the closing of the seminary in April 1861, at the start of the Civil War, the NELC decided to open its own college that fall in a former parsonage at Halfway Creek, Wisconsin, just north of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and close to present-day Holmen, Wisconsin. On September 1, 1861, classes officially began with an enrollment of 16. The following year classes moved to Decorah, Iowa, with NELC pastor Ulrik Vilhelm Koren successfully arranging the college's relocation and permanent settlement.
In 1866, a group of students signed a "bill of rights" criticizing the rigid schedule, the rules about going downtown, the lack of windows in some of the sleeping rooms, and the woodcutting and shoe-shining chores, concluding that "there was not enough freedom." The leader of the group, 18-year-old Rasmus Anderson, was expelled. This event was viewed as a rebellion and "the worst of sins" by the pastors assembled in a pastoral conference shortly after.
In 1905, Carlo A. Sperati, an 1888 graduate of Luther, became the music director …
