1901 - 1910

Several attempts prior to 1902 had been made to establish a chapter of Phi Delta Theta, but all of them failed. However, in September of 1902, Brother Carl S. Forkum (PA Gamma, Washington & Jefferson) transferred into the sophomore class and the matter was again addressed.

Brother Phis on the Penn State faculty at that time included Assistant Professor of Romance Languages Irving L. "Frenchy" Foster (RI Alpha, Brown '93), The Reverend C. T. Aikens (PA Beta, Gettysburg '86), and Levi P. Wyman (ME Alpha, Colby '86). They met with Brother Forkum, and after much deliberation it was decided that Forkum should begin recruiting young men suitable for eventual membership in a new chapter of Phi Delta Theta.

Many meetings were held in Frenchy Foster's modest home, directly across Beaver Avenue from the magnificent 1877 home of Professor William Buckhout and diagonally across the Pugh Street intersection from the only slightly less grand 1880 home of Penn State physicist I. T. "Thorny" Osmond [on the present-day site of Sigma Alpha Epsilon].
[Note: The first floor of Frenchy's home would later house Harry "Peanuts" Morrell's candy, peanuts, and popcorn business and still later become Sally's Sandwich Shop. Sally's employees can be fondly remembered by hungry Phis of the 1950s as the deliverers of late-night sandwiches and snacks to PA Theta, where they announced their presence up through the open three-story stairwell with a shrill cry of "Sal-lees". At that time, the basement of Frenchy's house was occupied by The Cave, a working man's bar. Frenchy's classic home was later demolished, and the site is now occupied by one of State College's municipal parking garages.]

In February 1903, Brother John Dallas (PA Eta, Lehigh '03), entered Penn State as a special student in Mechanical Engineering and became interested in the movement to establish a chapter of Phi Delta Theta. On April 21, 1903, Dallas and Forkum, along with nine already pledged men, banded together as a society under the name of Delta Chi and with an avowed purpose of obtaining a charter from Phi Delta Theta.

A constitution defining the objects of the Delta Chi Society was adopted on April 28 and signed by the following eleven men:
• Class of 1904 – John Dallas (PA Eta, Lehigh), Ralph W. Bowers, Thomas J. Bryson, Norman G. Miller, and Paul O. Noble
• Class of 1905 – Leroy W. Cooper, Carl S. Forkum (PA Gamma, W&J), and Robert G. Lose
• Class of 1906 – Clyde E. Culp, H. B. Etter, and William McCleary.

These were men from New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and they bought strong academic desires, well developed social skills, and the determination to create a long lasting society that would last well beyond graduation from Penn State.

A ritual containing the secret work, opening and closing ceremonies, and the order of proceedings for the meetings was adopted on May 5, 1903. During that same month, letters were written to all seven Pennsylvania chapters of Phi Delta Theta, requesting approval of Delta Chi as a new chapter of Phi Delta Theta. Replies were favorable and the petition for a Phi Delta Theta charter was signed and submitted on June 16, 1903 by the original eleven Delta Chi members.

Meetings were held in Main Building [later, Old Main] room of John Dallas and William McCleary until October 7, 1903, when the Delta Chi Society, with a three-year rental contract, moved into a house at the corner of Beaver Avenue and Frazier [now Fraser] Street. This house was owned by The Reverend C. T. Aikens (PA Beta, Gettysburg '86), pastor of the Lutheran Church in Pine Grove Mills (five miles west of State College) and was across Frazier Street from the Presbyterian Church attended by "Frenchy" Foster. It was being vacated by Sigma Alpha Epsilon (nicknamed "Sleep And Eat" because of its initials, "SAE"), which was moving to a house directly across Beaver Avenue from the Phi Gamma Delta chapter house. Later, that SAE house became the Allencrest Tea Room and was eventually demolished to permit construction of Danks Department Store.
[Note: The initial PA Theta chapter house at Beaver Avenue and Frazier Street (now Fraser Street) was later purchased by the State College Presbyterian Church and razed in the 1980s to permit the construction of an on-grade parking lot. In 2004, a municipal parking garage was being designed to be built on that lot and several adjacent properties on Beaver Avenue and Fraser Street.]

