The University of Arizona Press

With six teachers, no books, and thirty-two students, Old Main opened its doors to the first pupils of the University of Arizona in 1891. A rugged beacon among the cacti, the campus emerged from a forty-acre donation from two gamblers and a saloonkeeper. The Lamp in the Desert is Douglas D. Martin’s history of the first seventy-five years of the University of Arizona. From early football wins by Coach McKale to the work of celebrated scholars, this is a story of the places and the people whose names are still visible reminders of the early innovators that helped to build a world-class institution.