Oscar Seitz, owner of Seitz Eagle Drug Store, who was board president at the time.
READ MORE: 📸 Flashback Friday: Salina Post - Smoky Hill Museum - Vol. 13
The board discussed rebuilding the college but ultimately decided not to for unknown reasons. After the decision, the college sold its five-acre campus as residential lots.
Today, houses populate the initial plan of the campus with little trace that the town's first university stood there.