From Penn State Obelisk Centennial Celebration by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences

Facts
Built by the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, celebrating its centennial year in 1996, the Obelisk provides an enduring symbol of the College’s history and strength. The stonework was done by State College resident Michael Womer.

• The Obelisk is located along the Mall between Willard Building and Sackett Building.
• The Obelisk was erected during the first year of the School of Mines (1896), making it the oldest monument on University Park’s campus, predating the Nittany Lion Shrine by several decades.
• The Obelisk’s construction represents a collaborative effort of faculty, students, and the Pennsylvania building stone industry. It was built to enable students to study the weathering qualities of the stones for the benefit of architects and builders.
• The Obelisk is composed of 281 blocks of building stone from 139 different localities, mostly in Pennsylvania, and its components are arranged to represent the geologic column of the rocks of Pennsylvania, with the oldest rocks at the bottom and the youngest at the top.
• The weight of the Obelisk is calculated to be 53.4 tons. The height is 32.7 feet.

Legends
Over the last century, a number of legends — ranging from the unusual to the humorous — have emerged about the Obelisk. The most persistent of these legends follow:

• For several decades, freshmen were told that beneath the foundation of the Obelisk rested the bones of Old Jerry, the storied mule that had supposedly hauled the stones for the construction of Old Main.
• Visitors to Penn State were sometimes told by a local resident that the Obelisk marked the exact geographical center of Pennsylvania.
• The most enduring legend about the Obelisk, originating just after World War II and passed on to new freshmen for decades, was reported as recently as 1985 in the Harrisburg newspaper, The Patriot. The popular legend was that the Obelisk “would crumble if a virgin coed strolled by.” Before a 1968 football game, a Syracuse fan, claiming that Penn State was “Dullsville,” reinterpreted the legend: “The Obelisk will crumble the day there’s a coed who isn’t a virgin.” Current students report that the legend persists today, but with varying creative interpretations.

Highlights
As the oldest monument on Penn State’s University Park campus, the Obelisk has been the subject of much attention over the years. Here are some chronological highlights:

• In 1898, Frank A. Kaiser, class of 1898, cut a cross in the granite at the base of the monument to mark one end of an exact north and south line.
• In 1899, William L. Affelder made a study of the Obelisk for his B.S. thesis. The thesis detailed the type of rock, geologic age, donor, and origin, and estimated the potential resistance of the various blocks as building materials.
• In 1948, the publication Penn State Alumni News featured a short article on the origins of the Obelisk.
• In 1964, the front page of The Daily Collegian sported a trick photograph of a man working on the Obelisk with the top two-thirds of the monument missing. The caption beneath the photo completed the ruse: “It Finally Happened: A workman works frantically to repair the Obelisk which reportedly crumbled sometime early Sunday evening. The identification of the coed responsible has not been determined.”
• In April 1968, the Association of Women at Penn State staged a “Down with the Obelisk” march. Women circled the monument carrying placards reading “Rock of Ages, Crumble for Me” and “Fall, Stupid,“ while chanting “London Bridge is falling down, why don’t you?” As part of Women’s Week activities. The women were out to prove one of the primary legends about the Obelisk wrong (see “Legends”). Despite the protest, the Obelisk remained standing, but rumors circulated that it appeared to be a bit lopsided after the demonstration.
• Before the 1968 Syracuse football game, visiting Orangemen painted “S.U.” on the Obelisk. Penn State's record that year was 11-0.
• In 1971, Penn State students Carl Mease and Carl Collins, members of the mountaineering division of the Outing Club, demonstrated climbing techniques by climbing to the summit of the Obelisk.

Quotes
“The Obelisk exhibits many of the varieties of structural material with which Pennsylvania is endowed and reveals to the architect at a glance the possibilities of artistic combinations from our native products.... Thus the column is not only picturesque but exceedingly valuable to student, visitor, and artisan.”
-- Magnus C. Ihlsend, first professor of mining engineering and geology.

“Good geologists know nothing about Freudian symbolism, so they love the [Obelisk] and let the common horde admire the more famous, but nondescript Washington Monument.... Early on a story evolved that the [Obelisk] would crumble if a virgin coed strolled by. This fall the [Obelisk] greets its 90th class of Penn State coeds, but it is still as structurally sound as ever.”
--Paul B. Beers, The Patriot, in 1985.

Obelisk Web Site
To learn more about the Obelisk, visit the Obelisk Web Site in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.