Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 255, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1916 — Purdue University to Observe Centennial Year the 31st. [ARTICLE]

Purdue University to Observe Centennial Year the 31st.

Purdue University at Lafayette is to take its place among those schools that have celebrated the centennial and has set aside a day for this, Oct. 31st. This day is peculiarly apt for a pageant celebration because it is the anniversary of two important events in the annals of the university. The first of these is the 115th anniversary of the birth of John Purdue, the founder of the university. The second is the 14th anniversary of the Purdue wreck, in which seventeen persons lost their lives, all of them students except one and most of them members of the Varsity football squad. This wreck occurred on October 31, 1903, when, due to a blunder the “special” which was carrying the Purdue team and rooters to their annual football contest with Indiana at Indianapolis was wrecked just outside of Indianapolis. Both these events will be included in the ceremonies coincident with the centennial pageant. „A gigantic parade of all the university students led by the famous Purdue hand, will precede The pageant in which scenes showing the origin of Indiana, Lafayette and Purdue University will be given by student actors. The rehearsal is now’ in progress and elaborate preparations are being made to show the spirit of the university off to the best advantage on this day. In the evening after a short service in the memory of those who lost their lives in the Purdue wreck, Dr. John W. Cavanaugh, president of Notre Dame, will deliver a centennial address on “What Constitutes a State.”