Just after daybreak on October 26, 1909, William Howard Taft addressed an enthusiastic crowd assembled on Normal Hill’s terraces, the first and only American president to speak at Academic Hall.
President Taft’s 1909 visit to campus, albeit quite brief, furthered solidified the college’s growing stature. When it opened in 1906 Academic Hall was Missouri’s largest public building at the time, and now just three years later hosted the President of the United States.
Taft was descending the Mississippi to promote a federal river engineering project and was accompanied by cabinet members, senators, congressmen, and governors aboard a 16-boat flotilla.
Some 20,000 welcomed the president at the riverfront, while hundreds more lined Broadway to cheer his motorcade making its way up to Southeast Missouri Normal School, perhaps three times Cape Girardeau’s population of 8,000.
Edward Regenhardt, who built the main campus, was Taft’s personal friend, and had helped arrange the president’s visit. As chairman of the President’s Day organizing committee, Regenhardt accompanied Taft on the platform hastily erected in front of Academic, along with dignitaries including Governor Herbert Hadley.
After a 20-minute address, President Taft planted an elm tree sapling on campus with a red, white, and blue shovel provided for the occasion. And although the contents of his speech are still lost to history, the president’s good-natured observations about his host, the six-foot six- and three-hundred-pound Regenhardt, delighted the masses. It was the first time, the six-foot tall, three-hundred-pound Taft recalled ever having shared a stage with someone larger than himself.
