Leander Clark College, originally named Western College, was a

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

, United States. It operated from 1857 to 1919, when it was absorbed into

Coe College Coe College is a private liberal arts college in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was founded in 1851 and is historically affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). The college is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest and the Associatio ...

History

Western College was established in 1857 by the United Brethren in Christ at a location north of Shueyville in

Linn County, Iowa Linn County is a county located in the U.S. state of Iowa. As of the 2020 census, the population was 230,299, making it the second-most populous county in Iowa. The county seat is Cedar Rapids. Linn County is named in honor of Senator Lewis F. ...

. It was named "Western" because it was the denomination's first college west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

.Western College - A Brief History
, Coe College Archives website, accessed June 21, 2010 In 1881, the college, which was facing financial difficulties, moved to Toledo because of a pledge of $20,000 in financial support from that community's residents. Enrollment grew rapidly in Toledo, whose residents' religious values were more compatible with the college's values than had been the case in Linn County. Enrollment grew from 80 students when Western College started operations in Toledo, to 196 students by the end of that school year, and an eventual total of more than 400.Mike Donahey
Leander Clark College
''The Times-Republican'' (Marshalltown, Iowa), August 2009 On December 26, 1889, a major fire that destroyed much of the college's property, but the facilities were later rebuilt. The campus eventually grew to occupy in Toledo. In 1906, Western College changed its name to Leander Clark College in honor of a local benefactor, Major Leander Clark, a United Brethren member who donated $50,000. The college had made an announcement in 1902 promising to change its name in honor of anyone who would donate $50,000 to start an

endowment fund A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are of ...

to help the school resolve its financial troubles. In 1903, Clark responded to this announcement with a promise to donate that amount if the college could raise an additional $100,000 for its permanent endowment before January 1, 1906. The college met Clark's challenge in 1905, largely because of a $50,000 donation from

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

.Henry W. Ward (1911),
Western, Leander-Clark College, 1856-1911
', Otterbein Press, Dayton, Ohio. In spite of that assistance, the college went

bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

and merged with Coe College in 1919, bringing a $200,000 endowment to the merger along with its faculty and students. The Leander Clark campus became a state juvenile home. After the merger, an heir of Leander Clark filed a lawsuit asking for the return of the funds that Clark had provided to the college. The lawsuit asserted that the college had agreed to operate as an educational institution named for Leander Clark, and that it breached its contract with Clark when it ceased to exist under his name. In 1922, the Supreme Court of Iowa decided the case in favor of the college, finding that the primary purpose of Clark's gift was not to perpetuate his name, but to support education.

Student body

Western College was coeducational from its founding. In 1910, Leander Clark College officials told a researcher that the college had enrolled "a number of"

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

students, but none had ever graduated.

Sports

Leander Clark College fielded intercollegiate

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

, and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

teams. The football team had overall records of 2–6 against

Grinnell College Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College. Grinnell has the fifth highest endowment-to-stu ...

Grinnell College Football -- All-Time Records vs Opponents
Grinnell College website, accessed June 21, 2010 and 0–3 against

Cornell College Cornell College is a private college in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Originally the Iowa Conference Seminary, the school was founded in 1853 by George Bryant Bowman. Four years later, in 1857, the name was changed to Cornell College, in honor of iron ty ...

.All-Time Series Records
Cornell College website, accessed June 21, 2010

Notable alumni

* John Ward Studebaker, U.S. Commissioner of Education from 1934 to 1948

References

External links

* {{Defunct colleges and universities in Iowa Coe College Defunct private universities and colleges in Iowa Universities and colleges established in 1857 Educational institutions disestablished in 1919 Education in Linn County, Iowa Education in Tama County, Iowa 1857 establishments in Iowa