Centennial Celebration

Enrollment in 1964 reached 259 and by 1966 there were 275 students attending classes. The student-teacher ratio was 1:27 and more than 1,500 lawyers had received degrees from the school. And then the school collapsed - literally.

On June 8, 1966, a tornado devastated the city of Topeka and destroyed the law school. Carnegie was left in ruins. Remarkably, students seeking refuge in the basement would survive and the collapse of the building would actually save a large majority of the volumes in the law library. Students and faculty banded together to dig through the debris and save the books. That year the summer session began only one day behind schedule at Topeka West High School. The law school continued to serve students in a makeshift campus that consisted of eight trailers. In August of 1969 the new building was completed and the school had found a permanent home at last.