College History

The Heritage of Carthage

Moving Into the Future: The Decision to Relocate Carthage to Kenosha

By Tom Noer, Valor Distinguished Professor of the Humanities
July 1993

Getting Ready To Move Kissing Rock

Sunday, Oct. 14, 1962, was a brilliant fall day in Kenosha. The sunlight caught the blue of Lake Michigan and the autumn red and yellow of the trees. More than 6,000 people waited in the near record 71-degree heat as faculty, trustees, church officials and local dignitaries were seated. Finally, Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, president-elect of the new Lutheran Church in America, and Dr. Harold T. Lentz, presi­dent of Carthage, approached the podium to dedicate formally the new campus. It was fitting that Fry and Lentz led the ceremony, as the decision to relocate the College was in large part the result of their vision, dedication and political skill. That warm fall day culminated nearly a decade of maneuvering, pleading, cajoling and compro­mising that shifted a college from the Illinois prairie to the Wisconsin lakefront.

Medieval universities had no classrooms, dormitories or offices. Professors rented rooms wherever they could find them to deliver lectures, and students paid at the door to attend. As the centuries passed, colleges acquired permanent buildings and became associated with specific places. For more than 90 years, Carthage College was identified with the small town of Carthage, Ill., and with build­ings and places on campus such as Old Main and Evergreen Walk. Geography, demography, church politics and the vision of Harold Lentz combined to change the physical setting of Carthage from western Illinois to southeast Wisconsin.

At 3:30 a.m. in the winter of 1953, the new President of Carthage awoke, dressed, and drove 50 miles on frozen roads to Burlington, Iowa, to catch the train to Chicago for a day of fundraising and meetings with College trustees. Late that night Harold Lentz retraced his journey, arriving home around midnight. As always, his wife, Eleanor, waited up for her weary husband's return. When he entered, Mrs. Lentz said slowly, "The college must establish a campus farther north," and went to bed.

The Decision to Move the College

The late-night conversation between the Lentzes may well have contributed to the decision to move the College, but consideration of relocation had begun long before that cold night. When Illinois State University moved from Spring­field to Carthage, Ill., in 1870, trustees were convinced it would flourish in its new setting. Carthage was a growing county seat surrounded by a large Lutheran population. It was expected that the railroad would link Carthage with Chicago, home to many of its students, trustees and benefactors.

Although Carthage survived on the Illinois prairie, by the 1950s, its remote location posed severe handicaps. The town had not boomed, but remained only 2,000 people. The anticipated railroad had bypassed Carthage, and the one-car spur train connecting the town with Keokuk, Iowa, shut down in 1950. There was not even direct bus service between the College and Chicago or other communi­ties. Fundraising was increasingly difficult as there were no industries in the immediate area and many donors were more interested in supporting institu­tions near them. The President was required to make 14 trips a year to Chicago to meet with trustees and donors unwilling to travel to Carthage. Students found it nearly impossible to find off-campus jobs as the College was the only major employer in the area. Finally, it was increasingly difficult to attract new faculty and staff to its small-town environment without transportation facilities. In 1952, more than half of the faculty (17 of 33) announced they would not return in the fall, and the College found it hard to find qualified replacements.

The remoteness of Carthage also gradually eroded enrollment as fewer students were attracted to such an isolated community. World War II veterans using the G.I. Bill had swelled enrollment to more than 500 in 1947, but by the early 1950s, it had dropped to 325. Given this decline and the meager gift income of the College (alumni donations in 1952 totaled only $1,200), Carthage was increasingly dependent on the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA) and its four sub-synods (Illinois, Iowa, Wartburg and Northwest) for survival. Nearly 50 percent of the College's gift income came from the church, and College brochures even stated that Carthage "was owned by the Lutheran Church."

Given the financial dominance of the church, it was not surpris­ing that synod politics provided the immediate impetus for the decision to seek a new location. In May 1953, seven months after his inauguration, Lentz attended the annual convention of the Northwest Synod (covering Wisconsin and Minnesota) in Minneapolis. After a cordial introduction, Lentz was stunned to hear a motion to establish a Lutheran college within the boundaries of the Synod and to end all direct financial support of Carthage. As the Northwest Synod provided the largest share of the College's budget, the resolution would have been disastrous for the institution. Lentz immediately sought out Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, president of the ULCA. The cigar-chomping Fry was a personal friend who had been the main speaker at Lentz's recent inaugu­ration. Lentz and Fry stalled the motion, but advocates of a new college called a meeting for October 1953 to consider a new college in Milwaukee.

