How did the Purdue Boilermakers get their name?
Engineering education in the 1890s at Purdue meant hands-on work in the forge room, where students heated and molded metal, just like the “blacksmiths” and “boilermakers” the football team was called after defeating opponents. Newspaper reporters writing about the success of the football team inevitably seized on the manual nature of instruction at Purdue. On Oct. 26, 1891, Purdue football players first were called “Boiler Makers” in a Crawfordsville newspaper headline. Another account stated, “Those big fellows from Purdue know how to play football as well as pound the rivets into boilers.” No doubt a factor in attaching a railroad nickname to Purdue was the Schenectady locomotive, used from 1891 to 1897 for research. The making of the Boilermakers The traditional story is that the origin of the nickname “Boilermakers” had to do with an 1889 football game against Wabash College, an ouchy newspaper reporter and – maybe – the Monon Shops. The facts: Wrong year, right school; It was a re
