Curtiss led the way for agricultural education
November 16, 1999
Charles Franklin Curtiss is a name synonymous with agriculture at Iowa State, and rightly so.
After graduating from Iowa State College with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture in 1887, and later, a master’s in 1894, Curtiss set out to get his name in the annals of ISU.
Curtiss set up the nation’s first agricultural engineering and journalism departments, the first county-cooperative extension service. He was responsible for introducing soybeans and alfalfa as major Iowa crops after the 1894 drought wiped out the corn crop.
When “Tama Jim” Wilson became head of the agriculture program in 1891, Curtiss was appointed assistant director of the Experimental Station. In 1897, Curtiss became director of the Experiment Station and dean of agriculture.
Before Curtiss could accept the position, he was given an ultimatum by the trustees: The family would have to move into the Farm House on campus, now the Farm House Museum, or decline the position.
The Farm House was known to many simply as Curtiss House. Dean Curtiss was vocal about his wishes to keep it well-restored, and he kept it from destruction as the university expanded.
Before Curtiss re-organized the agriculture program at Iowa State, it consisted of one survey course with one instructor. He extended the program to a four-year curriculum and achieved national attention with his improvements to the agronomy, animal husbandry and agricultural education programs.
Curtiss retired as dean of agriculture in 1932. Although he stopped lecturing and conducting research in 1937, he held an office in the Agriculture Building until his death in 1947.
In 1947, Henry H. Kildee announced the unanimous approval of the staff and president of the college to honor Dean Curtiss’s work by renaming Agriculture Hall “Curtiss Hall.” The building remains in central campus to this day and houses the administration of the College of Agriculture.
Information was gathered from “Iowans Who Made a Difference” by Muhm, Don and Virginia Wadsley; “Profiles of Iowa State University History” by Robert T. Hilton; and “Farm House: College Farm to University Museum” by Mary E. Atherly.