Move to Survive

The Synod's interest in a new college confirmed Lentz's view that Carthage's location limited the College's financial potential. Several times in the past 75 years, College officials had considered relocation, and Lentz was convinced Carthage now had to move to survive. He persuaded the Board of Trustees to ask the Northwestern Synod to "exercise caution" in estab­lishing a new college and to "invite" discussions with Carthage about the future of the College. Lentz's strategy was effective, as the Synod, with the strong support of Fry, voted against creating a new college and began negotiations with Carthage. In early 1954 Lentz called trustees to what he called "the most important meeting since the establishment of Carthage College." The Presi­dent demanded the Board "either secure full support from the Northwest Synod; or decide to move the College."

Lentz found that moving a campus even to insure its survival was a difficult task. The Board, dominated by represen­tatives from the four supporting synods, was split. Wisconsin representatives favored an immediate commitment to relocate, but many Illinois members, particularly the three from Hancock County, resisted. Many alumni and faculty also opposed any commitment to move. The Board finally ap­proved a motion only to "explore" relocation.

Lentz began to "explore" with a vengeance. He created a 25-person Special Planning Com­mittee, headed by former Board Chairman O. A. Hanke to study possible new locations and to secure financial support from the synods for a move. With the strong assistance of Fry, Lentz pressured the synods, and in May 1955 they endorsed the decision to move. The North­west Synod formally requested that Carthage select a location in Wisconsin or northeast Illinois.

Lentz seemed to have tri­umphed, but faculty, students and Carthage residents organized to try to block any move. They formed a Committee to Retain Carthage College in Illinois and wrote alumni and Lutheran leaders lobbying for retention of the current campus. Increasingly frustrated, Lentz complained to the Board that he was stymied by a "paralysis of uncertainty" about the move and demanded a clear commitment to relocate. When he received no immediate response, Lentz dropped a bombshell. In September 1956, he announced his resignation, effective Nov. 1, to accept a pastorate at First Lutheran Church in Spring­field, Ohio. Although he claimed his resignation was "purely a spiritual one," it served to unite the Board in support of Lentz and his decision to move the school. They "respectfully rejected" his resignation and formally endorsed relocation.

Lentz's threatened resignation gained him victory over those reluctant to risk a move, but his triumph was not complete. To appease those still opposed, in January 1957, Lentz and the Board announced that the College would retain facilities in Carthage, Ill., while simulta­neously constructing and operating a new campus to the north. The Carthaginian hailed this "unique plan" and the College quickly printed a brochure titled "Challenge to Greatness" that outlined the advantages to students of the two-campus arrangement. The details of a dual campus were vague and seemed unrealistic to many, but the compromise was necessary to galvanize support for the commitment to build a new campus.

Search for a New Campus

Although the formal search for a new site for Carthage began in 1957, preliminary contacts had begun two years earlier. By 1957 at least 26 communities had expressed interest in being the home of the new Carthage. Lentz had made it clear that a new campus needed to be near Chicago, and have access to mass transportation. Its host community should donate adequate land, and provide a minimum of $1 million for construction costs. Given these demands, the list was quickly reduced to four main contend­ers: Woodstock, Ill.; Lake Geneva, Wis.; Elgin, Ill.; and Kenosha, Wis.

Lentz and the trustees spent much of 1957 visiting these final locations to look at possible sites and to meet with civic and business leaders to discuss finances. Lake Geneva raised the possibility of merging Carthage with Rockford College. Town officials offered a 200-acre site on the lake and arranged a spectacular plane ride to view the elegant estates that would surround the campus. They were unwilling, however, to make the financial commitment required, and Lentz was luke­warm to the idea of a merger with Rockford. Elgin and Woodstock both pledged the required $1 million, but neither could commit the necessary land. From the beginning, only Kenosha offered all of the required ingredients.

Civic and business leaders in Kenosha were early suitors of Carthage. In February 1955, two years before the formal search began, George Connolly, President of the Kenosha Chamber of Commerce, invited Carthage to relocate in Kenosha. That same year business leaders formed the Kenosha Carthage College Campaign to coordinate efforts to lure the College. The City Planner sent maps showing the proposed location in Alford Park, and the Chairman of Snap-on Tools — his son a 1951 Carthage graduate — donated $4,000 of company stock to the College a year before the Carthage delegation arrived in Kenosha.

When Lentz, Hanke and Board Chairman Rolf Dokmo finally visited Kenosha, they were met by an array of political and business leaders who pledged financial support and stressed the advantages of Kenosha's location between Chicago and Milwaukee. After a lunch at the Elks Club, the group formed a motorcade to inspect the proposed site on Lake Michigan. Dokmo and Lentz were in the back seat of the final car. As they rounded a turn and first saw the Alford Park site, Dokmo turned to Lentz and exclaimed, "This is it!" Lentz recalled he was tempted to shout "Eureka!" when he first viewed the Kenosha location.

