Editor’s note: This is the fifth article in a 10-part series examining significant events and the climate of the campus at Iowa State in each of this century’s decades. The stories are based on articles from the Daily during those time periods. Today’s article will look at the years 1940-1949.

As the 1940s began, the mood on the Iowa State College campus was bright and cheery, but the possibility of another world war looming in the background soon became a reality, bringing about some of the most somber years ever at Iowa State.

ISC’s president during the duration of the 1940s was Charles E. Friley, a Texas A&M graduate who came to Ames in 1932 to serve as the Dean of Industrial Science. During the 1940s, he directed a campus that was highly involved in the war effort.

The most notable assistance ISC provided for World War II was the involvement of many of its professors in the Manhattan Project, which was a group of scientists all around the country who helped develop the atomic bomb eventually used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.

ISC chemist Frank Spedding was put in charge of developing a low-cost process of producing high-purity uranium to be used in atomic weapons. Spedding did develop such a process, and ISC’s assistance in the Manhattan Project led to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission designating the Ames Laboratory one of the nation’s permanent rare-earth research sites.

When the United States entered World War II in 1941, enrollment at ISC took a drastic dive. Enrollment was at an all-time high in 1940 at 6,220 students, but by 1944, that figure had dropped to 2,436.

Little construction was done on campus during the 1940s because of the war, but Friley did see the raising of Pammel Court in 1947, the Press Building in 1940 and the Physical Education Building (Forker Hall) in 1941.

Not all campus activities were centered around the war effort, though. John Atanasoff and his graduate assistant, Clifford Berry, built in 1940 what was eventually proved in a 1973 court battle to be the first digital computer. However, the Atanasoff-Berry machine was never patented or even documented, and the research was scrapped when America entered the war.

The lack of student parking, which progressively became more of a problem on campus, started to take hold in the 1940s as automobiles became more popular. In 1940, parking was enforced by enacting time limits on campus streets, which finally received names during the decade, as well as banning student parking in front of yellow curbs.

Officials said the parking regulations would be “strictly enforced” through a registration system. All cars had to be registered at ISC and were required to display a sticker showing proof of registration. Those cars not registered had to carry $1,000 property liability and $5,000 personal liability insurance on their vehicles.

But the war was still by far the most prevalent issue for everyone during the decade. Even ISC students not thrown into battle still attempted to be actively involved in the war effort.

In 1944, during the height of the war, the Cardinal Guild (predecessor to the Government of the Student Body) supported canceling Veishea. The ISC administration also wanted to cancel the event because wartime restrictions and a limited civilian population on campus made “open houses and decorations impractical.”

A group of students in support of holding Veishea, however, said they knew the event couldn’t be the “gigantic blast of student fervor and gaiety it was in pre-war years,” but they didn’t want the celebration to die. The Guild finally decided on a compromise of a one-day event instead of the traditional three-day event.

During the 1944 Veishea celebration, students also organized a “Raise a Jeep” campaign of buying war bonds and stamps, with the goal being to raise enough money to buy a jeep for the Allied forces. The campaign raised more than $3,000, enough to fund five jeeps.

Students also were encouraged to gather books to send to Allied prisoners of war and to clip out a section of the Iowa State Daily Student every day that contained a condensed version of campus news and send it to a soldier on the battle front.

But although the war was a somber concern on campus, some students did not lose their senses of humor. On April 1, 1944, the editors of the Student published an April Fool’s edition of the paper proclaiming that the ISC campus had been invaded by enemy forces and that other news organizations would be offering only country music and propaganda.

When the war finally did end in 1945, ISC began to return to normal. The military training schools established at ISC to allow men to attend college and train for the armed forces throughout the war were disbanded, and students who had been shipped overseas to battle the Axis powers began to come home. By the time the dust cleared, a total of 80 ISC students had been killed in World War II.

Enrollment surged again after the war, reaching another all-time high by 1948 of 10,114 students.

The Guild launched an investigation on the fire safety of campus buildings and found that two halls, Botany and Morrill, didn’t meet the fire code. Guild members claimed the buildings would “trap hundreds of students” if a fire would break out, and two weeks after the report was released, Friley said both structures would be equipped with building-wide sprinkler systems.

After the war, the student body returned its focus to athletics. Basketball, baseball and track results often graced the front pages of the Student once again, regardless of whether the event had been victorious.

Near the end of the decade, the campus developed a rat problem after the rodents migrated to Pammel Court from the city dump and nearly destroyed many homes in the new married student facility.

Earle S. Raun, chairman of the rat control committee, kicked off “So Long Rats Week” by placing 6 pounds of rat poison in Pammel Court and the city landfill. The poison did not eliminate the varmints entirely, but it did slow down the infestation and ended the rat hysteria.

And with the rats taken care of, things began to look promising once again as students prepared to enter one of the most prosperous decades in American history.