The June 1900 dedication of Central Mennonite College, which would become Bluffton College, is shown in this photo from the Allen County Historical Society. The doors of the college were opened to 19 students on November 5, 1900.
Courtesy of Allen County Historical Society
In the winter of 1906, it seemed possible Bluffton’s days as a college town might end a mere six years after they began, at least that was the editorial estimation of a newspaper in a rival town looking to lure that college away.
“It looks very much like the only way to save the Central Mennonite college from dying a premature death is to move it from Bluffton, Ohio, to Berne, Indiana. It seems that the very men of Bluffton, who absolutely wanted the college located there and nowhere else, have ever since the beginning of the school been its worst enemies,” the Berne Witness wrote in a February 1906 editorial.
“If the Bluffton people cannot appreciate a good thing in their midst and continue to be disloyal and antagonistic to the school,” the newspaper added, “why not move it to more congenial quarters and give it a home where it will be welcomed and heartily supported.”
The Bluffton News, which published the editorial from the Berne newspaper, also replied to it. “While the college does not receive the support in student patronage it deserves from this vicinity,” the newspaper wrote, “the people of the village of Bluffton as a whole, are not ‘disloyal and antagonistic,’ to the school.”
The school’s future was decided in March 1906 at a session of the middle district conference of the Mennonite church in Pandora.
Students and faculty attended the meeting as did 120 Bluffton businessmen, who presented petitions expressing “the kindly feelings of the people” and pledging “$4,000 toward defraying the expenses of the college,” the Lima Times-Democrat reported, adding that “twenty other men at the conference also agreed to subscribe $200 each, making a total of $8,000.”
In the end, “the fight for the possession of the Central Mennonite college” was, in the words of the Times-Democrat, “amicably adjusted” with even the citizens of Berne “satisfied with the result,” according to the newspaper. The college, the Times-Democrat noted, would remain in Bluffton “for the next four years at least.”
Nearly 118 years later, the Mennonite school, today known as Bluffton College, remains in the village where it was founded some 125 years ago. The college was the realization of a dream of Mennonite leaders in the late 19th century, who, according to a May 25, 1950, story in the Bluffton News, “carried the strong conviction that a school was needed to educate its young people and to train its workers.”
“Bluffton is making a vigorous effort to secure the location of the proposed new Mennonite college that is to be located in this section of the country,” the Delphos Daily Herald reported in October 1897. “The enterprise asks for a suitable piece of ground and not less than $10,000 in money.”
A year later, Bluffton was chosen as the location for the college. “The Mennonite College, the location of which could not be decided on by a committee appointed for that purpose, and which met at Bluffton a year ago, was yesterday afternoon at the Mennonite central conference held at Danvers, Ill., voted on, and Bluffton won the location on the third ballot,” the Allen County Republican-Gazette wrote October 4, 1898.
In January 1899, the college’s board of trustees gathered in Bluffton to accept the village’s offer and make plans for the first building, College Hall. The Central Mennonite College, Bluffton, appears on a December 1899 list of newly incorporated Ohio entities.
In the waning days of spring 1900, the college began to spring up on the 10 acres of land donated by the Judge James Eaton family. “Following years of delay and disappointment in the raising of funds and decision on location the cornerstone of the college was laid in the beautiful grove in Bluffton on Tuesday, June 19, 1900,” the Lima Morning Star and Republican-Gazette wrote November 20, 1927.
“The principal address before the great throng which gathered for the ceremony was made by N.C. Hirschy of Wadsworth, Ohio (site of an earlier Mennonite school), one of the moving spirits in the campaign for establishment of the college,” the newspaper continued. “The doors of the college were opened to students on November 5, 1900, and 19 enrolled for the first year’s work. Harley Ray Lugibuhl of Bluffton was the first student to enroll,” the Republican-Gazette wrote. Other sources claim James Baumgartner of Pandora was the first to enroll. Hirschy, the newspaper added, “accepted the call as first president of the college.”
At the cornerstone ceremony, Hirschy proclaimed, “May those present here today live to see other buildings spring up until we may rightly claim to have a university to take its place alongside of those which lead the nation.”
It didn’t go well at first. “Financial problems plagued the college during its first eight years,” the Lima News wrote in a February 1999 story, “but with Dr. S.K. Mosiman at the helm the college finally began to grow and prosper. By 1914, enrollment had grown to 45.” Mosiman led the university from 1909 until 1935.
“When, in 1913, the decision was made to establish a Biblical Seminary in connection with the college, several other branches of the Mennonite church also cooperated and contributed to the undertaking and have been represented in the organization and student body of the college since then,” the Bluffton News wrote in May 1913.
“Legal existence of Bluffton College as such began on January 27, 1914, when the property of Central Mennonite College was transferred to Bluffton College and Mennonite Seminary,” the newspaper added. The seminary closed in 1931, but Bluffton College remained – and grew in both offerings and number of students.
True to Hirschy’s vision that someday “we might rightly claim to have a university,” Bluffton College became Bluffton University in August 2004. “I think the university title conveys more adequately the depth and range of our programs,” President Lee Snyder told the News.
Change came again in March of this year when Bluffton University and the University of Findlay, just 17 miles away, announced plans to merge. “Both campuses would remain open, remain affiliated with their current religious institutions and maintain separate athletics teams,” the News wrote March 23. College campuses across the country are closing or merging at an accelerating pace, Bluffton President Jane Wood said in September. Bluffton University’s 2024 enrollment was about 650 full-time students, down from more than 1,000 in 2004.
Earlier this month, the boards of trustees of Bluffton University and Findlay University agreed to rename the Bluffton Campus “Bluffton College” after completing the merger. “In May 2025, the application for the first stage of the merger process will be sent to the Higher Learning Commission, which accredits both universities. Then, in December 2025, they would apply for federal approval, moving into the second phase of the merger process,” the News reported.
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SOURCE
This feature is a cooperative effort between the newspaper and the Allen County Museum and Historical Society.
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See past Reminisce stories at limaohio.com/tag/reminisce
Reach Greg Hoersten at [email protected].
