Gary Moratz / Roundup
Heading down an unpaved dirt road called Winnetka Avenue on Sept. 15, 1947 to attend the opening day of school at the new “Clarence W. Pierce School of Agriculture” is what the first 70 students did that day. The school was originally opened for men; women were not allowed to attend yet.
The school of agriculture started with 18 faculty and only 70 students on a plot of barren land that was mostly covered with barley. There were 10 old surplus warehouses from World War II that housed the students while electricity was generated by a few old gas generators.
In 1951, the school started allowing women to attend and by 1954, there were a total of 550 students — 500 men and 50 women. The school changed its name to Los Angeles Pierce College in 1956, which retained the name of its founding father “Pierce.”
History at Pierce is as fascinating as its faculty and there are very few who have not only seen it as faculty members but have lived it as students. One professor who shares this history is professor Ronald Wechsler of the agriculture and natural resources department.
Wechsler plans on writing a book documenting the vast history of Pierce as one of its student-turned-faculty alumni.
“So I was thinking that as these new buildings come into play and this campus changes there ought to be a record of what this place was,” Wechsler said. “I decided to write a book and came up with the idea to call it ‘Pierce College, the Last Cowboys.'”
A student of Pierce in the early ’60s, Wechsler had the good fortune to see the school at an earlier time when agriculture was the main academic root of the school. Pierce boasted over 390 acres of green and gold farmland, which included a major cattle operation consisting of milk cows and beef cattle.
There was a classified position called “beef herdsman” in 1971, which Wechsler held. Then, in 1973, he got his teaching credentials and started teaching at Pierce. The beef herdsman would raise the calves for food, which were sold to many people in the community.
“At that time we had a beef cattle merger, we had a lot, about 200 head of beef cattle,” Wechsler said. “We would take them from what I called conception to consumption.”
They had a list of buyers, which would be notified by phone when the beef was available. A customer would tell them what type of steak and how thick they wanted it and a custom-made order would be completed.
The actual slaughterhouse was off campus in San Fernando, where one of the student’s parents owned a warehouse they would use to slaughter the beef cattle.
Pierce also had a dairy with milk cows on the campus during the ’60s. There was a farm store at the end of the agriculture building that would sell milk and the business building was where the dairy processing took place.
The red barn up on the hill in the farm area housed some of the original classrooms initially located in the center of the campus back in the ’50s. The hill was leveled and the classrooms were physically moved there and converted into barns and now used for some of the farm animals.
Back in the early years, Pierce had dormitories right on campus where the faculty offices now reside. Wechsler was one of the student residents at the time.
“You would sleep, work on the farm, go to your classes and eat right at the cafeteria so there was really no need to ever leave the campus,” Wechsler said.
Wechsler has been a huge part of the Pierce campus history and continues to create history through his personal instruction in the classroom. His students learn more in his class than what is in the syllabus. In fact, students who are not in his class learn from him too.
“He has been volunteering his time to help our large animal-nursing class,” said Pierce student Sally Lewis. “He is just a wealth of knowledge, a consummate educator.”
One of the courses taught by Wechsler is Animal Science 602 — Horse Husbandry — which takes you through the breeding, caring and feeding of horses, among other topics related to equine science.
“He (has) a lot of stories to tell,” said Jeanne Thompson, a second-semester Pierce student. “His tests are very hard but you learn. He’s a good teacher and has a lot of experience.”
“Pierce College, the Last Cowboys” is a work in progress and a date has not yet been set for completion or the release of the book, but Wechsler is looking forward to completing it in the near future.
Wechsler does not have any plans on retiring any time soon, so anyone looking to gain insight and knowledge in the equine sciences can try Animal Science 602.
Or maybe you always wanted to learn about rodeo, which Wechsler knows all too well and enjoys teaching. If so, sign up for Animal Science 615 — Introduction to Rodeo.
More information about the courses is available by caling Ron Wechsler at (818)-710-2980.
Ron Wechsler, long-time instructor of agriculture, inside the Pierce College stables with Scout. (Alina Popov / Roundup)
