History of TMC
Tufts Mountain Club was founded in December, 1939. Bill Ballard, former student president of the Tufts Ski Club gathered a group of people interested in outdoor activities, dubbing the group, “Tufts Mountain Club” or TMC for short. Original dues were $3, which let members use the lodge (then spelled lodge), a nine-room, hundred year old farmhouse acquired in 1942, at any time.
Back then, Jackson girls had to have a female chaperone in order to stay up at the lodge, so they could only go up on the first or third weekend of every month. In addition to undergraduates, other TMC members included President and Mrs. Charmichael, Dean Bush, and Professor Houston (namesakes of several dorms on campus).
In 1940, TMC merged with the Ski Club, expanding membership and opening lodge use in the wintertime. However, 4 years later when the US was entrenched in World War II, interest in leisure outdoor sports waned and TMC disbanded for a year. On New Years Day in 1962, after decades of hosting outdoor-loving students in New Hampshire, the original lodge burned down. There were no injuries, but the lodge could not be used. Since then, TMC has celebrated
From old Loj book: Painted cannon for Thanksgiving, circa 1988
Thanksgiving in the spring to give thanks for the end of exams, the presence of a lodge/loj, and the fact that no one was hurt in the fire of 1962. Fortunately, Tufts agreed to help pay for the construction of a new lodge with a $25,000 grant. The second lodge, an A-frame building, was built in 1963, yet taken over by the state to make way for Route 93.
In yet another attempt to attain a lodge for TMC’ers, the group bought a big two-story farmhouse with gables, a screened-in porch, a wood stove, a huge kitchen, and a big cozy room with long tables for communal dinners like Thanksgiving. This lodge, legends say, was once a petting zoo. Evidence for this showed in the presence of hand-painted signs advertising pony rides and other petting zoo attractions in the old lodge’s barn. It was during the reign of this lodge that the term “loj,” a spelling pioneered by Melvin Dewey – previous owner of the Adirondack Loj and advocate for spelling reform to aid children and immigrants – came to reference the TMC home.
This lodge/loj was condemned in 1994 and replace by the current Loj in 1999. Features of the new Loj include:
-26 bunks and plenty of floor space and extra mattresses
-a full size kitchen and refrigerator
-outdoor fire circle
-two large full bathrooms
-a large common room with fireplace
-3 bunk rooms
-a swanky trips cabin
-a library with oodles of books and board games
-plenty of outdoor gear accessible free of charge to any guest of the Loj.
In 2006, Ed Warren of the class of 2007 founded PRRR (the Presidential Ridge Relay Race) to bring together outdoor-loving college kids from all over New England in a relay race through the White Mountains. The race was a huge success and became an official event of TMC until the White Mountain National Forest permit process prevented the race from happening in 2010. In 2011, Save PRRR!, an interim event, offered a choose-your-own-adventure weekend with the same goal in mind: to bring together outdoor-loving students in the outdoors. It remains to be seen if PRRR or Save PRRR will be revived or if we will have to find another, cooler way to join outdoor forces.
