1941

Events in Clemson history

• The Southern Railway replaces most steam power with diesel locomotives on the Crescent.
• The Hanover House is moved from Berkeley County, South Carolina to the Clemson campus.
• The stone-cast statue of Thomas Green Clemson by sculptor A. Wolfe Davidson is installed in front of the Main Building.
• January 5: Seneca High School on North Fairplay Street (built 1940-1941), the second one constructed, opens to students.
• January 8: President Emeritus Enoch Walter Sikes dies in Clemson.
• January 17: The Clemson Dairy Department begins the experimental manufacture of blue cheese.
• February 17: Charles Byron Pell, future Clemson head football coach, is born in Albertville, Alabama.
• April 3: The South Carolina General Assembly ratifies act authorizing a $150,000 bond issue for a new athletic stadium at Clemson. Bill goes to Governor Maybank for signature.
• July 11: ROTC cadets from Clemson on summer training simulate a German "attack" on Anderson. Leaflets are dropped by airplane warning that the city will be "taken", a smokescreen is set off at the courthouse, and when the smoke clears "fully-armed cadets dressed as Germans were standing there. City and county officials were 'arrested' and national newsreels recorded it all." (Badders, Hurley E., Anderson County, a pictorial history", The Donning Company, Norfolk, Virginia, 1983, Library of Congress card number 82-23463, ISBN 0-89865-301-0, page 115.)
• September 17: Clemson athletic officials announce that construction on the $104,000 new stadium project will begin soon.
• September 20: In Clemson home opener, Presbyterian actually scores for the first time in six meetings, but still loses to the Tigers, 41-12.
• September 27: The Tigers meet Virginia Military Institute in Lynchburg, Virginia, winning, 36-7.
• September 30: Eastern Air Lines begins first air service into Anderson, using flying field in the Brushy Creek area. Present for the event is R. W. Pickens, the last surviving Confederate veteran in Anderson County. Born in 1847, he dies at age 101 in 1948.
• Fall: Electricity connections arrive in Oconee County.
• October 4: In a match played in Charlotte, North Carolina, Clemson drops N.C. State, 27-6.
• October 6: Work begins on the site of Memorial Stadium including cleaning, digging and leveling the site, supervised by Frank Howard.
• October 11: The Tigers play Boston College in Fenway Park, winning 26-13.
• October 23: Going into Big Thursday, Clemson has achieved a number 14 ranking. It won't help. Tigers go down to the Gamecocks, 14-18, in Columbia.
• October 31: The Tigers defeat the GWU Colonials in a night game in Washington, D.C., 19-0. The USS Reuben James (DD-245), a post-World War I four-stack Clemson class destroyer-156, Reuben James was torpedoed by German submarine U-552 near Iceland. Hit forward by a torpedo, her entire bow was blown off when a magazine exploded sinking immediately. The aft section floated for five minutes before going down. Of the 159-man crew, only 44 survived. Woody Guthrie writes "The Sinking of the Reuben James" which he performs with Pete Seeger and the other Almanac Singers. The Guthrie song has an original tune for its chorus, but its verses are set to the tune of the song "Wildwood Flower".
• November 15: Clemson defeats Wake Forest, 29-0, in the last football game played on Riggs Field.
• November 22: The 18th-ranked Tigers play Furman in Greenville in Sirrine Stadium, winning, 34-6. The Tigers hold Furman to minus 21 yards rushing, a long-standing record. (Martin, Johnny, "Death Valley: 72 Years of Exciting Football at Clemson University", Independent Publishing Co., Anderson, S.C., 1968, Library of Congress card number 68-58849, page 91.)
• November 29: Clemson takes 16th-ranking to Auburn, but loses, 7-28. Clemson has 7-2 record, 5-1 in Southern Conference, for 3rd place.
• December 7: Japanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, at 12:35 p.m. Eastern Time, forces the country out of an isolationist attitude.
• December 8: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issues a proclamation of war to the United States Congress.

1940

The 1940's

1942