Created in 1921 as Adams State Normal School, the institution initially received no state funding for construction because of political conflict, but Alamosa residents raised money to sustain it. Named for state senator Billy Adams, who wrote the legislation that chartered it, the school brought professional career opportunities to a region long deprived of them. By 1950 it had become a four-year campus called Adams State College, offering a full range of academic and vocational programs, while teacher education remained its most popular program. Its first building's cornerstone was laid in 1923, Richardson Hall, named for first president Ira Richardson, was completed in 1924 and at first housed all classes and administrative activities. In athletics, the men's cross-country team won multiple titles under Coach Joe Vigil from 1965 to 1993, and the women's track team won seven national championships in eight years in the 1990s. Billy Adams, an Alamosa rancher and state legislator from 1886 to 1926, defended the interests of farmers and railroad workers, secured wage supports and agricultural loans, and in the 1920s helped lead opposition to the Ku Klux Klan-backed regime that then dominated Colorado's government. After that administration was driven from power, he served three terms as governor, retired in 1933 without ever losing an election, continued to offer political counsel until his death in 1954, and in 1953 received an honorary Doctor of Humanities and Public Service degree from the college that bore his name.