Upon returning in the fall of 1903, the Delta Chi brothers began work on obtaining their Phi Delta Theta charter. Perley O. Ray (VT Alpha, '98) had became a new member of the Penn State faculty and, upon learning of Delta Chi's intention to affiliate with Phi Delta Theta, he immediately became involved in the chapter's activities. A rush program was conducted and eight men were pledged and initiated into Delta Chi. They were:
• Class of 1905 – H. R. Geib
• Class of 1906 – W. R. Fleming
• Class of 1907 – J. C. Cosgrove, W. G. Felmeth, C. R. Garrett, J. S. Keller, F. 0. Leitzell, and H. K. Dimelow

On November 26, 1903, at the Alpha Province Convention in Syracuse, Delta Chi's petition for a Phi Delta Theta charter received the unanimous endorsement of the attending delegates.

Two Delta Chi members left school in January 1904; J. S. Keller to attend medical school in New York City, and William McCleary to enter Lehigh University, where he was initiated into Phi Delta Theta by PA Eta on February 19, 1904.

On April 23, 1904, Delta Chi's petition was submitted to the members of Phi Delta Theta's General Council, who ratified it without dissent, although 13 other petitions were denied during the same session. On May 10, 1904, sixteen members of the Delta Chi Society were initiated as brothers of Pennsylvania Theta Chapter of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. The ceremony was conducted by Phi Delta Theta General Council President A. M. McCrillis (Brown '97), assisted by Irving L. "Frenchy" Foster.

Those PA Theta charter members and their Bond numbers were:
#1 Leroy Warrick Cooper '05
#2 Clyde Emanuel Culp '06
#3 Robert Graham Lose '05
#4 Ralph Waldo Bowers '04
#5 Norman Grunawalt Miller '04
#6 Thomas Junk Bryson '04
#7 Paul Olin Noble '04
#8 Charles Rudolph Garrett '07
#9 Wilhelm Gotthart Felmeth '07
#10 Howell Reiff Geib '05
#11 William Reynolds Fleming '06
#12 Frank Octave Leitzell '07
#13 John C. Cosgrove '07
#14 Harry Kempfield Dimelow '07
#15 Robert Morris Carson '06
#16 George J. Bailey '07

Three of the four class of '04 Phis graduated with honors at The Pennsylvania State College's spring commencement ceremonies.

On October 14, 1904, papers were filed in the Court of Common Pleas, Bellefonte PA, for the incorporation and perpetual existence of "The Pennsylvania Theta Chapter of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity." The initial corporate directors were Irving L. Foster, C. T. Aikens, Perley O. Ray, Levi P. Wyman, and Norman G. Miller

In addition to all of the chapter's charter members, other PA Theta Phis signing the articles of incorporation included Walter Y. Heaton (Bond #17), Howard P. Dawson (Bond #18), Ralph J. Smith (Bond #19), Charles F. Hirst (Bond #20), Frank V. McConkey (Bond #21), Durbin L. Gray (Bond #22), Bourdon W. Scribner (Bond #23), Donald M. Scott (Bond #24), and Raymond P. Swenk (Bond #25).

The Carnegie Library was dedicated in November 1904 by Pennsylvania Governor Pennypacker, with Mrs. Pennypacker, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Schwab in attendance. Intending to replace Penn State's existing two-room library in Old Main, Penn State trustee Andrew Carnegie had offered to provide $100,000 [approximately $2 million in 2004 dollars] to build the building, if the Pennsylvania legislature agreed to an annual appropriation of $10,000 [approximately $100,000 in 2004 dollars] for all library expenses, including maintenance and expansion of its collections. This condition was not met, although Carnegie contended "It is a duty which the state owes to its bright young men who attend the college of their own state, instead of going to other states for their education."

President Atherton and General Beaver, then respectively the secretary and president of the Penn State Board of Trustees, urged the General Assembly to agree, but the legislature did not want to be bound in perpetuity. It also believed $10,000 was too much. Ultimately, Carnegie accepted a $5,000 annual allocation.
[Note: Carnegie remained as Penn State's library until the opening of Pattee Library in 1941. It was then converted for use by the Music Department. Later, it was used by the School of Journalism, the Daily Collegian, and is the present-day home of the College of Communications.]

In 1904, McAllister Hall was opened as an academic building.
[Note: In 1915, McAllister Hall was converted into a women's dormitory and still later served as a staff office building and the location of the University Park campus post office, a substation of the State College post office.]

Eight men were pledged to PA Theta from the 1904 fall semester rush. Chapter enrollment then stood at twenty one. Phis were very involved in school activities, including representation on the football, baseball, basketball, and track teams plus various clubs, including yearbook, newspaper, thespians, and choir. Their school spirit was also shown by strong participation in Senior Ball and several informal dinners for alumni and faculty.

