this is 2014. UT was founded in 1883. that's 131, right ??
nevertheless, i'll still have a drink next tuesday.
The University of Texas was established by the legislature in 1858. The endowment was set at $100,000. The money came from the 1850 settlement of the border with New Mexico (Texas gave up claims to the other lands and the federal government gave Texas $10,000,000 to get its finances in order). Then came the Civil War.
During the war nothing was done with respect to building facilities for the newly established university. The endowment was invested in confederate debt and after the war, the university not only had no physical assets, it had no endowment. The value of the PUF in 1865 was down to $0.57. (The legislature put land in the PUF to replace the money lost through the investment in confederate debt and on a section of that land Santa Rita 1 came in in May, 1923.)
The legislature (mind you, we were still under military occupation with George Custer as commanding general and his headquarters in the building that currently stands between the Erwin Center and DKR on the SW corner of I-35 and MLK) applied for funding for the ag college under the Morrill Act. The ag college was established in 1871. As Texas prepared for the end of Reconstruction in 1876, it passed a new constitution, that document establishing the ag college as a branch of the University that had been established in 1858. The ag college admitted its first students in 1876. The main campus admitted its first students in 1883.
The reason the ags can't understand how they were established as a branch of the University if the University "didn't exist" in 1876 was that the University did exist. Its existence began on Feb 11, 1858, as evidenced by the document the link goes to. Hence, the University's birthday is next Tuesday (I was wrong on the math, though. It's the 156th birthday, not the 158th).
