Salina Normal University

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Salina Normal University, also called Salina Normal College, was an independent, coeducational normal school in Salina, Kansas. Motto: Study first, outside issues afterwards. It operated from 1884 to 1904 and offered collegiate, normal, business, science, and fine arts programs.

The school was founded by Alexander Hopkins, who closed East Illinois College in Danville, Illinois and brought some students and faculty with him. A building on College Street at the west end of Iron Avenue opened on September 2, 1884, with a record enrollment for a normal school—about 60 students at the start, rising to 125 by mid‑year. The 57‑room building cost $40,000 to build and measured 100 by 65 feet on the ground floor. It had a dormitory wing (for 60–75 students) and a college wing (for 500–600 students). The six‑acre campus was surrounded by 53 acres owned by a stock company and later sold in parcels.

Ownership changed mid‑1884 to J. Walter Fertig and L. O. Thoroman, with Thoroman becoming president. Oscar Seitz, a prominent Salinan, also served as president in the 1880s while managing the streetcar company. In 1884–85 the college library had about 1,000 books, the only library in Salina listed in the U.S. Office of Education’s 1886 survey of public libraries. By 1893, despite limited financial backing, enrollment neared 700.

The university was destroyed by fire on September 4, 1904, and was not rebuilt. It had about 400 students at the time. The Salina Journal described the fire: students on the second floor awoke to the flames; some escaped through windows as ladders and stairways were blocked, while others fled from the basement where the janitor and his sons slept. Firefighters saved the walls after fighting the blaze with three streams of water.