Penn State, in a new and more friendly atmosphere toward Greeks, concluded that it would serve its own interests if some fraternities were located on campus proper. As a result, on its Plat of Fraternity Lots and Proposed Avenues, dated September 23, 1904, Penn State designated seven building lots on campus for fraternities.

On December 15, 1905, Fraternity Lot #3 – 0.544 acres and measuring 148 feet (frontage) by 160 feet (depth) – on Burrowes Road [alongside then-unbuilt Pollock Road], was purchased from Penn State "for and in consideration of the sum of one dollar" and "for the express purpose of erecting thereon a fraternity or chapter house for the use of the members of The Pennsylvania Theta Chapter of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity at the Pennsylvania State College."

The deed was recorded in Centre County Deed Book #95, Page 142.
[Note: Execution of the deed involved three Penn State and State College personalities who, in later years, would be held in extremely high esteem.
• General James A. Beaver — The deed was signed by General Beaver, for whom Penn State's original football site Beaver Field – behind present-day Davy and Osmond Laboratories and across Pollock Road from present-day HUB – had already been named, and whose name would carry over to later venues, New Beaver Field – adjacent to The Nittany Lion Inn – and the present-day Beaver Stadium. Born in Bellefonte, General Beaver had been governor of Pennsylvania from 1887 to 1891, and was President of the Penn State Board of Trustees in 1905.
• George Washington Atherton — The deed was attested to, as Secretary of the Board of Trustees, by President Atherton. Within 10 days – by Christmas – President Atherton announced his resignation due to poor health. He had been unable to perform many of his duties during 1905 and eventually passed away on July 24, 1906. General Beaver then assumed the position of acting president until Dr. Edwin E. Sparks, professor of American History at the University of Chicago, was elected president in 1908.
• John Laird Holmes — The deed was notarized by John Laird Holmes. In 1889, Holmes had been hired as State College's first public school teacher. He later became a prominent State College businessman, tax collector, real estate developer, burgess (mayor), Pennsylvania assemblyman (representative), and community leader.

In 1926, John Laird Holmes and "Frenchy" Foster would donate 8.1 acres of land to the Borough of State College for the creation of Holmes-Foster Park, the town's first public park and playground. The local weekly newspaper, The Times, reported, "Mr. Holmes and Dr. Foster felt the need of such a park some time ago and laid plans to establish one. The extension is in one of the prettiest groves in the vicinity of State college, and supports a heavy growth of fine oak." The conditions of the gift were that the park should not be used for camping, nor should any dance halls be established on or near it. Holmes-Foster park was officially opened on July 1, 1927, with a ceremony and a parade.]

A chapter house was constructed on Fraternity Lot #3 in 1906; it measured 45 feet by 58 feet and consisted of a full basement, three floors above grade, and an attic. It cost approximately $10,000 [approximately $200,000 in 2004 dollars] to build and was designed to accommodate twenty members. A mortgage of $5,000 [approximately $95,000 in 2004 dollars], dated July 2, 1906, was acquired to cover some of the construction costs.

Built of red brick with grey sandstone trimmings, the chapter house had a twelve-foot-wide wrap-around wood veranda (porch) on three sides with a cover (roof) supported by 14 sets of either double or triple columns placed on red sandstone pedestals. The over-all design of the house had been greatly influenced by the family home of charter member Clyde Emanuel Culp '06 in York Pa.

Members were ready to move into the house for the fall semester of 1906. The first floor of the house contained a reception hall (foyer), a combination library-smoking room, a music room, and a parlor [later known as the card room, the Pete Stuart Room, and, in 2004, the pool room]. Each of these four rooms had a corner fireplace. Dark stained oak trim was used throughout. A social room ran the length of the south side of the building with three sets of French doors opening onto the covered veranda.

Two sets of folding French doors, sliding out of recessed wall pockets, opened into the social room on the south side from the reception hall (foyer) and the library-smoking room.

The second and third floors were each divided into five two-room suites. Each suite comprised a bedroom and a study room, and was intended to be occupied by only two members.

A "widow's walk" with a banister railing and a flag pole graced the top of the roof.

In the bi-level basement, the house also had an unfinished room with a corner fireplace plus a boiler room with a soft-coal-fired steam boiler and coal bin. At the lowest level of the basement, several steps further down, were two more rooms, one with a corner fireplace and designated as the chapter room, to be entered only by brothers of Phi Delta Theta.

