Callahan says he was “ beyond excited ” when the very first item he saw as the safe was pried open by the Stockton Fire Department ’ s Jaws of Life — normally a hydraulic rescue tool for getting trapped people out of collisionmangled vehicles , but equally effective for opening safes and not destroying their contents in the process — were papers documenting the 1851 meeting when the founders of the university first agreed to move forward .
For Callahan — a longtime journalist who , after turning to an academic career , helped establish the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University — the document find was a treasure . It was a collection of handwritten memos and minutes from 1851 , the sort of thing a reporter might spend hours poring over in a quest for clarifying data for a story . There was also a diploma from 1862 printed on vellum , or animal skin .
Oh , yeah . There were also ancient Babylonian tablets among the vault ’ s contents . But if you heard that and expected to see massive clay slates inscribed with Biblical writing , you might have laughed , if only at first , at the 2-inch-square mini-plaques that could have served as cocktail coasters for a sophisticated Stone Age family .
“ These are actually very cool ,” says Wurtz . For a Zoom interview , Wurtz has carefully arrayed cartons and other containers on conference tables in a meeting room just outside his basement office . He ’ s as proud and enthusiastic as a schoolkid at show-and-tell , even saying at one point , “ You ’ ll have to forgive me
“ I ’ d already discovered there ’ s history everywhere I look on this campus .”
CHRISTOPHER CALLAHAN President , University of the Pacific
Among the items found in the safe were handwritten memos , minutes from 1851 and a diploma printed on animal skin . PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF PACIFIC
for saying ‘ cool ’ so often . We archivists can be an excitable group .”
Those 4,000-year-old Babylonian tablets are not only small , they also contain far from explosive data : “ I think these are a butcher ’ s bill for a lamb and a goat ,” he says .
“ According to Alan Lenzi , professor in the Department of Religious Studies here at Pacific , and paperwork that came with the tablet , it is estimated to be made circa 2,100-2,000 B . C .,” Wurtz says .
But having it in Pacific ' s historic collection — along with items like papers written by and about John Muir , the naturalist often called the “ Father of the National Parks ," in the United States — is noteworthy to “ students of archaeology , history , anthropology and even education itself ,” Wurtz says .
Referring to the latter , both Wurtz and Callahan point out with some amusement that there ’ s been a long , mostly friendly debate between Santa Clara University and Pacific as to which was the first university in California — and , in fact , west of the Mississippi . “ It ’ s somewhat semantical ,” Callahan says . “ We were the first institution of higher learning chartered by the state of California . We were founded as a university , but Santa Clara College admitted students before we did .”
All of this is documented in the university ’ s archives ( which you can sample online at go . pacific . edu / archives ). It is , to quote Wurtz , “ very cool .”
Ed Goldman writes a thrice-weekly column , The Goldman State , for his website goldmanstate . com .
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November 2021 | comstocksmag . com 97