History

In the early turn of the century, nothing could be more natural than the tendency for college aged men to form clubs that could afterward be accorded fraternity standing. The Armour Institute of Technology, a growing school with scores of good fellows unaffiliated to any organization, would have been a tempting destination to any college man with a love of fraternalism. On April 16, 1900, six men formed the Consonant Club; the plan of forming a club name using the initials of each found member’s name proved impracticable because all said letters were vowel-less – thus the Consonant Club then became its natural title. After two long years of growing membership, courting various fraternal organizations, and preparing for installation, twenty fine men hand-picked from Armour’s brightest students gathered at the Chicago Athletic Association to be formally installed as Founding Fathers of Delta Tau Delta’s latest undergraduate Chapter, Gamma Beta. The exercises, which were carried through almost faultlessly and with unusual impressiveness, were executed by neighborly members from Beta Pi (Northwestern) and Gamma Alpha (University of Chicago) on Friday, May 10th 1901 and were witnessed by fully half hundred Delts.

These young men, at the time, would not know the legacy that would grow from their simple endeavor – that they would create a ripple in the course of history that would go on to shape the lives of over 1500 men for over a century and counting!