Lentz and the Search Committee quickly moved to formalize their selection. In August 1957, they prepared a "scorecard" on the final four communities ranking each in 11 categories including location, financial support, population, and transportation. Kenosha easily outdistanced its rivals with 66 points to Elgin's 44, Lake Geneva's 40, and Woodstock's 37.5.

Lentz returned to Kenosha in September to announce its selection and to discuss prelimi­nary construction plans. The next day the Board met in Chicago and ratified the deci­sion, but the members from Hancock County added a resolution "That we affirm our desire and intention to continue in full operation in Carthage, Illinois, as well as to open the second campus."

Unexpected Opposition

In less than five years, Lentz had persuaded trustees, church officials and donors to commit to a new campus. He also had secured financial support and a stunning site from the leaders of Kenosha. His endless trips, meetings and occasional confrontations had been successful. Despite the two-campus compro­mise, he recognized that there was still opposition among some alumni, trustees and residents of Hancock County, but it is unlikely that he anticipated the problems both in Kenosha and in Carthage that followed the decision to move to Wisconsin.

Although Kenosha civic leaders were nearly unanimous in favor of a college in their community, there were some groups op­posed to relocating Carthage in Kenosha. The most obvious issue was the decision to give a public park to Carthage. Kenosha's lakefront parks were a source of immense civic pride. Several citizens questioned the decision to remove the 90 acres of Alford Park from the public to give to a college. A number of individuals wrote letters to their aldermen and to the Kenosha News protesting the lakefront site. Joe Lourigan, a member of the City Council, became the leader of the opposition. He forced a series of "town meet­ings" to discuss the relocation of the College and collected 4,500 names on a petition demanding a referendum on the issue.

Supporters of the College immediately responded with a massive public relations effort. Prominent business leaders such as Edward Ruetz, president of the Kenosha National Bank; R. S. Kingsley, publisher of the Kenosha News; Victor M. Cain and Joseph Johnson of Snap-on Tools; George Becker of Sullivan-Becker Machine Com­pany; Vernon A. Binghain of Macwhyte Company; M.C Wittenberg, Chamber of Com­merce; attorneys Fred Hartley and Donald Heide; and political leaders Gilbert Petzke, Clarence R. Jackson and Eugene Hammond organized to convince the community of the benefits of a college. They wrote dozens of letters to the newspaper, de­fended the College at town meetings, and produced pam­phlets titled "Carthage Comes to Kenosha" and "A Greater Kenosha with Carthage" that touted the intellectual, cultural and economic benefits of the College. They also pointed out that Alford Park had never been developed for public use and consisted only of marshland with a few picnic tables and an ice-skating pond.

The public relations effort succeeded in defusing much of the environmental opposition, but those concerned about the loss of park land managed to reduce the site from 90 to 68 acres. Kenosha also avoided the issue of "giving" the land to Carthage by having 12 local businessmen purchase the site for $50,000 and then donate it to the College.

While the debate on the land transaction raged, a second issue emerged: religion. Some within the Catholic community in Kenosha were concerned about the Lutheran affiliation of Carthage. Lourigan warned that Catholic students would be required to "take many Lutheran theology courses" and claimed that Jewish students would not be admitted to the College. A local priest joined Lourigan in raising the religious issue by demanding city leaders match every dollar donated to Carthage with two dollars for local Catholic schools.

Business leaders again spear­headed a rebuttal. In letters, pamphlets and speeches, they noted that Carthage had stu­dents and faculty from all faiths and that admission was open to all "without regard to religion." Lentz agreed to deliver the dedication at a new Catholic school to illustrate his openness to other denominations.

The efforts of community and college leaders defused much of the opposition. A few hard­liners persisted and in 1958 initiated a lawsuit to try to block the land transfer. In July 1959, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of Kenosha and Carthage, removing the last barrier to the relocation.

Doubt Over Two Campus Plan

While the issues of parks and Protestantism gradually died out, Lentz faced new opposition 200 miles to the south. After ground breaking in Kenosha in Septem­ber 1960, some in Carthage began to doubt the future of the "two campus" plan. With the Kenosha campus scheduled to open in 1962, the details of the dual college plan still remained unclear. A number of professors had already been assigned to move to the new campus and others had been hired specifi­cally for Kenosha. Given the limited financial resources of the College, strained by the costs of constructing a new campus, it seemed implausible that Carthage would continue to have two student bodies, two faculties and two sets of administrators. Throughout 1960 and 1961 there were rumors that the old campus would continue only until facilities in Kenosha were completed. Those in Hancock County were even more alarmed when the Board of Trustees expanded from 32 to 52, with most new members coming from Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

The administration responded with repeated assurances that the Carthage campus would remain a crucial part of the College. The President even announced plans for more than $1 million in new buildings on the Illinois campus. Lentz also sent a stinging memo to faculty reprimanding them for allegedly discouraging students from staying at the old campus by spreading rumors that it would soon close. But, despite the public relations efforts, there were signs that the Carthage campus was doomed. Again the actions of the Lutheran Church proved to be decisive.

