A: Yes, unfortunately. The Morrill Act of 1862, which created the land-grant university system, gave each U.S. state an allotment of “public lands” that it could lease or sell to
When Nixon was Eisenhower’s vice president (1953–61), he visited Champaign-Urbana for campaign stops in 1954 and 1956. During his own 1960 presidential campaign, Nixon visited the small Illinois town of
A: In 1920, the University planted 173 World War I memorial trees around the perimeter of the Armory, and extending down Sixth Street and up Pennsylvania Avenue. Unfortunately, some of
A: Because she was the greatest cow of all time. Illini Nellie (1927–1940), a Brown Swiss, became legen-dairy in the 1930s, setting records for milk and milk fat production 12
A: If you guessed Mr. Morrow, guess again. The field’s namesake, Dean of Agriculture George E. Morrow, eventually oversaw its research and made the plots famous by publishing his findings.
A: Where do I start?!? There was the squirrel in the sycamore tree by the Main Library, eating a full-size slice of pepperoni pizza. There was the one on the
A: When I was a kid, my teenage cousin took me snipe hunting in our neighborhood. It wasn’t as glamorous or inherently dangerous as wumpus hunting in the steam tunnels,
A: Indeed, there was. An American bison, it was taxidermied in the 1870s and is thought to have been displayed at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair before the University acquired
A: How much time have you got? Over the past 150-plus years, many, many majors have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Some have disappeared through changing nomenclature, while others
A: Don’t reach for your paring knife just yet—Foellinger’s pineapple is 4-1/2 feet tall and made of copper. In the mid-1980s, when Illinois renovated the nearly 80-year-old building, local contractor
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