One day, it’s blue. The next day, it’s yellow.
University of Akron students never know what color to expect when they pass “The Rock” outside Crouse Hall.
Dripping with fresh paint, the giant boulder is covered in bold graffiti from fraternities, sororities and other school organizations.
Overnight brigades take turns tagging the stone, one of the few places on campus where vandalism is encouraged. It barely has time to dry before the next group arrives in stealth to apply a new logo.
After decades of constant redesign, there are so many layers of paint that some students might wonder if “The Rock” started out as “The Pebble.” Willy Wonka would faint at the size of this Everlasting Gob­stopper.
Buried beneath all the acrylic and latex is an 8-ton gray boulder that is 7 feet tall, 5 feet wide and 3½ feet thick, containing 90 cubic feet of igneous rock known as syenite.
A fixture for more than 130 years, the stone is one of the oldest relics on campus. Buchtel College, forerunner of UA, was only eight years old when the Class of 1880 went to great expense and effort to haul the landmark to the school’s lawn.
The senior class consisted of seven students, all men: James H. Aydelott, J. Augustus Guthrie, Frank W. Koon, Irving C. Tomlinson, Vincent E. Tomlinson, Horatio T. Willson and Charles B. Wright. The classmates were fiercely loyal, amusingly proud — and more than a little ornery.
Among their notable achievements, the seniors produced the college’s first yearbook, Argo.
“Great men have lived in all ages,” the 1880 annual confides with mock importance. “Many of them, while living, have dazzled the world with the brightness of their fame. Others have needed the lapse of time to develop their greatness. The talents of some have been appreciated in their own age.
“Others have walked the paths of life almost unobserved, whose works have gained their splendor in ages long after their appearance. We fear the Class of ’80 belongs to the latter number; we fear we must class ourselves with Columbus, Shakespeare and Milton, and not with the famous Sarah Bern­hardt.”
Bigger and better
The seniors wanted a stone to dwarf the Class of 1879’s modest marker, a flat, 2-ton rock that, incidentally, still exists, albeit coated in paint, near “The Rock” outside Crouse Hall.
Scouring the countryside, the boys found a perfect specimen half-buried on the 115-acre Copley Road farm of Col. Simon Perkins, son of Akron’s founder, Gen. Simon Perkins.
Senior President Irving C. Tomlinson (1860-1934), who grew up to be a Christian Science pastor in Boston and New York, led a delegation to Perkins’ stone mansion to ask the industrialist about acquiring the boulder.
Classmate Charles B. Wright (1859-1942), who later became an English professor and dean at Middlebury College, Vt., recounted the Perkins conversation for an 1898 article in the Buchtelite student newspaper: “No one knows how far that stone goes down,” Perkins told Tomlinson. “I wanted it for my own lawn, but six yoke of oxen weren’t able to budge it. You’ll waste your time trying.”
Tomlinson pleaded: “But, Colonel, that was a good while ago and things have changed. The telephone has been invented, and lots else, and I think we can get it.”
Expecting the effort to end in failure, Perkins gave the Buch­tel youths permission to remove the stone. The classmates knew they couldn’t do the job on their own. They needed a professional.
So they made a beeline to the South Broadway office of Oliver N. Thorp, who advertised himself as “a contractor for moving buildings, raising masts, engines, safes, boilers and all heavy work.”
On the move
In a 1925 retrospective, Tomlinson recalled traveling with Thorp to Perkins’ farm to size up the rock.
“He looked it over and agreed to plant it on the campus for $75 [about $2,275 in 2011], paid in advance; big money in those days!” Tomlinson wrote. “The offer was accepted. The contractor rigged up a compound tackling in a nearby oak and snaked it out, loaded it onto great building trucks, and started for the campus.
“When the ponderous mass reached the mansion house, Col. Perkins was shocked. He didn’t want to lose that stone. He said, ‘If you college boys will only give it up, I will settle with the contractor and pay you $75, besides.’ That is perhaps what we should have done, but that was in 1880.”
It took several days to move the boulder to the hilltop campus. City Engineer Omar N. Gardner didn’t think that the town’s bridges could withstand the weight, so Thorp had to shore up the structures before the rock could pass across.
The Summit County Beacon reported that the boulder was transported without injury “other than a few attendant runaways, smashed buggies, and other minor incidents.”
Seniors dug a deep hole, partially filled with crushed rock and concrete, to deposit the boulder on campus. When the stone finally neared, the hole was missing! Pranksters in the Class of 1882 had “borrowed” a wooden building and placed it over the opening. The seniors scolded the pesky sophomores and quickly restored order.
Finally, the rock was “planted with impressive ceremonies” in the presence of “an immense assemblage” on May 13, 1880. Placed beneath the rock was a metal box “encased in water lime and containing college and class archives together with the city papers of latest date,” the Beacon reported.
The rock, which was boldly engraved “1880,” stood firm while the surrounding campus changed drastically. Buchtel College’s main building burned down in 1899. Other landmarks were demolished for newer buildings as the renamed University of Akron enjoyed a surge in growth.
Final resting place
After eight decades, “The Rock” stood in the way of progress.
While the foundation of Zook Hall was being dug in September 1961, a construction crew had to use a structural steel crane to move the 1880 rock about 30 yards to a spot just south of Knight Hall, later renamed Crouse Hall.
Dr. George W. Knepper, leader of the history department, and Vice President Leslie P. Hardy supervised the move.
The engraved year “1880” was still visible 50 years ago, but students would need an X-ray machine to find it today.
Campus artists have added thousands of layers of colorful paint since the 1960s, obscuring the credit that those long-ago Buchtel College students worked so hard to achieve.
Sure enough, the 1880 yearbook’s musing was prophetic. Some great men’s works “have gained their splendor in ages long after their appearance.”
One day, it’s blue. The next day, it’s yellow.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send email to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.