On January 1, 1963, a merger between the ULCA, the Augustana Synod and two other Lutheran bodies created the national Lutheran Church in America with 3.2 million mem­bers. The new organization immediately made it clear that it would support only one Lutheran college in Illinois, and that would be Augustana. In April 1963, the LCA's new president, Franklin Clark Fry, met with Carthage officials at the University Club in Chicago to discuss the dual campus proposal. Fry finally snuffed out his ever-present cigar and bluntly told Carthage representa­tives that they must close the Carthage campus or lose all funding from the LCA.

Fry represented church policy, but his close association with Carthage and Lentz suggests that he helped pave the way for a painful but necessary decision. Like Lentz, he was convinced it was impossible for Carthage to maintain two campuses. Fry's ultimatum may have been unexpected in its bluntness, but its message was not unanticipated.

In the summer of 1963, Carthage officials began talks with Parsons College in Iowa about the purchase of the old campus and hired the American Appraisal Company of Milwau­kee to set a price, but it was not until Oct. 14 (exactly one year after the dedication of the Kenosha campus) that Board Chairman Ed Larsen announced that the College was "consider­ing" closing the Carthage campus. Three days later Lentz sent a note to students, faculty and alumni informing them that "there is some possibility of the sale of the Illinois campus, yet strong likelihood that no sale will occur." A month later the Board voted, with only one dissenting, to end operations of the Illinois campus at the end of the academic year. Carthage officials cited the LCA decision to withdraw funding if they continued the two-campus approach.

Protests and 'Rabble-Rousers'

The formal announcement provoked a final campaign to save the Illinois campus. The Student Council sent letters to all LCA pastors in Illinois asking them to block the measure. Lentz reported to the Board that student response had been "violent" and that he had "become the target of hot heads and rabble-rousers." Some members of the administration even urged Lentz to stay in Kenosha for "fear of bodily injury" if he visited Hancock County. When he did return to Carthage, Lentz was informed that a police guard was standing by to protect his home.

Some alumni and faculty also protested the decision. Lentz noted that he had received a number of "nasty letters" from alumni. Biology professor Alice Kibbe and College dean Stuart Bailer were especially bitter about the decision and were among the few faculty who refused to move to Wisconsin. Community leaders were most concerned with the economic implications of the closing as Carthage was the largest employer in the county and contributed an estimated $3 million a year to the region.

Against such opposition, most within the College viewed the closing of the old campus as a necessity. Despite predictions that many students would transfer and most faculty would resign, nearly all students and professors moved to the new campus in the fall of 1964. After futile negotiations with Parsons, Lincoln College and Western Illinois University, the campus was finally sold to Robert Morris Junior College for $1.1 million in April 1965.

Symbols of Continuity

A brisk Lake Michigan breeze greeted students in September 1964 as they arrived to begin the new college year at the Kenosha campus. For the first time, students from the Illinois campus saw their new college and met their Kenosha class­mates. Although there was some tension between students of the "old" and "new" cam­puses, it was minimal. A series of student/faculty congresses eased the transition, as did the transfer of Kissing Rock and the bell and steps of Old Main, and the dedication of a new Denhart Hall from the Illinois campus as symbols of continuity.

That same weekend in Carthage, Ill., a hot wind bent the trees on Evergreen Walk. Each Septem­ber for 93 years, the campus had echoed the noise of students unpacking to begin another academic year. This fall, the only sounds came from a few townspeople holding Labor Day picnics on the campus. In the late afternoon a violent thunder­storm drenched the grounds and sent the picnickers running to their cars. When the clouds cleared, the campus was silent.

Although a few accused Lentz of "killing Carthage," the past three decades confirm that he actually saved the school from continued poverty or even financial collapse. As he predicted, enrollment and donations increased dramatically following the move to Kenosha. Lentz was well aware of the emotional commitment to the old campus, but was convinced he had to act to save and strengthen the institution.

Harold Lentz often spoke of Carthage as "a family" and, like a family that outgrows its old house, Carthage faced a painful decision: It could stay in the home of its youth or build a new house to meet new needs. Like the aging photos of a childhood home in a family scrapbook, Carthage, Ill., remains a loving memory to those who lived there, a memory passed down in stories and recollections to those who did not. Old Main, "Bug House," Denhart Hall, Evergreen Walk, and the rest of the old campus will always be a part of the heritage of Carthage. They survive because the College itself survives and flourishes in its new home.