The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is established
- When
- 1867–1868
- Where
- Urbana
- Episodes
- 1
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was established in 1867 as Illinois Industrial University, one of the institutions created under the Morrill Land-Grant Act. Urbana was selected as the site for the new school in 1867, and the university opened for classes on March 2, 1868, with two faculty members and 77 students.
Episodes
Background and detail
Background. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois. Established in 1867, it is the founding campus and flagship institution of the University of Illinois System. Originally named Illinois Industrial University, it was one of the 37 universities created under the first Morrill Land-Grant Act, which provided public land for the creation of agricultural and industrial colleges and universities across the United States.
Site Selection. Among several cities, Urbana was selected in 1867 as the site for the new school. The university opened for classes on March 2, 1868, and had two faculty members and 77 students. The library, which opened with the school in 1868, started with 1,039 volumes.
People involved
- Urbana · Selected site for the new school
Sources
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-30
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.