Stetson University reaches our 140th anniversary this fall and to celebrate, the Stetson University duPont-Ball Library will delve into the Archives and Special Collections to highlight just a few fun tidbits of our amazing history!

This week we are focusing on Stetson's first decade, beginning in 1883, when philanthropist Henry DeLand and his colleague Dr. John H. Griffith first inaugurated DeLand Academy in a rented room of the First Baptist Church in DeLand, admitting both male and female students. The following year, what is now DeLand Hall was erected and today is the oldest building in Florida in continuous use for education. Stetson Hall, the second building on campus, was constructed in 1886 from funds generously donated by the Philadelphia hat manufacturer John B. Stetson, who had a winter home in DeLand and who was friends with both Henry DeLand and John F. Forbes, the University's first president. The school continued to grow throughout the 1880s and underwent several name changes, from DeLand Academy to DeLand College (1885) and DeLand University (1887), before it was finally renamed John B. Stetson University in 1889 in honor of John B., who was elected to the school's Board of Trustees in 1887 and who had donated more than $1,000,000 to the University by 1889. In 1892, the campus expanded with the construction of Elizabeth Hall, named for John B.'s wife Elizabeth and designed as a rendition of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and Chaudoin Hall, named for University Trustee W.N. Chaudoin.

Photographs and commentary courtesy of Stetson University, DeLand, Florida.