150 Points of Pride

The Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a proud and distinguished history. As part of Iowa State's sesquicentennial celebration, 150 points of pride related to the College - accomplishments, discoveries, contributions, highlights, famous and interesting people - will be posted here. These postings will coincide with 150 days of the 2007-2008 academic year, beginning Aug. 20, 2007 and ending May 2, 2008, with time off for the Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks. Check back each Monday for five new items.

Spencer Beach

Spencer Ambrose Beach earned a bachelor’s degree in 1887 and a master’s in 1892 from Iowa State College. He later worked for a nursery in Atlantic, spent a year at Texas A&M, and developed the first fruit breeding program in the U.S. while at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station. He was especially interested in apples and grapes, although he also initiated field tests on other crops. Beach returned to his alma mater in 1905 as head of the horticulture and forestry department. He developed and taught a basic course in plant breeding that led to the formation of a separate genetics department. Beach added vice dean of agriculture duties in 1907, serving in both roles until his death in 1922 at age 62. Considered one of the best-known horticulturists of his time, Beach developed at least 14 varieties of apples. In Iowa, his collection of cold-hearty fruits grew to an estimated 3,000 bearing trees and 20,000 to 30,000 seedlings. One of the crossbred apple varieties he developed in 1917 remains popular today. The Chieftain, a cross between the tart Jonathan and sweet Red Delicious, was introduced commercially in 1968. Iowa State’s Horticulture Station added 125 Chieftain trees to its 40-year-old grove in spring 2007. The apples are served on campus and sold in the Horticulture Club’s annual apple sales.

Fast fact: Beach Avenue, which runs along the west edge of the Iowa State Center and Jack Trice Stadium, is named after Spencer Beach.

Louis H. Pammel

Louis Pammel was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin in 1862. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin as the first student to receive a Bachelor of Agriculture degree from that institution. In February 1889, Pammel came to Iowa State College as a botany professor. In addition to teaching botany, he taught courses in landscape architecture. He also was the Iowa State College Experiment Station Botanist from 1889 until 1922. He established the first seed-testing laboratory in the United States at Iowa State and also taught the first bacteriology course offered at any college in the United States. His varied research interests and prolific writing produced more than 700 publications on such topics as poisonous plants, Iowa grasses, ecology, weeds, honey plants and bee pollination. He led field tours, encouraged nature study in schools, made extensive plant collections, and was an influential mentor to many students, including George Washington Carver and Ada Hayden. He died in 1931 on a transcontinental train traveling through Nevada.

Fast fact: Pammel played a key role in establishing the Iowa State Board of Conservation in 1917 and served as its first president. During his tenure as president, 38 state parks were established.

Ada Hayden

Ada Hayden’s love of prairies started as a child on her family’s farm near the Iowa State campus. She acquired an early knowledge of botany in explorations of the virgin prairie tract her parents had set aside on their farm as an outdoor laboratory. She earned a bachelor’s degree in botany in 1908 from Iowa State College and returned as a faculty member after completing her master’s degree in 1910 at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1918, she was the first woman to earn a doctorate degree at Iowa State. During the early years of her career, she often collaborated with her mentor, Louis H. Pammel. From 1932 until her death in 1950, she served as curator of the Iowa State herbarium, succeeding Pammel as curator. She created a checklist of native flora in the Iowa Great Lakes region and wrote about the ecology of the region. Her persistent speaking and writing about the value of saving prairie areas eventually led to the establishment of the State Preserves Advisory Board in 1965.

Fast fact: The 200-acre Ada Hayden Prairie in Howard County, Iowa State’s Herbarium and a park in Ames all are named in her honor.

John Mahlstede

John Mahlstede was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943, and served as a bombardier-navigator during World War II. After graduating from Miami of Ohio University in 1947, he continued his education at Michigan State University where he earned master’s and doctorate degrees. In 1951, Mahlstede became an assistant professor of ornamental horticulture at Iowa State. During his long academic career, Mahlstede authored many articles, and with E.S. Haber wrote one of the classic horticultural texts of its day, Plant Propagation. He was named head of the Department of Horticulture in 1961. In 1965, he became associate director of the Agriculture Experiment Station, a position he held until he retired in 1987. He died in 2002. The John P. Mahlstede Horticulture Learning Center at Reiman Gardens is named in his honor.

Fast fact: Mahlstede was an active participant in many ISU activities and committees. One of his favorites was representing Iowa State University as the faculty representative to the Big Eight Conference from 1971 to 1987.

Jack L. Weigle

Jack Weigle brought his interest in plant research to Iowa State University in 1961. He was born in Montpelier, Ohio. After leaving active service in the U.S. Army in 1946, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Purdue University and his doctorate from Michigan State. Weigle’s primary teaching and research activities were in the areas of vegetable and ornamental breeding. Although successful in developing new potato cultivars, his lasting legacy is ornamental plants. His new cultivars of hybrid impatiens, forsythia and weigela quickly gained recognition by gardeners throughout the central United States. Several of his plant introductions — most notably ‘Red Prince’ weigela in 1984, ‘Pink Princess’ weigela in 1975, ‘White Knight’ weigela in 1994, and ‘Sunrise’ forsythia in 1981 — became popular choices for nurseries and home landscapes. Weigle retired from Iowa State in 1990 after 29 years of service. He died in 2001 at the age of 75.

Fast fact: During the 1970s, Weigle was instrumental in helping to develop what is now known as the New Guinea impatiens.

*Some historic photographs courtesy of the University Archives.

150 Points of Pride Archives