Henry Simms Hartzog
Henry Simms Hartzog was an American academic and school administrator who served as the president of Clemson University, the University of Arkansas, and Ouachita Baptist University.
Early life and career
Hartzog was born in 1866 to a family of prosperous planters in Bamberg County, South Carolina. He attended a private high school in Bamberg, and entered the South Carolina Military Academy in 1882. Hartzog graduated with a degree in mathematics and civil engineering in 1886, and returned home to teach school. He became principal of Allendale High School before attending Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, then resumed teaching in Bamberg. Hartzog began publishing a newspaper, the Bamberg Herald, in 1891. In 1895, he became superintendent of the Johnston Institute in Edgefield County.Clemson
After the sudden resignation of Edwin Boone Craighead, the trustees of Clemson College began a search for a new president. Clemson trustee and U. S. Senator Benjamin Tillman lived only from Johnston, and was interested in Hartzog's background in agriculture, military, engineering, as well as his experience in South Carolina's secondary schools. Hartzog was offered and accepted the job in September 1897.Hartzog's first order of business was to improve the sanitary conditions on campus, after an outbreak of typhoid and malaria the previous summer. Improvements were made to the drinking water supply and campus dairy, and Hartzog changed the academic calendar to move the long break from winter to summer. In the fall of 1898 Clemson opened the first textile school in the South, tapping into a growing industry in upstate South Carolina.
Enrollment continued to rise, from 337 students in 1897 to 483 by 1901, with Hartzog reporting to the trustees that 300 further applicants were rejected for lack of space. Trustees authorized the construction of a new dormitory, and expansions of the chemistry and mechanical engineering buildings. In 1900, engineering professor Walter Riggs, who had coached Clemson's first football team convinced Hartzog to allow the formation of an athletic booster club. The club's funds were used to hire the school's first professional coach, John Heisman.