After the reservation was closed, a group of army officers formed a syndicate to buy the land at $10 an acre and sell it to settlers at a profit; however, a committee of Hays citizens were successful in checking both the scheme of the army officers and an order of the Department of Interior to open the land for settlement.

After President Taylor of the Emporia Normal School proposed that a state normal school and an agriculture experiment station be established on the federal land, the proposed school was referred to as a normal rather than an agricultural college, as had been suggested by Martin Allen.

President McKinley signed a resolution to turn the land over to Kansas on March 18, 1900, which resulted in 4160 acres for a state institution of learning at Hays, 3263 acres for an experiment station and 177 acres for a state park.

The Hays businessmen of 1902 published an enthusiastic evaluation of what was occurring: "Something which ought to be emphasized here is the advantage of the proximity of the Normal to the Experiment Farm. It will give the students in the Normal an opportunity afforded by no other school of its kind in the state. It is a foregone conclusion that the study of agriculture will be introduced into the common schools of the state at no distant date.

The coming teacher must have an understanding of the subject. Teachers who expect to secure the positions which are most desirable and which pay the best must qualify themselves in this subject. This farm will afford a gigantic laboratory at the very door of the Normal School. Here the future teacher can see the practical results gained from an analysis of soils; he will learn from observation how soils may be prepared to resist dry climates. He will see how it is possible by selection and crossbreeding of particular varieties or individual plants to secure a plant which combines the better qualities of all."

On June 23, 1902, the western branch of the State Normal School opened for its first session with an enrollment of 57 students and William Picken as principal. During its first eleven years, the school was primarily a high school; two years of college were added with life certificates for teachers being granted by 1909; and in 1913, the first four-year degrees were granted.

Managing the schools farmland produced many problems for it had been stated: "The school will be supported in the future in large part from the rental of nearly 3800 acres of fine wheat land included in its share of the Fort Hays reservation --land which, by the way, the state may not sell but must keep as a perpetual support for the school."

In the late 1930's, the College Farm Superintendent Lester Schmutz cooperated with the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) to study the condition of the leased acres and learned that 75% of the topsoil was gone on 1/4, 50% gone on 1/4 to 1/2, and only 1/4 of the land was undamaged. SCS recommended that some 800 badly eroded acres be seeded back to native grass and any with 3% or more slope be terraced; the renters were asked to cooperate. Some said it was "too expensive" and others wanted to continue farming the way they always had. Leasing was then gradually phased out and Mr. Schmutz had the responsibility for all the cultivated land on the farm. By 1951 , there were 51 miles of terracing.

During the school's first years, the teachers of agriculture and natural sciences were generally from the Emporia Normal School and KSAC. An exception was Josiah Main, 1910-1913, he wrote a 74-page bulletin Educational Agriculture, Vol. II, No. 3, September 1910, which advocated nature study and the school garden in primary and intermediate grades, practical agriculture in upper grades, and agricultural science in high schools. Agricultural courses were then designed for teachers at all levels of public schools. [No doubt, he would have been interested in a recent meeting in Topeka of federal and state education representatives to discuss the extension of agricultural education to 97% of students in elementary and secondary schools who were not agriculturally oriented (WIBT-TV newscast, July 8, 1983)].

In 1912, a new agricultural building was dedicated; at the cornerstone laying, Professor TenEyck, superintendent of the Fort Hays Experiment Station, spoke: "This is the first cornerstone in the United States or world where it is proposed to teach agriculture to teachers." A few years later, agriculture was moved into the coliseum and the building became the home economics building, then the industrial building and, later, Rarick Hall. But since 1928, agriculture has been in the science building (named Albertson Hall in 1963); however, in 1983, a classroom in the coliseum was allotted to agriculture to replace one that is now being used by the Elam Bartholomew Herbarium. A long-term goal is to have another agriculture building.

