History in the Making: 100 Years and Counting

The boll weevil has gone down in history as one of the most destructive insects to ever hit American cropland. However, Auburn’s entomology and plant pathology department owes a “thank you” to the pest. After all, this insect is responsible for the formation of the original Department of Entomology, which held its first class 100 years ago this year. As part of this 100th birthday milestone, Wayne Clark, who has been teaching entomology at Auburn for 21 years, developed a presentation that he delivered to his entire department about the history of the first class.

It was in 1906 when, in the wake of the boll weevil, the board of trustees at the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University) saw a dire need for a chair of entomology. They knew they had to have someone who had experience with the boll weevil and W.E. Hinds was the answer to their wishes. Hinds left the University of Texas in 1907 to come to Auburn as head of the department. In 1924, he left Auburn and headed to Louisiana State University.

100 YEARS—It’s been a whole century since W.E. Hinds and his 1909 entomology class posed for this picture. Hinds became the entomology department head in 1907 during the heyday of the boll weevil.

Courses in entomology and zoology had been taught at Auburn since 1872. However, the year 1909 marks the first entomology class because it was the first time there was a class strictly devoted to entomology listed in the course catalog. That same year, Hinds and eight of his students, all males from Alabama, took a picture that would become a historic piece for the department.

In 2006, Clark took a similar picture with some of his students. They posed the same way as Hinds and his eight male students did so long ago.

Now, 100 years later, the Department of Entomology (now Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology) has continued to grow and has students, males and females, from Alabama, around the nation and all over the globe. In addition, it is safe to say there are far more entomology classes devoted to many different areas of entomology than when the department was first formed.

Written by Loren Willis