The cornerstone was laid for the first building of the Central Michigan Normal School campus, now called Central Michigan University.
Old Main, as it came to be called, was the first building constructed for Central Michigan Normal School.
Central actually opened its doors on September 13, 1892, as the Central Michigan Normal School and Business Institute, with classes in teaching, business and stenography. At that time, few of the state’s teachers received any formal training in teaching, so school founders made teacher training their mission in founding the state’s second normal school.
Thirty-one students attended classes in second-floor rooms over an office on the corner of Main and Michigan streets in downtown Mount Pleasant. Most students at the time were eighth-grade graduates, attending the “Normal” for a few weeks or months prior to beginning their careers as teachers. Within the first two years, land was acquired and a $10,000 Normal School Building was constructed where Warriner Hall now stands.
Sources:
“Michigan Historical Calendar”, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
Central Michigan University History courtesy of the CMU School of Music
Claude S. Larzelere, “The Central Michigan Normal School at Mt. Pleasant, Michigan History Magazine, July 1919, Vol. 3.