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OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center

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The OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center is home to the university’s unique collections

11/03/2026

🦫 : Meet Bevo and Billy Beaver!

Before Benny Beaver became the familiar face of Oregon State, the university had two live beaver mascots!

In 1921, students canoeing on the Marys River rescued a six-month-old beaver named Bevo and brought him back to campus. A second beaver, Billy, arrived in 1935 and even made the cover of the Oregon State Monthly.

Billy left a lasting mark: his name lived on in a Barometer newspaper column in the early 1940s and he helped inspire the illustrated beaver mascot. 🦫

10/31/2026

This week’s comes from the Willibald Weniger Photograph Collection, 1870–1940. ⚡

This photograph captures a flash of lightning and belongs to a series of photographs dating from 1908 to 1940.

As one of our student employees pointed out, it’s pretty amazing that someone managed to capture a moment like this on camera! Some things are worth stopping to look at, even more than a century later.

10/27/2026

🐾 : The Beaver Statue

Did you know OSU has a long history of beaver statues—and one may even be lucky?

In 1926, a 700-pound bronze beaver rode on a wooden cart in Homecoming parades. A later plaster version, nicknamed Benny, led the 1942 Homecoming parade before being stolen in 1943, repainted in UO green and yellow, and ultimately destroyed with a hammer in 1946. (We can only assume a Duck fan was involved!)

In 1992, a new life-size bronze beaver statue arrived at Parker Stadium, where players could pat it for luck as they took the field. After years away from the football stadium, the statue returned to Parker Plaza during the Beavs’ tough 2025 season. And maybe it really is lucky: OSU won its only games of the season after the statue’s return!

Coincidence? We’ll let you decide. 🦫

oregonstateuniversity

10/26/2026

👻 Nightmare on SCARC Street! 👻

Ready for a little archival fright? Join SCARC for a spooky show-and-tell featuring ghosts, spirits, monsters, and other mysterious things lurking in our collections! 🕷️

Explore creepy-crawly natural history, historical mediumship, spirit-channeled writings, and ghostly spirit photographs. You never know what you might encounter in the archives!

🗓️ Wednesday, October 28
⏰ 10 a.m.–noon
📍 SCARC Reading Room, 5th Floor, OSU Valley Library

10/22/2026

🎬 It’s time for a Monday Movie Party! 🎬

Every year, in honor of Archives Month, we screen clips from films and video recordings in our collections. This year’s lineup features five films spanning a wide range of topics and eras—from snow surveying in the 1930s to student art projects in the 2000s, with some spectacular big hair circa 1973 thrown in for good measure!

📅 Monday, October 26
⏰ Noon–1 p.m.
📍 Valley Library, Nishihara Room (2nd floor)

Can’t join us in person? You can explore these and other films from SCARC’s archival collections online!
🎞️ OSU History Films: https://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/osuhistory-videos.html
🎞️ OSU Media Space: https://media.oregonstate.edu/

Hope to see you there!

Captions in order: Art 351 - Student Projects, 2007; Assumed Sight, 2007; Snow Survey, circa 1930s; Chemawa Indian School footage, 1968; Oregon at Work: Oregon State University, 1973.

FilmHistory

10/19/2026

Before Benny Beaver, there was an unofficial dog mascot! 🐕 James Arbuthnot, OAC’s athletic director and wrestling coach, took his Jack Russell Terrier just about everywhere — even on trips and to practice with the wrestling team!

Want to see more? The James G. Arbuthnot Photograph Collection, 1909–1915, includes lots of photos of Arbuthnot, his dog, OAC athletic teams, and sporting events around Corvallis.

📸 Explore the collection: https://beav.es/YCq

10/12/2026

🎩 Around 1893, Dr. John Richard Newton “J.R.N.” Bell (1846–1928) became the official mascot of Oregon Agricultural College. A pastor of Corvallis’s First Presbyterian Church and devoted Beaver football fan, Bell was one of the most beloved figures at campus athletic events.

His signature tradition? Throwing his hat into the Marys River after every OAC football victory over rival school University of Oregon. He kept it up until 1926, when he was 80 years old, tossing his hat into the river seven times in total.

As the November 1926 OAC Alumnus magazine put it, Bell helped build “the Beaver spirit of persistent fair play.”

Now that’s Beaver spirit!

Learn more about the history of Bell Field https://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/buildings/bell-field

10/09/2026

This week’s comes from the Personal Library of Ava Helen and Linus Pauling book collection!

Modern Experiments in Telepathy was written by British mathematician and parapsychologist Samuel George Soal and statistician Frederick Bateman, and published in the US by Yale University Press in 1954. The book reviewed 35 years of ESP research, including card-guessing experiments.

In the late 1970s, mathematician and programmer Betty Markwick uncovered evidence that Soal had manipulated and falsified data, exposing fraud behind research once hailed as evidence for telepathy.

Read more about Soal and Markwick’s work: https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/samuel-george-soal/

10/09/2026

Want to know what an archivist does? Curious about our collections? Find an archivist in the SCARC foyer on the 5th floor of the OSU Valley Library Friday afternoon (10/9, 2:00pm-4:00pm)!

10/05/2026

Meet Jimmie, Oregon Agricultural College’s first known mascot.

The first mention of a mascot comes from a December 1893 football game -- just a year after the team was established at OAC! Jimmie was a coyote owned by M. H. Kriebel and he joined the team for a game against Oregon State Normal School (now Western Oregon University).

According to the Corvallis Gazette newspaper, Jimmie was “somewhat timid,” but performed his part satisfactorily. We’d say that’s a pretty good start to a mascot tradition.

Address

121 The Valley Library
Corvallis, OR
97331

Opening Hours

Monday	10am - 4am
Tuesday	10am - 4pm
Wednesday	10am - 4pm
Thursday	10am - 4pm
Friday	10am - 4pm

Telephone

+15417372075

Website

http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/, https://linktr.ee/osuscarc

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