Auburn University was established in 1856 as the East Alabama Male College, twenty years after the founding of the city of Auburn . After December of 1859, it was maintained by the Methodist Episcopal Church South. The citizens of Auburn, the college faculty and the Methodist Church were all advocates of the new college.

In 1859, Auburn's patrons erected and equipped a 4-story building at the cost of $1,100 and opened its doors on October 1 to eighty students, 6 faculty members and a preparatory enrollment of one-hundred. 5 students were graduated after the 1st year.

The Reverend William J. Sasnett was the 1st president of the college. The university was closed during the Civil War in 1861, the economically troubled university reopened in 1866 with Dr. James Ferguson Dowdell, a Methodist minister and former Alabama congressman became president, and struggled for the next 6 years.

In 1872, the institution's economic problems were resolved when, under the Morrill Act, Auburn became the 1st land-grant college in the South and was renamed the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama. Dr. Issac Taylor Tichenor, a former Confederate chaplain and noted Baptist minister, was the first president of the newly reorganized college. During the next several years, the school experienced changes that are still prevalent on campus. Fraternities were formed in 1878 under Dr. William Leroy Broun, and became officially recognized by the school in 1883. In 1892, Auburn admitted its first women and organized its first football team.