Valparaiso University marks 100 years of Lutheran control

One hundred years ago, the Lutheran University Association purchased a struggling Valparaiso University and made it what it is today.

Mel Piehl, senior research professor in the humanities at VU, has researched the 166-year history of the university. For VU, 1925 was a big turning point.

The university was founded in 1859 by the Methodists as Valparaiso Male and Female College. That lasted until 1871, when the college’s charter and property were purchased by a group of Ohio educators led by Henry Baker Brown, Oliver Perry Kinsey and Samantha Baldwin, Piehl said.

It was a boom time for Northern Indiana Normal School, later renamed Valparaiso College and then Valparaiso University. By 1900, it was the second-largest college in the United States, after Harvard, with over 5,000 students.

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