By George P. Edmonston Jr.

John Gallagher photo from May '61 Oregon Stater.

On the day John Hubert Gallagher Sr. passed away, May 15, 1961, a great wave of shock and sadness descended on the OSU campus and the Alumni Association not unlike that which hits a family that has just lost a son or daughter.

When death finally came (at age 85) to this amazing Beaver from the class of 1900, he could look back to more than 60 years of continuous service working for the betterment of his alma mater.

In particular, his accomplishments and contributions to the OSU Alumni Association, of which he was a lifelong member, left behind a legacy of devotion that reverberates today, a spirit that can still be found in virtually every program, activity and award sponsored by the Association.

John Gallagher was one of the founders of the present day Association. For example, in 1950, at the 50th anniversary of his graduating class, he organized the Golden Jubilee Association, then served as its secretary right up to his passing. (Editor’s note: Still one of the most popular events sponsored by the OSUAA, the Golden Jubilee reunion is held each year in early June for all former students and graduates of the university who have been away from campus 50 or more years. Golden Jubilee 2003 is scheduled for June 6-8 and will honor the classes of 1953, 1948, 1943, 1938 and 1933. For information email or contact the Association at 541-737-2351 - Fax: 541-737-3481 - or Toll Free:
877-305-3759.)

Gallagher also devoted considerable time and resources for many years as a member of the OSU Alumni Association’s Board of Directors and was one of the leaders in the drive to install the carillon bells on campus. When the Association was reorganized in 1913 (see below), he became the organization’s first "secretary" on a part-time basis, a position that is now known by the dual titles of Executive Director of the Alumni Association and Director of Alumni Relations.

During the more than 25 years he and his family lived in Portland, Mr. Gallagher kept his interest in his alma mater at a high level by hosting and conducting frequent alumni meetings for area graduates, eventually leading a group of former Beavers in establishing the first alumni clubs in the school’s history in all the principal towns and cities of the state.

In later years, Gallagher remembered this about the event:

"President Kerr had funds to help us pay some of the costs. This resulted in June 1913 in calling a meeting of alumni to be held in Corvallis. We had a special train up the east side from Portland, and a special train up the west side from Portland. We had over 500 attending. This resulted in the organization of a permanent Alumni Association, and we elected E.B. Lemon as our first regular (full-time) alumni secretary."

Born in Carlton (Yamhill County) on Aug. 8, 1875, Gallagher arrived on the OSU campus in 1895 when the school was officially known as State Agricultural College or SAC. Throughout his life, he laughingly said many times that he was "the greenest farm boy to come to college."

He often reminisced about when he lived in old Cauthorn Hall (now Fairbanks Hall) and also liked to tell the story of the time he first noticed other male students having creases in the fronts and backs of their pants. Not to be outdone, one Sunday before church, young John got an iron and turned his pants inside out so as to not burn them. When he went to dress he turned the pants right side out and the effect was, as he put it, "so bad that I stayed in my room the rest of the day."

The young Oregon Stater made great use of his time while a student. Outside the classroom, where he was an excellent student, he was active in athletics as a shot putter for the track team and as a guard on the 1897 football team that won the northwest championship.

To help with school expenses, he secured the "coveted" job of running the college steam electric light plant. This required getting up every morning at 4:30 a.m., going over to the power house to light a wood fire under the steam boiler, getting up enough steam to start the dynamo engine, then making sure to turn on the lights in both the Cauthorn Hall dorm and the girl’s "shack," officially known as Alpha Hall, the first residence facility on campus for women. The building occupied the location now enjoyed by Gilkey Hall, which houses offices and classrooms for the university’s College of Liberal Arts. His pay was 10 cents an hour.

When the sinking of the battleship USS Maine triggered the Spanish American War in 1898, Gallagher volunteered along with many other SAC students to serve in the 2nd Oregon Volunteers. He left from San Francisco in May of that year aboard the troop ship SS Australia and headed for Manila in the Philippines.

Remaining at Manila for the duration of the conflict, Gallagher and the 2nd returned to the states and Corvallis in the summer of 1899, where he re-entered college and was elected captain of the football team. He soon found himself in the position of team manager. One of his earliest assignments in the new job was to hire Oregon State’s first paid football coach, H.O. Stickney, a former All-American from Yale.

As it turns out, Stickney was a good find but not a great one. His teams won four, lost four and tied one. After two years on the job, the Yale star left for parts unknown and SAC, at the direction of the school’s Board of Regents, dropped the sport for two seasons.

By this point in his college career, Gallagher’s leadership abilities were well known, all the way to the president’s office, who in this case was Tom Gatch. A job assigned to the young man by Gatch was that of getting the athletic department out of debt, one of the chief reasons why the Regents had shut the sport down in the first place. This Gallagher did by doubling the price of admission ... to 50 cents. At the end of the 1901 season, all debts had been paid in full, with $100 left over as surplus, the first time in school history that athletics had actually made money.

It was also at this time that Gallagher, assisted by a group of his classmates, came up with the idea of combining both student athletes and representatives from the student body at large into a single organization, one that would have far reaching effects for students for generations to come. According to Gallagher, this was the beginning of student government at Oregon State, the activities of which are managed today by ASOSU (Associated Students of Oregon State University).

Following receipt of his SAC degree in engineering in 1900, Gallagher entered the Michigan College of Mines in Houghton, Mich., and graduated with a degree in mining engineering in 1904. This launched a successful career in that profession in locations throughout the west and Alaska. From the Alaskan gold fields, he returned to Oregon and settled down to work the mining district around Sumpter. It was here that he met Belle Kellogg of Baker and began a relationship that lasted through 54 years of marriage.

Moving to Portland to raise their family, John and Belle stayed for the next 25 years, where he designed and built the first two concrete bridges in Multnomah County. He also engineered the construction of more than a dozen major Portland buildings. He was a consulting engineer for Bonneville Dam and planned many miles of highways for the state of Oregon.

Relocating back to Corvallis, Gallagher organized the Corvallis Sand and Gravel Company and also served on many highway committees, recommending in 1937 that Highway 99W be put on Corvallis’ First Street. In 1941 he wrote the engineering report that helped in the planning of an airport south of town and in 1942 authored the engineering report used in the construction of Camp Adair, 12 miles north of Corvallis. He was a member of the Masons, the Shriners, Kiwanis Club, the Highway 20 Association, Professional Engineers of Oregon and the Mary’s Peak Trek. When he died, he left behind his wife Belle, four daughters, two sons, three brothers and a sister. One of his grandsons was star Beaver basketball player Dave Gambee. OSU

George P. Edmonston Jr. is the editor of the Oregon Stater and Eclips. The story used in the writing of this profile can be found in the May 1961 issue of the Stater, page 8.