The Sigma Chi Fraternity was founded on June 28, 1885, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The seven orginal founders, Benjamin Piatt Runkle, Thomas Cowan Bell, William Lewis Lockwood, Isaac M. Jordan, Daniel William Cooper, Franklin Howard Scobey, and James Parks Caldwell founded the fraternity on a noble set of standards exhibited by the brothers.
The history of the Delta Chi Chapter is one that is of value to those who are interested in its reestablishment. In 1878 there was formed in Wabash a local fraternity called the Athenaeum. It was from this that the Delta Chi Chapter of Sigma Chi emerged. The twenty new members, desiring better to secure the perpetuity of their organization, decided to obtain a charter from a Greek letter fraternity and Sigma Chi was at once selected as the best with which to affiliate. The Delta Chi Chapter was instituted in 1880.
As to its success, we see the following in the Sigma Chi Catalogue for 1890: “Its career since has been worthy of the high hopes entertained for it in the beginning. Its membership has been of high order, and it has been second to none of its local rivals, from whatever standpoint the comparison be made. It has met with unusual success in the competition for college honors of every discipline, and has taken a prominent part in athletics and other college enterprises.” In 1887 the chapter left the hall it had occupied and moved into larger and better quarters.
It is much to be regretted that a chapter with such a reputation has not continued to exist. In 1894, due to the effects of the panic of 1893, a consequent diminishing of the number of students attending Wabash, and a combination of other unfavorable circumstances, the chapter became inactive.
With circumstances much better than at the time of Sigma Chi’s inactive state, Delta Chi was rechartered in 1909.
Undergraduate Chapters of Sigma Chi in Indiana
Wabash College ΔΧ (1880)
Indiana University Λ (1858)
Butler University Ρ (1865)
Hanover College X (1871)
Purdue University ΔΔ (1875)
Ball State University EΩ (1962)
Indiana State University ΘΠ (1985)
Valparaiso University ΙΣ (1990)
DePauw University Ξ (1859)