[Note: At this time, the present-day site of West Halls, including Waring Hall, was a fruit-tree orchard, planted in the early 1860s by William G. Waring, grandfather of Fred Waring of later musical fame with his "Pennsylvanians" chorale and orchestra. There were only a few farm structures farther west than the PA Theta chapter house, including the old college barn. The barn had been built on the site of present-day Carnegie Building, but was later moved to the approximate location of present-day Noll Laboratory, just south of the Rec Hall complex. The barn was designed by Frederick Watts, who was elected as president of Penn State's first board of trustees in 1855 when The Farmer's High School was chartered. After being damaged in a fire, the barn was rebuilt at its new location toward the end of the 19th Century, but was demolished in the 1920s during construction of Penn State's first golf course.]

During the spring of 1906, the Sigma Chi house in town had burned to the ground. Sigma Chi then acquired Fraternity Lot #4 from Penn State, the next lot on Burrowes Road north of Pa Theta and separated from us by space retained for a future extension of Pollock Road, which then ended at Burrowes Road. Sigma Chi built their new chapter house on the lot, thus completing the establishment of "The Miami Triad" – Phi Delta Theta, Beta Theta Pi, and Sigma Chi – as close neighbors at Penn State.
[Note: Sigma Nu purchased Lot #5 in 1925, and Alpha Zeta later purchased Lots #6 and #7, which were two smaller lots, just below Rec Hall.]

A spring house-party started to become an annual event in 1907. Members of Phi Delta Theta also attended the Terpsichorean Club dance – under Greek sponsorship – in McAllister Hall and were consistently the best fraternity represented.

In December 1906, "Frenchy" Foster was among the financial backers of the community's first natural ice vendor, Hillside Ice Company, on Abe Markle's farm in Scotia, an area less than 10 miles west of State College which, half a century before, had provided the world's finest phosphorous-free iron ore for Andrew Carnegie's new Bessemer steel process.
[Note: Later, in 1913, "Frenchy" Foster sold some of his extensive land holdings at the end of North Patterson Street – the present-day site of Nittany Beverage Company – for the construction of Hillside's new manufactured-ice plant. Hillside, later operating under the name of Cold Inc., would continue production at the same site until the late 1950s.]

In 1907, by order of the General Council of Phi Delta Theta, PA Theta's original Bond book was returned to headquarters to be eventually placed in the vault of the Memorial Library of Miami University, Oxford Ohio. A substitute Bond book was prepared with a handwritten copy of "The Bond of the Phi Delta Theta." All names of the first 51 brothers of PA Theta were copied into the new Bond book, which John Wolfe Lindley (OH Alpha, 1850) as sole surviving founder of Phi Delta Theta, had previously – on March 30, 1907 – attested to its authenticity by his signature, and which contained the following certification:
"This is to certify that the Bond of Phi Delta Theta as transcribed in the following pages of this book is an exact copy of the original Bond, unaltered and unalterable, which formed the basis of union of the original chapter, Ohio Alpha, and of all chapters subsequently established."

Paul Brown Cosgrove (PA Eta, Lehigh) and brother of charter member John C. Cosgrove, transferred to Penn State and affiliated with PA Theta.

On September 25, 1908, Howard J. Lamade '12 was initiated as a brother of PA Theta (Bond #55).
[Note: Howard, a native of Williamsport PA, was the son of Dietrick Lamade, the founder of Grit, which billed itself as "America's Greatest Family Newspaper" and was published for over 100 years. During Howard's business career with Grit, he was later very active in Williamsport's civic affairs and made major contributions to his favorite organizations. In 2004, Howard J. Lamade Stadium (the prime Little League stadium in South Williamsport), Lamade Gymnasium (at Lycoming College), and the Howard J. Lamade Communications Scholarship (at Penn State) all carry his name.]

In the fall of 1909, Beaver Field [between present-day Whitmore Lab and South Frear Building] was abandoned and "New Beaver Field" was opened on a site just east of The Nittany Lion Inn [the site of present-day Nittany Parking Deck]. Its 17 acres held the football and baseball fields, a quarter-mile cinder track, tennis courts, and lacrosse fields. An outdoor swimming pool was also built, doubling as an ice hockey rink in the winter.

In 1909, a wing was constructed at the southwest rear corner of the PA Theta chapter house providing space for a basement commissary, a first-floor kitchen and pantry adjacent to the social room, plus a comfortable second-floor apartment for a live-in cook. The social room became the dining room.
[Note: At an unknown time – but possibly at this time – the wall between the library-smoking room and the music room was removed to form a large living room and the two corner fireplaces were merged into a single fireplace in the middle of the room.]

The fraternity community at Penn State had grown to nine nationals, three locals, and three scientific societies. Industrial Engineering was added to the curriculum, making Penn State the founder of this branch of engineering.

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