A seldom-noticed stone drinking fountain intersects and blocks the long, straight sidewalk west of Old Main halfway to University Avenue. Almost hidden among the summer flowers is a legend at the base stating that it was built in memory of Lowell O’Brien, Oct. 10, 1922. Above the stone inscription and the now-inoperable drinking fountain is a brass plaque: “He gave his life….
Ironically, the fountain shares a historical connection with the more familiar work of art, the painted mural hanging on the west wall of the Student Union ballroom. Both the fountain and the mural recall aspects of the same event in the University’s history—the mural, the “cowboy welcome” given to newly arriving UW President Dr. Arthur G. Crane and the fountain, the tragic death of a student involved in organizing the welcoming ceremony.
In August 1922, the board of trustees announced that Crane, then serving as president of a college in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, had accepted the UW presidency. He would come to Laramie in October to begin his new job. Consequently, a group of students decided to greet the new “prexy” in traditional Western style. With the help of faculty advisors Dr. Samuel Knight and Coach John Corbett, they planned an elaborate “ambush”—they would dress as cowboys and, on horses, meet the new president’s automobile as it was coming down from the summit.
On that sunny October morning, nine masked men on horses, later joined by about 50 “cowboys bedecked in regalia,” ordered Crane out of his car and into a stagecoach where he was joined by out-going President Aven Nelson and board of trustees chairman W. C. Deming. Crane’s family continued on to town in the family automobile.
Did Crane enjoy the unique welcome? Probably not. UW historian Deborah Hardy described a photograph taken at the time, “Out from the window he peers like a prisoner; he is neither smiling nor waving nor early surveying the sagebrush around him. If anything, the camera catches a tone of disapproval for this youthful, high-spirited prank.”
The riders escorted the coach to the east edge of Laramie where the three occupants were transferred into a new Marmon automobile for the ride to the grandstand of the nearby fairgrounds (near where today’s Washington Park is located). There, students, faculty and townspeople welcomed Crane and his family, student president Fred Parks presented Crane with a ten-gallon hat, and the crowd watched two cowboys ride bucking horses. Later, after a few speeches, the assemblage adjourned to the university commons for a special dinner.
But the festive ceremonies were dampened by an accident that had occurred earlier in the morning as the “cowboys” were preparing for the “ambush.” One of the best horsemen on campus, Lowell O’Brien, a 23-year-old junior, helped “ride out” the mounts for the Crane reception. O’Brien was “topping off each horse as it was saddled in order to ensure that no amateur should accidentally get on an unsafe horse and be thrown.” O’Brien intentionally made his mount buck when, suddenly, the horse broke toward a wire fence. Fearing the horse would break through and into a group of students, “O’Brien started to dismount, a feat no different that he has often accomplished in the course of his everyday work, but the saddle slipped and he was thrown underneath the horse, badly kicked and dragged about thirty yards before being rescued by his comrades.”
The student newspaper reported that he was “taken the hospital unconscious. Dr. Robinson and Dr. Turner were called to attend him and at this hour O’Brien’s condition is extremely critical. …” Dr. Willard A. Robinson was the young man’s stepfather with whom he had lived while attending UW.
A week after the mishap, President Crane announced at the morning student assembly that O’Brien had died. He never regained consciousness from the accident. The student newspaper published a special “Memorial Edition,” noting that O’Brien’s death cast a “pall of sadness over the University.”
Newspaper accounts emphasized that every effort had been made to save his life. “A nurse and a physician have been constantly at his side and several other surgeons have been called into consultation. Several students have taken turns in sitting up with him.”
O’Brien, a native of Santa Rosa, Calif., died at his stepfather’s home. He was 23.
“Lowell has been popular among faculty and fellow students,” the Wyoming Student obituary read. “He was studying agriculture and was active in the Agricultural Club and other college activities.”
Later, friends and classmates of O’Brien raised funds to construct the memorial fountain.
In 1939, to commemorate the first anniversary of the construction of the Student Union Building, the university and the Federal Arts Project hired Utah artist Lynn Fausett to paint a mural depicting Crane’s arrival. Originally hung in the “student lounge” and later in the “grand staircase” of the Student Union, the mural was moved to its present location in the West Ballroom in 2003, following restoration funded by the class of 1958.
Five individuals significant to the university’s history are depicted in the mural—Crane, Nelson, Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, Dr. June Etta Downey, and Dr. Justus Soule. Did the artist include Lowell O’Brien in the mural? No reference is made to the fact, either in the commemorative label below the mural or in the Branding Iron article published the week of its dedication on March 3, 1940. Might he be the hatless cowboy on the rearing horse behind the main group in the center of the painting? Is he the distant figure wearing a red shirt seemingly about to dismount a bucking bronc that appears to be failing backward, in the left of the painting? Whether he appears at all, the mural recalls the celebration of Crane’s arrival while the fountain west of Old Main memorializes the young man accidentally killed while preparing for the “Old West welcome,” depicted in the painting.
Recently, led by a class in historic preservation and archives, taught by Leslie Waggener and Rick Ewig at UW, raised funds to rehabilitate the fountain. It will continue to be a memorial to a student who lost his life to protect others.
–Phil Roberts