W Mountain Race

The Mountaineers will run W Mountain Race on October 14, It will Be the 55th annual running of the race and a special ceremony dedicating a plaque with all the men and women champions will also be held.

History of the “W”

Dedicated to Dean John C. Johnson and all the others who have carried this tradition on through the years.

Many histories have been and are being written about Western State College and its many traditions, activities, organizations and achievements.

I am starting this short history on W-day and W mountain with the goal that it will be as good as, or better than the rest. From talking to many people who have been here at western for quite sometime, I have found that there is a great lack of knowledge as to the real beginning of W-day and the Construction of the “W”.

Because of these garbled reports I felt that the best source of the true facts concerning the construction of the “W” would be from the person in charge of its construction. In the “Top O’ the World” of May 4, 1948, there appeared this letter, written by Dena John C. Johnson, former chairman of the division of natural science and mathematics

How the “W” was Built

“Numerous time during the past 25 years I’ve been asked, “When was the big “W” built, and who built it?” Here is the story.

“When I returned to Western State College (then called the Colorado State Normal School) in 1915, I suggested at the first assembly of the summer school that we build a “N” on Smelter Hill just back of the college, which we did the following Saturday morning.”

The inspiration for building the “N” came to me while sitting on the big “C” located on the hillside of the University of California, overlooking San Francisco and Golden Gate. The “C” is about 100ft long.

The “N” we built that Saturday was later converted to a “G” by the Gunnison County High School Students.

A few days after Governor Sweet signed the bill of Honorable Charles A. Cowen, Gunnison changing the name of the school to Western State College, March 30, 1923, I suggested to four students; Hugh Dowd, Burtis Adams, Nowell Hamm and Herbert Axtell that we outline a big “W” on the side of Tenderfoot mountain and build it of rock, if a sufficient number of rocks could be found nearby. They jumped at the idea.

We went down on the campus where the football field is now located, and spotted the place on Tenderfoot mountain where we thought the “W” should be. (The football field then was on the grounds now occupied be Shavano, Hermosa, and Teccalli Halls, - ed.)

The next afternoon, I “borrowed” two bed sheets from home and five of us proceeded to climb Mt. Tenderfoot. First we crossed the large ranch belongong to George and John Adams. We forded Tomichi river, somewhat swollen with melting snow. Of course we all got wet but what of that.

On arrival near the top of Tenderfoot we pushed over four dead Evergreen trees and carried them to where we thought the “W” should be located. We propped the trees up by heavy rocks, tied the sheets to them, and went back to the football field to view the proposed location and size of the letter. Our tentative plan for dimensions were 300 by 300 feet.

From the football field we discovered the letter too short in appearance, so we went back again and added 100 feet to the length of the letter. We moved the two lower dead trees with the half sheets flying at the top.

Inspection from the football field then showed the proportions and size of the “W” to be about right. A few days later we went back with thousands of feet of heavy string and carefully staked out both sides of the four lines that make up the “W” Each line of the letter was made 16 feet wide and 400 feet long.