As Southeast transitioned to a state teacher’s college in the 1920s, an expanded curriculum in agriculture developed as a key component in the school’s broadened educational mission. And to train students in these new vocational courses, the Department of Agriculture needed the proper facilities.
In February 1922, the regents purchased some forty acres of farmland southwest of the intersection of Bertling and Sprigg streets, essentially where the Show-Me Center is today.
This college farm included orchards, gardens, pastures, and field plots of barley, alfalfa, corn, and sweet clover that operated as a learning laboratory. Here, Southeast students got hands-on experience in horticulture, animal husbandry, dairying, topography, soil and crop conservation practices, farm mechanics, and farm management. The facility became self-supporting with agriculture majors providing the student labor and daily choring necessary to operate a working farm. Albert and Leming Halls purchased milk, eggs, chickens, cream, and produce to feed dormitory residents.
The Agriculture Club, open to all interested students regardless of major, sponsored agriculture contests as the college farm became something of a community center where students publicly displayed their projects. Club members also formed local Boys’ and Girls’ “Pig Clubs” as an outreach project promoting scientific hog farming among regional youth. Perhaps this is the real origin story behind “Pig Lot”?
Southeast discontinued the old demonstration farm in 1977 and since 1987 the Show-Me Center occupies much of that original acreage.
