Last week's University Farm celebration "got the ball rolling" for UC Davis' centennial observances, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw said.

UC Davis plans celebrations in 2008-09 to mark the 100th anniversary of the first student admissions at the farm.

The city of Davis, though, had good reason for an earlier centennial celebration: the state Farm Commission's decision of April 5, 1906, to put the farm in the community then known as Davisville.

The celebration took place at Central Park, with Hinshaw and Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef among the dignitaries who briefly recited the events that led to Davisville's selection over 70 or so other communities vying for the farm.

Bob Bowen, city promotions manager, said he timed the event to the exact minute of the state's decision at 4:45 p.m., based on a diary entry by George Washington Pierce Jr., a Davisville farmer who was instrumental in advancing his community's bid for the farm.

Newspapers of the time reported that the decision came close to midnight, and there was no explanation for the discrepancy between those accounts and Pierce's diary — until now. John Skarstad, university archivist, took another look at the diary — which is in the university's hands — and speculated that Pierce's "4:45" was actually "11:45."

"I think he dragged his pen from the first 1 to make the second 1, and it was transcribed as a 4 rather than 11. The chronology of his day and the newspaper accounts support that conclusion," Skarstad said in an e-mail to University Communications on April 6, the day after the city celebration.

The program included one other historical inaccuracy, namely the steady rain that fell during the ceremony. The fact is, 100 years ago in Sacramento, where the state Farm Commission held its meeting, there was no rain on April 5. Data from the federal government's Western Regional Climate Center show a high temperature of 74 degrees on April 5, 1906, and no precipitation.

Vanderhoef, during his remarks, altered history a bit to accommodate the rain. The script called for him to say: "Meanwhile, the state farm selection process was moving forward." Instead, he said: "Meanwhile, during a considerable downpour …"