University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma

to statehood in 1907, the new state legislature was tasked with establishing institutions of higher education in the former Indian Territory. Statistics gathered by the State Superintendent of Education showed that many young women from Oklahoma chose to attend women's colleges in Kansas, Texas, and Missouri. Colonel J. T. O'Neil, the state senator from Grady County, and his daughter, Anne Wade O'Neil, who had graduated from a women's college in Mississippi, appealed to the legislature to authorize the creation of a women's college. The institution was founded on May 16, 1908, with the signing of Senate Bill 249 by Governor Charles Haskell. The bill, authored by Senator N. P. Stewart of Hugo, Oklahoma, authorized the foundation of the Oklahoma Industrial Institute and College for Girls. The legislature subsequently appropriated $100,000 for the establishment of the initial buildings for the school.
A local rancher named J. B. Sparks donated land for the college in memory of his daughter, Nellie. Nellie was a …