of House Bill No. 186 by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, which stipulated that:
Said institution is hereby located at or near the town of Albuquerque, in the county of Bernalillo within two miles north of railroad avenue in said town, upon a tract of good high and dry land, of not less than twenty acres suitable for the purposes of such institution.
The act also provided that UNM was "intended to be the state University when New Mexico shall [be] admitted as a state into the Union". Bernard Shandon Rodey, a judge of the territory of New Mexico, pushed for Albuquerque as the location of the university and was one of the authors of the statute that created UNM, earning him the title of "Father of the University". Two years later, Elias S. Stover became the first president of the University and the following year the university's first building, Hodgin Hall, opened.
=== Early growth ===
The third president of UNM, William G. Tight, who served from 1901 to 1909, introduced many programs …
