After Bishop Randall died, the dormant argument over state funding of a religious-owned institution resurfaced with stubborn tenacity. Finally, Bishop Spalding relented, and the Episcopal church sold the School of Mines to the Territorial government for $5000 in 1874. With this, the Territorial School of Mines became the first state-owned institution of higher education in Colorado history. William A.H. Loveland took the reins of the institution, and continued to run it with its professors in the standard Randall had established. The campus now became the first multi-institutional collegiate campus in Colorado history, a century before the well-known Auraria Campus would gain distinction for that in Denver. In September of 1874, a newcomer took the reins of the two Episcopal schools as well: Rev. Thomas Lloyd Bellam. Bellam, an Irish immigrant, came from running a successful religious school in the Pittsburgh area, and immediately dedicated himself to the Golden schools with energy worthy of Randall himself. In 1875, Bellam doubled his duties by becoming rector of Calvary Episcopal Church. On August 1, 1876, Colorado was admitted to the union as the 38th state, and the campus mining school took on its second name: State School of Mines. Everything on campus was in prosperous order, until the day of April 4, 1878.
Ruins of the Colorado University Schools campus
- April 1878
Illustration courtesy Colorado Historical Society
That noon fire broke out in the third floor of Jarvis Hall, and spread quickly. Alarm bells rang in Golden, and quickly fire crews ran on foot with their carts the full distance between downtown Golden and the campus, only to find there was no water sufficient to fight the blaze. The gathered crowd evacuated the boys from the building, and did the best they could to rescue items from Jarvis Hall, while firefighters concentrated on keeping the blaze from spreading to the neighboring schools. By nightfall, Jarvis Hall was a ruin of doddering brick walls. No one was hurt, and the other buildings were safe. It was supposed a defective flue caused the fire. For the second time in 10 years, Jarvis Hall stood in ruins, and the heart of the campus and Golden people was dealt a critical blow. Only two days later, the cry:
"MATTHEWS HALL IS ON FIRE!"
...pierced the Golden evening air. Again the alarm bells rang, and people thronged the streets, looking towards the source of the fiery glow the illuminated the hillsides of the valley. They raced to the campus, finding the roof of Matthews Hall fully engulfed. They wasted no time in trying to save everything they could from the building, but before long, it was lost.
The events of the past few days deeply shocked the Golden community. Even more shocking were the circumstances discovered around the fire of Matthews Hall. At the middle of the afternoon nothing that could have caused fire anywhere in Matthews Hall was there, and everyone had left the building, and it was locked for the night. When the firefighters arrived, they found the doors unlocked and wide open, with the building in flames. Some there told that cotton saturated with kerosene was strewn up the stairs, and around the wooden third floor. This left no doubt the fire had been arson, and that a similar attack likely claimed Jarvis Hall as well.
The State School of Mines evacuated its building, and took up emergency quarters in the upper floor of the Loveland Block downtown. The Golden community remained on a heightened state of alert, while the scope of damage became known. At Matthews Hall, much of Rev. Bellam's household furniture had been saved, and much of the library. However, the balance of the library, including many rare volumes, was lost, a $2,000 investment Bellam had made. Jarvis Hall and Matthews Hall together were valued at $40,000, but only $15,000 insured them. The museum wildlife wing was incinerated, leaving only the geological exhibits of Jarvis Hall Museum remaining.
Loveland Block - 1122 Washington Avenue
Emergency home of Jarvis Hall and the State School
of Mines
Photo courtesy Richard A. Ronzio Collection, Golden
Historical Collection
Jarvis Hall was not finished yet. Bellam determined not to let the school die, combined it and Matthews Hall, and followed the School of Mines to the Loveland Block and began plans for the future. Not long thereafter, upon land Bellam owned at the southeast corner of what is now 19th and Cheyenne in Golden, a new Jarvis Hall arose, smaller than the original noble buildng but respectable. Despite his own personal loss in the fire Bellam used his own money to build the new Jarvis Hall, whose layout is described well:
The new Jarvis Hall is located at
the corner of Ninth and Cheyenne streets, a beautiful site only three blocks
from the court house, and is of ample dimensions for present needs, comprising
both a dwelling for the principal and a school room 15 x 28 feet, as well
as a recitation room 8 x 15 feet. The school room proper occupies the
east half of the lower floor of the building, is 10 feet high, and well lighted
by two windows on the side, one in the rear, and a large bay-window in the
front. Out of this room opens the recitation room at the rear of the
front hall. Across the hall is a large dining, or family room, opening
into another large room to be used for the present as a kitchen. On
the second floor, reached by a flight of wide stairs leading from the front
door, are three large and three small rooms, all well lighted and airy, making
it altogether a very convenient edifice for the purpose for which it was designed.
