out of favor with many of his predecessors, but the school did not officially denounce his abuses.
St. Olaf's School opened on January 8, 1875, at its first site under the leadership of its first president, Thorbjorn N. Mohn, a graduate of Luther College. Herman Amberg Preus, president of the Norwegian Synod, laid the foundation stone of the St. Olaf School on July 4, 1877. In 1887 the Manitou Messenger was founded as a campus magazine and has since evolved into the college's student newspaper, now called the Olaf Messenger. 1887 was also the year that the first female St. Olaf graduate, Agnes Mellby, joined the college. Mellby graduated in 1893. She was the first woman to graduate from a Norwegian Lutheran college in the United States. On June 20, 1889, the school's board of trustees renamed the school St. Olaf College.
In 1932, Red Wing Lutheran Seminary was merged into St. Olaf and its Red Wing campus was closed. The Seminary was an independent academic institution from 1879 to 1932.
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