The Early Years / Campus Over Time

Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, today's Virginia Tech, was established in 1872 in the former home of the Preston and Olin Institute, an academy for white males that had opened in the 1850s in Blacksburg. The institute honored William Ballard Preston and Stephen Olin, and its building was essential to the arrival of a land-grant school there. Students studied and lived in that building until Barracks No. 1, now Lane Hall, was completed in 1888, and fire destroyed the original building in 1913. The transition from academy to land-grant college combined continuity and change: Harvey Black, the last president of Preston and Olin's board of trustees, became the first rector of the new college's Board of Visitors; his sons continued their studies there; and Andrew Oliver, formerly enslaved by members of Blacksburg's founding family, served as custodian before and after the transition. The Morrill Land-Grant College Act and the Preston and Olin Institute together made the new college possible. Over time, the institution expanded from its first properties at the Preston and Olin site and Solitude, was renamed repeatedly, extended its reach across the commonwealth, opened branch and graduate centers, added major buildings and programs, broadened its student population, and grew into Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Blacksburg, Virginia · United States