As the fall semester begins and students are getting involved in the campus community, we look back to the first fraternity at The University of Toledo and among the first student organizations, the Cresset Fraternity.
The Cresset Fraternity was founded in 1915 by a trio of UToledo students, J. Howard Kramar, William H. Tucker Jr., and Leonard R. Christman, who wanted to “bring men of similar tastes and interests into a closer contact with one another” and recruited others whom they felt fit with the ideals of their organization.
While the Cresset Fraternity was a secret organization in its early years, it was also the University’s first fraternal organization. Among its early accomplishments was to help found the first student council and to sponsor a Freshman/Sophomore Contest, which became an annual event and held its first annual banquet in 1918.
The fraternity changed its name to Phi Kappa Chi and was incorporated under the laws of Ohio. In October 1922, when this photo was taken, the group built the first fraternity house on the University’s campus, which was then located at Parkside and Nebraska on the site of the current Community and Technical College.
In the decades since, the fraternity has since changed its name to Pi Kappa Alpha, moved several more times and is now located in McComas Village.
