Over the years, the physical campus environment has grown and changed parallel to the mission statement. Between 1883 and 1913, campus growth and expansion was limited to the core campus of 6 buildings. During the following 32 years, the cuampus expanded at an unprecedented pace. By the end of World War II, the USU campus had grown by 60 buildings and service facilities by 1945. It was during this period that parking and vehicular circulation became a planning issue. With a ten-fold increase in buildings plus the related landscape for motorized vehicles, the beginnings of the campus infrastructure had been set forth.

The national recession which followed WWII slowed growth at USU relative to the previous three decades. However the campus still grew, albeit at a moderate pace. By 1953, 10 new buildings were constructed. Between 1954 and 1965, 43 additional buildings were constructed and another boom period was underway. This pace of expansion then continued in a sustarined expansion through to 1995. During this 30 year period 96 buildings and service facilites were construced.

The outlook for USU is bright as statewide population is growing at a pace which is well in excess of the national average, and full time student enrollment in 1995 is at an all time high. (history courtesy of Utah State Campus Planning and Engineering).

Methodology

To express the changes that Utah State has seen over the past 45 years we chose to display it visually in order for the reader to better understand the growth that has taken place. In order to do this it was required that we look into all of our sources and use a combination of them to come up with maps displaying the new and old coverage of Utah State as accurtley as possible. Our first step was to visit Ted Alsop who instructs classes on Ariel Photo analysis here at Utah State University. He was able to provide us with photos from 1973 and 1984, both covering the majority of the campus. These have also become a helpful tool in the entire process of analysing our maps. From here we visited Jeff Turley in the Campus Planning Department of Utah State University. He was very helpful in providing us with essential research materials for our project. These included images of past years of the campus, as well as an Auto Cad drawing of the campus. We were able to take the drawing of the campus, save it as USU1970 and start working on it. This Auto Cad drawing of the campus is extensive in detail, even displaying the stairs on Old Main hill . This has been an advantage in seeing exact detail. We took this campus Auto Cad map, and with the help of the ariel photos and other references, we were able to eliminated those arcs that were not needed. As a group we decided to look at the years 1950, 1970 and 1990. Here, we would be able to see a change in the growth of the campus be taking off the arcs that did not correspond to that particular year. This became a very time consumping project, as we had to pay special attention to the detail of the Auto Cad draeing. We then overlayed the old map with the new map, highlighting the arcs that were removed in a color, such as red for 1970. This tecnique has become very useful in looking at the data and analyzing it in a visual format.

U.S.U. Land Ownership

Over the years, Utah State has aquired quite a bit of land. This not only includes land in Cache Valley, but also land which has been aquired in Iron County, Grand Count, Duche County, Davis County, Box Elder County, Wayne Count, Rich County, Summit County, Juab County and Washington County. Utah State University also owns land in Idaho, Arizona and Nevada. Much of the land that USU has obtained has been purchased, although some of it has been donated. For example, the QUAD, a grassy area in the lower end of campus, was donated by a woman who asked that there never be any construction of buildings on this donated plot. Another plot of land that has been donated is in Bear Lake County in Idaho. The specific use for this is recreational lots. Of the land that has been purchased some of the more interesting ones include the golf course east of USU. This was purchased in February of 1932, with 117.90 acres. Others that were purchased before 1950 include: the property on Old Main Hill, LDS Institute property, and the ampitheatre, also located on Old Main Hill. Some of the know areas that were purchased between 1950-1970 include: Tennis Courts and Edith Bowen, Green Canyon Research Facility, Lund Hall property, Animal Science Farm, and the HYPER builing and the Spectrum property. Some of the areas purchased by the University between 1970-1996 include: the SW corner of campus, ROW at the Animal Science Farm, and Jensen Historical Farm. Also during this time, there was a lot of trading and donating of land. Much of the donated land is outside of Cache Valley and is used for agricultural purposes.

USU's TOTAL ACREAGE

PRE 1900.......15.14 ACRES

1900-1950......1229.4 ACRES

1950-1970......2105.56 ACRES

1970-1996......3657.82 ACRES

Total USU ACRES......7,007

*these figures include the land owned by USU that is outside of Cache Valley.

** not all counties are mentioned here.

Cache Valley.......2,388.34 ACRES

Iron County........2,342.20 ACRES

Rich County..........654.99 ACRES

Box Elder County.....536.17 ACRES

Davis County.........192.11 ACRES

The white indicates those areas that were present in 1901, while the red is USU today.

Old Main was one of the first buildings on the campus, at the time it was the center of the campus, home to most all of the majors.

USU in 1950

Blue indicates those buildings that were present in 1950, while the red is USU campus today.

USU in 1966

This is an ariel photo of the campus taken during 1966.

The green indicates those areas that were present in 1970, while the red is USU today.

USU in 1973

This is an ariel photo of the campus taken during 1973.

USU in 1984

This is an ariel photo of the campus taken during 1984.

The Science and Technology Library, completed in 1995

This is an overlay of each year segment that we analyzed.

CONCLUSION

Over the past century USU has seen a great increase in the growth of the campus. By breaking it down into four different year segments, 1900, 1950, 1970, and 1995, it becomes clear of the large amount of growth at Utah State University. The University has property in many different counties across the state, as well as property in neighboring states. It continues to grow and expand to fill the needs of those who are attending the University. As a follow up, this project could be repeated every ten years to continue to look at and analyze the growth that we anticipate the campus will receive. As a group we conclude that there will continue to be a rise in the buildings and property of USU.

REFERENCES

Ted Alsop, USU Department of Geography

Jeff Turley, USU Campus Planning

Jay Nielson, USU Campus Planning

USU and You, a Utah State University Bulletin

Property Ownership Map, USU Campus Planning