January 29, 1927

The Colorado Engineering council, a group of 13 engineering societies, will hold Engineer’s Day at the Colorado School of Mines, January 29, it was announced this week.

A complete program for the entertainment of the engineers and students is being arranged by a joint committee of the school and council.

This marks the first meeting of the Colorado Engineering Council at Golden and school authorities hope to make the meeting an annual event.”

This was the presentation of the first E-Day to the Colorado School of Mines campus.

The headline and column appeared in the January 25, 1927 edition of the Oredigger. 

The first E-Day committee was comprised of the whole school, which included Melvin F. Coolbaugh, the administration, officers, the faculty and student body.

Activities planned for the Saturday ranged from talks given by council engineers in Guggenheim, campus tours, a basketball game with the University of Wyoming, to a dance sponsored by the sophomore class to round out the evening.

Special guest speaker and renowned engineer was Governor Frank Emerson of Wyoming.

The members of the Colorado Engineering Council were the designers of the first E-Day in the spring of 1927, and as they expected the first one was a bounding success, even though Mines lost 35-15 on the basketball court.

Two senators and seven state representatives that attended the event were so impressed that they wanted to have the school put on a similar program for the entire state legislature. This was planned and presented later. 

It is interesting to note the Mines of 1927. At the time there were only four options: Metal Mining, Metallurgy, Geology, and Petroleum Engineering. Campus building were Guggenheim, Stratton, Chauvenet, Hall of Engineering, the Gymnasium, and the Experimental Plant.

Foss Drug Store was using the covered wagon Medicine Van approach, and the Golden Gem (as it was called then) hosted such fine “bust your eye” reading flicks as “The Whirlwind of Youth” starring Christopher Columbus.

Two women had attended and graduated into the ranks of alumni by this time. With the idea and firm belief for the need of women at Mines, the frustrated Miner of 1927 instituted, “The Society of the Promotion of Bigger and Better Co-Eds.”

Smaller basketballs and a bigger hoops were not the theory, they reasoned. The only way was to have “plenty of damsels” in the stands. Support was sought by the Theta Taus from Coach Pi Warren who was all for it … girls that is.

Springtime of the school year finally brought someone to fix the hot water plumbing in the gymnasium showers, and also brought senior court and graduation.

It is worthy to note that the miner that year “tried and convicted” the entire faculty and went on parade over it. President Coolbaugh was the prime suspect and was found guilty as the chief offender. The chief outside influence in his father’s prosecution was his son John Coolbaugh, a freshman at the time.

That spring, 65 seniors graduated. 

The CEC and CSM liked the idea of E-Day so much they decided the following September to have another one right away.

But E-Day number two would be tough coming. On October 4, the second E-Day was announced for a Thursday the 20^th or 27^th the same month.

Montgomery Budd, who did such a good job of organizing the previous one in January, was appointed again for the job.

While everything apparently was not running smoothly, the October 18 Oredigger published a “From Monty Budd” calling for the complete participation since enthusiasm seemed to be waning. He hit the nostalgic Miner in the eye with Colorado University’s fantastic Engineer’s Day programs, et al. “What Boulder can do, we can do better.”

Engineer’s Day, Colorado School of Mines, finally was held on a dismal, stormy Tuesday, December 6. The guest speaker of the day was Burke Sinclair of the Midwest Refining Company.

With bad weather and poor spirit the day could not be termed a success. The Oredigger edition of the newspaper relegated no more than five column inches to the event afterwards, for there seemed virtually nothing to say about it except the schedule of activities that afternoon. But one thing did get accomplished, and that was the moving of all the exhibits and displays to one place, the Experimental Plant. 

Since then Engineer’s Days has expanded along with the School. 1933 featured a Geophysics Exhibit that was later displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair.

In 1964 the cornerstone for the first College Union was set, 1967 set the scene for the dedication for the then “new” residence halls, and in 1994 the Petroleum and Chemical Engineering Departments dedicated the renovations to Alderson Hall.

As time went on and more Engineering options grew on the Mines campus, the idea of entertainment and “one weekend to relax” grew.

The competitions became more fun and association with beer changed the reputation of E-Days from a Career Day/Professional Exhibition to one of a big party. (The Career Day part of E-Days was abolished after Mines decided to host it as a separate event in the fall.)

Not long after the exhibits disappeared and competitions such as mining contests, oil field Olympics, and building contest accompanied sports tournaments, concerts, comedians, and the traditional Orecart Pull to the capitol. (Where tradition called for the Governor of Colorado to drink the first cup of beer.)

New events include the Car Show, bike race to the “M”, and a Charity Bar-B-Que.

E-Days of the recent past have included fun, silly competitions such as the tricycle race, arm wrestling, beer Olympics, and cold spiking competitions.

One thing that has remained the same through E-Days of past, present, and the future, is the weekend starts with the most spectacular fireworks show in the state and ends with seniors graduating a month later to become the best engineers the world has to offer.

From the 2000 E-Days Booklet