The Tradition of the UPS Hatchet
The Hatchet was first unearthed by students in 1908 as they were tearing down a barn at the 6th and Sprague campus. The students decided to carve their year of graduation on the old carpenter's hatchet and the tradition became one in which each class would carve in their year when the hatchet was "passed" from the seniors to the juniors on Senior Recognition Day.
The tradition quickly developed into a competition to see which class could possess the hatchet. The class in possession would devise clever methods of displaying it without getting it snatched by the other classes. There are stories of the hatchet being lowered from the tower by a string, of it being passed in chapel, of it being thrown from one car to another. On one occasion it was tossed from the top of one building to another. There has been no voluntary "passing" of it since World War II and eventually "hatchet running" became so dangerous it was finally outlawed in 1965.
The hatchet has disappeared many times over the years, only to be found hanging from the ceiling in Kilworth Chapel or crammed into the pages of a book in the library. It disappeared for over 15 years before someone anonymously mailed it from Florida to former UPS President R. Franklin Thompson. It was snatched from a trophy case in Jones hall before resurfacing briefly in 1988 at Homecoming. A decade later, in 1998, the hatchet's return was negotiated through an intermediary and the University placed it on permanent display in the Wheelock Student Center.
Funny thing is...the hatchet is missing from its display case in the Student Center, and no one knows where it is.
The tradition quickly developed into a competition to see which class could possess the hatchet. The class in possession would devise clever methods of displaying it without getting it snatched by the other classes. There are stories of the hatchet being lowered from the tower by a string, of it being passed in chapel, of it being thrown from one car to another. On one occasion it was tossed from the top of one building to another. There has been no voluntary "passing" of it since World War II and eventually "hatchet running" became so dangerous it was finally outlawed in 1965.
The hatchet has disappeared many times over the years, only to be found hanging from the ceiling in Kilworth Chapel or crammed into the pages of a book in the library. It disappeared for over 15 years before someone anonymously mailed it from Florida to former UPS President R. Franklin Thompson. It was snatched from a trophy case in Jones hall before resurfacing briefly in 1988 at Homecoming. A decade later, in 1998, the hatchet's return was negotiated through an intermediary and the University placed it on permanent display in the Wheelock Student Center.
Funny thing is...the hatchet is missing from its display case in the Student Center, and no one knows where it is.