- Colorado Transcript, September 4, 1878
The contractor for this structure was Duncan E. Harrison, who was among the pioneer contractors and commissioners of Jefferson County. Its design was strongly reminiscent of the original Jarvis Hall, featuring a central 2-story tower as its entryway to the interior and main hall, and flattened arched windows on all sides of the building. However, Bellam departed from the original design from here, giving the building an asymmetrical appearance with a side entrance to the tower, a bay window on the northeast side of the building, a hipped roof instead of mansard roof on the main structure, and stucco covering on all surfaces, applied by Gow & Flint. Soon a $60 Argand heating stove was installed to heat the schoolroom. Later Bellam added a rear arboretum addition.
Denverites didn't appreciate the move; they wanted Jarvis Hall in Denver. Soon, another Jarvis Hall opened there. Golden's Jarvis Hall opened its doors to women as well as men, and embraced commercial courses and high school branches of study. It averaged an attendance of 25 pupils, many of whom lived in the upper floor while Bellam resided in part of the lower floor. The campus grounds were better than the original, including 100 broadleaf maple trees. Plans were made to build another school building large enough to accomodate 100 pupils, with a normal department to study the art of teaching, with plans to also assist students at the State School of Mines. Among Bellam’s favorite students was Ella M. Reynolds, an accomplished singer, who became Jefferson County's first woman college graduate in 1879. Afterwards she married off in the parlors of Jarvis Hall by her professor. Female graduates at the School of Mines, however, were still years in the distance.
Denver powers continued to agitate for Jarvis Hall to be concentrated in Denver. To continuing conflict among the competing schools, George West in the Colorado Transcript wrote:
In the fall of 1869, when the carelessness of the contractor, combined with a sudden and violent wind-storm, scattered the original Jarvis Hall building over the mesa, the citizens of Golden held up the energetic hands of Bishop Randall - whose faith more than once removed mountains of difficulty - by donating some $3,000 worth of material for the second building, which was opened for school purposes in November, 1870, and remained in use until last year’s fire reduced it to a smouldering ruin, from whose ashes have since arisen the "Jarvis Hall Collegiate School" in this city - presided over by Rev. T.L. Bellam - and the Jarvis school in Denver, presided over by Rev. H.H. Haynes. The Golden school has been in constant and successful operation since last fall, demonstrating not only the advantages of its new location, but the constantly increasing necessity that called it into life with little or no aid from the church authorities. Its claims upon a share of the insurance money - without hampering conditions - may, therefore, be urged with the utmost propriety, and this, all the more so, as the school in Golden has an equitable right to receive at least as much as the citizens of her struggling infancy invested in the second Jarvis Hall.
Despite such appeals, Jarvis Hall was concentrated in Denver in 1882, and by 1883 it was in trouble again. By this time, West was fed up, and finally said exactly what was on his mind:
When Jarvis Hall college was established here
in Golden many years ago under the good Bishop Randall, through the generosity
of Dr. Jarvis, of Brooklyn, all Denver with its proverbial big-headativeness
began kicking and squirming, but to no purpose. When Bishop Spaulding
succeeded to the diocese, was their opportunity, and the hounding commenced.
The buildings that had been erected were opportunely destroyed by
fire and the bishop thought he had a big thing before him by removing the
establishment to Denver, and he certainly would have had the biggest kind
of a thing had the majority of the promises been fulfilled. Like
many another similar case, however, when the prize had been secured, it
was allowed to struggle for itself, and finally swindled away until now
the announcement is made that Jarvis Hall is busted! Well,
who cares? They got it away from Golden, and that ought to be glory
enough for Denver, whether it lived or died.
- Colorado Transcript, June 20, 1883
Jarvis Hall did regain footing after 1883, and continued in Denver until 1901, when its final building was destroyed by fire. Golden's Jarvis Hall building from 1878, however, remains today, converted by the Kellums family into an apartment house, in a roundabout way fulfilling the once contemplated purpose of it helping School of Mines students.
After getting back on its feet in its quarters downtown, the State School of Mines returned to its desolated building at the beginning of July 1879. Its third leader, Royal School of Mines alumnus and Valley Smelting Works proprietor Gregory Board, had left in 1878, and new president Milton Moss laid out plans for a new future. In 1879, dreams began to take shape for a new campus, to be located inside the Golden limits, and the legislature provided for a rebirth for the school, establishing 1/5th of a mill levy for its regular support. A new future for the State School of Mines was on its way.