| Summary: | Director of the State Museum at the University of Washington, Frank Stevens Hall, writes to President of the University of Washington, Henry Suzzallo, to describe a recent request from Alaska Governor, Thomas Riggs, Jr., that the museum return the exhibits and showcases from the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition to Alaska. In addressing the questions, Hall suggests that Riggs provide a specific list of things that he actually wants and notes that many factors complicate the matter making it difficult to send exhibits and showcases to Alaska including: many things have been sent to their original owners; some items have decayed over time; some items have been taken over for study by various university departments; some items have been spread across the Museum's own collections; and the exhibit cases are of such a condition that they would break by the time they reached Alaska. Hall recommends that Riggs consider the benefits of allowing the Alaska items to remain as they are at the Museum including positive advertising for the Territory of Alaska and the fact that exhibits may be easily reproduced in Alaska and at a lower cost than shipping the old material back. In 1854, territorial governor, Isaac Ingalls Stevens, suggested that a university for Washington Territory be established. The school did not officially open until November 4, 1861 with 30 students. In 1862, the Washington territorial legislature incorporated the school and appointed a Board of Regents. Throughout the university's early years, the university consisted not only of college curricula but also preparatory school curricula. The school faced constant changes in administration, enrollment and financial support in its first twenty years, often closing due to lack of students or funds. By the 1890s, the school had grown by leaps and bounds and exceeded the size of its original campus. A graduate of the school and later professor, Edmond Meany, served as head of a committee to choose a new site off of Union Bay, further north and east of its current site. In 1895, the school formally moved to this new campus. In 1902, the school numbered about 600 students but by 1913, there were about 3,340 students. From 1915 to 1926, Henry Suzzallo served as the University's president during which time the school underwent massive changes in new building construction. The current Burke Museum was originally founded in the late nineteenth century by members of the Young Naturalists Society on campus. The building contained their collection of natural history specimens. In 1899, the museum was officially designed as the Washington State Museum, gaining in its collections and research. From 1909 to the 1920s, Frank S. Hall served as the museum's curator and later, director. During his administration of the museum, he attempted to make the aims of the museum to represent Washington state, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. In 1962, the museum was renamed the Burke Museum following a bequest from Caroline McGilvra Burke in honor of her spouse, Thomas Burke. Henry Suzzallo (1875 - 1933) was President of the University of Washington from 1915 to 1926. A graduate of Stanford University, he went on to earn his Ph.D. in 1905 at Columbia University. He was the deputy superintendent of schools in San Francisco, an assistant professor of education at Stanford and adjunct professor of educational sociology at Columbia. In 1930, Suzzallo was president of the Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching. Under Suzzallo's presidential leadership, the University of Washington experienced impressive growth in terms of scholarship, teaching, student population and new buildings. He was especially invested in the construction of an impressive library building. Suzzallo was dismissed from his position by the Board of Regents when he butted heads with Governor Roland Hartley over the control of the school. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition was held in the summer of 1909 at the University of Washington Campus. The exposition offered many popular attractions and forms of entertainment, some marketed as "exotic." Many temporary buildings were built on the campus for the exposition and later used by the university for a period of time.
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