Principal Picken and Professor Main were also active in adult education -- they organized a three-week course of instruction for farmers and housekeepers scheduled first in December 1912. Instruction and lectures were given by the local faculty and a number from KSAC. The first year had a small attendance but the course proved so worthwhile it was repeated the next year on a larger scale with an enrollment of 521. And in December 1914, over 2,000 were reported as a record breaker first-day attendance with "more than 200 of the pupils over 65 years old." These courses were listed in college catalogs through 1920 although the last one actually held may have been in 1917.

Separation of the Hays and Pittsburg Normal Schools from Emporia was accomplished by 1914, and Principal Lewis became President Lewis until his death in 1933. The bill separating the schools stated: "The Emporia school will be known as the Kansas Teachers School and it will devote itself to preparing teachers for general school work. The Pittsburg one is to be known as Kansas Normal College of Industrial Arts and its time devoted to the training of teachers for Manual Training and Domestic Science. The Fort Hays State Normal will be known as the Kansas Agricultural School for Teachers and will devote its time to training teachers in agriculture and domestic science and domestic art and the general studies needed by teachers in the western half of Kansas.

Publicity came to the young college in August 1915 with a front-page article of the Kansas City Journal describing an interview with President Lewis: "To teach teachers how to teach farmers how to farm," was one of the special missions of the school. "Our central purpose is agricultural," said the president. "An institution which is to give valuable service to western Kansas cannot be the same in construction as a school in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, or even in eastern Kansas."

The agricultural program of the 15 year old school received national attention in the December 22, 1917 issue of The Country Gentlemen. Professor E. B. Matthew was head of the Department of Agriculture, 1916-1918; he had first taught mathematics but took leave in 1915-1916 to obtain his M.S. in agriculture at the University of Wisconsin. The article described a method he had developed to force vegetable plants to mature before the hot summer winds came as well as the gardening techniques he taught students who were assigned plots bordering Big Creek.

An important agricultural landmark occurred in 1917 when the U.S. Congress passed the National Vocational Education Act: "To provide for cooperation with the states in the promotion of such education in agriculture and the trades and industries; to provide for cooperation with the states in the preparation of teachers of vocational subjects; and to appropriate money and regulate its expenditure."

Kansas accepted the benefits of this act and vocational agriculture was established in many high schools. But in 1924 the training of vocational agriculture teachers in Kansas was restricted to the land-grant college although a curriculum for agriculture teachers was in Fort Hays catalogs until the late 1930's.

A familiar name to all, Fred Albertson was an early agriculture student; he first enrolled as a correspondence student in 1911 and then as a full-time student, graduating in 1917. Professors Albertson and James Rouse were listed in the catalogs as the agriculture teaching staff from 1918 through 1936; but Dr. Albertson was made Professor of Botany in 1936, having completed his doctorate in that field and he was head of the science group which included agriculture. Agriculture courses were now designed for students who would return to the farm or who would have an agriculture-related business.

Another who also was affected by the loss of the vocational agriculture program was Andrew Riegel. He remembers enrolling to become a vocational agriculture teacher; but in the middle of his sophomore year he was told that he could prepare to be an agriculture teacher but would not be able to teach vocational agriculture. Since most high schools teaching agriculture were in the vocational program, he and 23 others were affected by this ruling. After coaching and teaching biology in western Kansas high schools, he returned for graduate work with Dr. Albertson as his major instructor, received his M.S. in 1939 and remained on the botany staff until 1951 when he became superintendent of the college farm, a position he held for 20 years.

The agriculture staff was separated from the Department of Biological Sciences in 1973, during the administration of President John Gustad; Dr. W. W. Harris was made chairman at that time.

Recently, in cooperation with KSU, a vocational agriculture program for teachers was planned and approved to begin in the fall of 1982. But as a result of budget cuts, the position was frozen just before interviews to select a professor "to teach the teachers" and then eliminated as one of eight position cuts. However, steps to reinstate the position in the 1984-85 school year are being taken; if successful, President Lewis' special mission of 1915 will again be part of the agriculture program at FHSU.