The University’s current campus was dedicated only about 78 years ago, but it still has accumulated a rich history including several famous landmarks and traditions.
According to the University’s Web site, the state government began moving buildings to the University’s current location in 1925. Builders fully completed the new campus, designed by two brothers named Olmsted, in 1932.
The Memorial Clock Tower
One of the new campus’s most prominate landmarks is the Campanile, or memorial clock tower.
The University built the tower in 1923 and dedicated it during the main campus dedication in 1926, states last semester’s “L” Book, a campus history booklet.
According to the booklet, officials dedicated the tower to the memory of the state’s World War I dead and was one of the first structures to be built on the new campus.
Builders took the cornerstone, located in front of the tower, from the early LSU campus in Pineville. The stone describes the history of the campus and lists names of the first Board of Supervisors and faculty.
It is 175 feet tall and includes a rotunda covered with bronze plaques bearing the names of those the tower is dedicated to, the L Book states.
Currently the Memorial Tower houses the LSU Museum of Art.
Campus legend also states if two people kiss under the tower at midnight, the two will be partners forever.
The Indian Mounds
The second landmark unique to campus are two hills located in the northwest portion of campus near Graham Hall and the Huey P. Long Feildhouse.
The Indian Mounds, as they are commonly called, are the oldest monuments on campus, the LSU Web site states.
They are estimated to have been built during the Archaic period about 5,000 years ago, said Paul Hoffman, a history professor.
The mounds are part of a cluster of Archaic Indian mounds found throughout the state because of the state’s abundance of resources to migrating and hunting Indians, Hoffman said.
Hoffman thinks the mounds were not burial sites, but house mounds or temple mounds.
The LSU Indian Mounds are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Tiger Stadium
The landmark most campus visitors first notice, however, is Tiger Stadium.
The four sides of Tiger Stadium were each constructed in different years.
East stadium was erected on campus in 1926, west in 1932, north in 1937 and the south in 1957. Additions to the stadium were added in 1978
and 2000, the “L” Book states.
Opponents originally nicknamed the arena Deaf Valley because of the volume within it, Hoffman said.
It is reported that when quarterback Tommy Hudson threw a winning touchdown, the crowd was so loud that an earth tremor registered on a seismograph meter in the University’s Geology Department.
However, in later years, the nickname of the stadium has become Death Valley.
The stadium also once served as home for 1,500 students in the dormitories beneath the seats, Hoffman said. The rent in these rooms paid off the bonds financing the stadium.
Currently, capacity of the stadium is 91,600 people, making it one of the top five arenas in the nation.
Purple and Gold
Also, before the University and Tiger Stadium wore the colors purple and gold, University President David Boyd had chosen blue and white to be the school’s official colors, the “L” Book states.
However, just before the University’s first football game against
Tulane University in New Orleans, Coach Charles Coates and quarterback Ruffin Pleasant decided to purchase streamers to rally the team.
As Mardi Gras approached, the only streamers that Coates and Pleasant could find were purple and gold ribbons.
The store’s shipment of green ribbons had not yet arrived.
The two bought out the store’s supply of purple and gold ribbon and decorated the team locker room.
From then on, the colors purple and gold replaced blue and white as the LSU Fightin’ Tigers official colors.
Mike the Tiger
Mike the Tiger, the University’s bengal tiger mascot, has been part of campus tradition since 1936, when a tiger named Sheik arrived from a Little Rock, Ark. zoo, according to a plaque placed outside Mike V’s cage.
The inscription explains the day the tiger arrived, students skipped classes and paraded around campus.
Students later renamed the tiger Mike after the athletic trainer at the time, Mike Chambers.
Since Mike I, at least eight tigers have been brought to the University, but only five officially reigned as mascots.
Mike V, the University’s current mascot, was introduced to the University in 1990.
Campus tradition states the number of times Mike growls before a football game is the number of touchdowns the Tigers will score that night.