The Mystic Circle (1896-1905)

While Oxford had the Bullingdon Club! The Colorado Agricultural College had the infamous Mystic Circle, a private group of all-male members of the San Juan dining club. It was known for its wealthy members, ruckus banquets, and their occasional mischievous behavior. Members did not devote all their talents to just academia; instead, they spent much of their free time devising ingenious and hilarious pranks to play on the unsuspecting facility and fellow students.

In 1896 a small group of San Juan club members led by Pat Hurley gathered for free debate and planning of hijinks not thought appropriate by the faculty of the College, so they instituted and organized a secret society called the "Mystic Circle.”

In order to become a member a candidate had to prove his worthiness. To do so, it was said that each new member had to show beyond the question of doubt that he could lie his way out of any hole he might get himself into. His failure to accomplish this meant that he must “beat it” and never speak of society again.

If he or a member ever disclosed or were found to be unworthy of membership in the society, they were taken in the dark and dank hours of the night and given a ride on the clubs’ “Satan’s Shoot the Shoots” a long slanting board covered with axle grease and leading into a deep vat eight feet long and four feet deep filled with “Hell Mixture.”

Secrecy in those days was paramount, if you received three demerits and you were “in bad”, five, and you were politely requested to take a short vacation, eight bells meant that you would be on your way back home to the farm for good.

First Grand Poobah of the Mystic Circle

Walter Patrick Hurley 1900

W. P. Hurley was made after the fashion of mankind March 27, 1877, at Fall River, Mass. There he remained until he was three years of age; his parents, who were in charge of him, then moved to Buena Vista, Colo., thence, after a sojourn, they moved to St. Elmo. In St. Elmo the young and ambitious W. P. attended the public school, and, as Mr. Hurley remembers, he was a very good boy in school.

After finishing the school at St. Elmo he was shipped to Denver and deposited in the Gilpin school, where he remained as long as was convenient to W. P. and the teachers. He then went to Buena Vista, and after finishing the schools there he was again shipped, this time to our own dear old C. A. C.

During his time with us at C.A.C. he was chief trumpeter in the battalion in the Junior year, and First Lieutenant and Adjutant of the same organization in his Senior year. He was a member of Philo-Aesthesian Literary Society and served as a member of the program committee, and at last President of the Society. He was leader of the college Orchestra and a member and Secretary and Treasurer of the Glee club. He served on the Collegian staff in his Sophomore year. He took the Mechanical Engineering course.

P. S. —Hurley is Irish.

Rocky Mountain Collegian - Volume IX, Number 8, May 1, 1900