The story
Northern Michigan University was established in 1899 by the Michigan Legislature as Northern State Normal School to offer teacher preparation programs in Michigan's then-wild and sparsely populated Upper Peninsula. When it opened in 1899, NMU enrolled thirty-two students who were taught by six faculty members in rented rooms in Marquette city hall. The original 20-acre (81,000 m2) campus site at the corner of Presque Isle and Kaye Avenues was on land donated by local businessman and philanthropist John M. Longyear, whose namesake academic building, Longyear Hall, opened in 1900.
Throughout the school's first half-century, education and teacher training was the school's primary focus. During this time, the school built the native sandstone buildings Kaye and Peter White Halls, as well as a manual training school next to the campus buildings, J.D. Pierce School.The institution has undergone several name changes:
Northern State Normal, 1899
Northern State Teachers College, 1927
Northern Michigan College of Education, 1942
Northern Michigan College, 1955
In 1963, through the adoption of a new state constitution in Michigan, Northern Michigan was designated a comprehensive university serving the diverse educational needs of Upper Michigan. Graduate education began in March 1935 when courses at the master's degree level were offered in cooperation with the University of Michigan.
From Wikipedia’s article on Northern Michigan University, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5