George Washington Pierce Jr., a farmer and early UC graduate with ties to Sacramento, helped lead the campaign to designate Davisville as the new University Farm. (UC Davis University Library Special Collections/photo)
UC Davis marked a 100-year milestone March 18 — not of its birth but its conception. On that day in 1905, Gov. George Pardee signed into law an act to establish a university farm school for the University of California. And then the battle began for which community would carry the UC title. Here is the second in a series of stories we will telling you about how UC Davis came into being and about significant developments that have shaped its destiny since then.
UC Madison? It could have happened. A century ago, the tiny Yolo County town about 11 miles west of Woodland was a proposed site for the new University Farm.
So, too, were Woodland, Hayward, Suisun and about 70 other cities throughout Northern California. But among them, the burg of Davisville would prove to have the right combination: fertile farmland, plenty of water, railroads and, perhaps most importantly, tireless backers with the political know-how and right connections.
Leading the charge for a Davisville site were George Washington Pierce Jr. and Jacob "Gene" LaRue, both farmers and early UC graduates with ties to Sacramento.
Pierce, from a Republican pioneer family, was a former Assembly member, the first UC graduate from the Central Valley, an acquaintance of UC President Benjamin Wheeler and a boarding-school classmate of Gov. George Pardee.
UC graduate and farmer Jacob "Gene" LaRue, shown center (no beard) with family members. (Yolo County Archive / photo-courtesy of the city of Davis ©)
LaRue farmed down the road from Pierce. His father, Hugh LaRue, a 49er-turned-farmer, was an influential Democrat who had served as Assembly speaker, state agricultural society president, Sacramento sheriff and ex-officio UC regent. The elder LaRue owned a house across the street from the governor's mansion. Another LaRue son had been a state senator.
Davisville already had an edge. Sacramento judge Peter J. Shields had been persuaded by locals to require, in this bill authorizing the University Farm, that the chosen site already have an irrigation system or water rights.
In the weeks after Pardee signed the act, Pierce, LaRue and other Davisville advocates met a number of times with the governor, UC president and other members of the University Farm site-selection commission. Pierce also approached an aging Davisville farmer, Martin Sparks, about selling his land.
In May 1905, with Pierce in the lead car, the site-selection commission toured Yolo County sites near Davisville, Woodland, Yolo, Madison, Esparto and Winters. The competition would cause a bitter rivalry between Davisville and Woodland.
Pierce also led the newly created Davis State Farm Promotion Committee, or "Boom Committee," which printed a booklet promoting Davisville as an "An Ideal Spot for a University Farm."
Within a year, the state commission would agree that it was.