Our Founding

Los Amigos was born out of the need--the need of Christian men for a place to live and study that was within their means. Several students attending the University of California at Berkeley in 1906 discussed the possibility of forming a house club where they might live together as men and brothers, helping each other, encouraging each other, and perhaps living more economically than they could separately. The earthquake that devastated San Francisco that year delayed the formation of the club for a time, but in 1907 the idea was brought up again among Charles Booth, Harry Osborne, Joseph Taylor and Gail Cleland while they were attending a YMCA Conference together at Pacific Grove, California. There they made plans to begin Los Amigos, a house club named from the Spanish translation of "The Friends." These men were joined in 1907 by William Barnum, Harold Savage, Oscar Perrine, Herman Bergh, Leonard Day, Allen Kimball, and Ludwig Rehfuess.

"When we organized Los Amigos as a house club...house clubs and fraternities were dime a dozen. They came, they lived for a few months or a few years, then they went out of existence again. But Los Amigos did not go out of existence," recalled Gail Cleland. Cleland continues, "And seven years later...in response to the suggestion of Benjamin Ide Wheeler, the President of the University of California, we organized our house club as a national fraternity of one chapter." Past National President William B. Herms (Alpha) described the origins of Alpha Kappa Lambda in THE LOGOS in 1925: "Distinguished scholars contributed to the building of the new Fraternity. (President Wheeler) gave advice and encouragement, Professor Charles Mills Gayley and Professor James T. Allen suggested the name 'Alpha Kappa Lambda' and the motto 'Alethia Kai Logos'."

The founders of Los Amigos were a diverse group, but they all had the common desire for studious living in their college environment and continued integrity after their formal education concluded. On April 22, 1914, a formation banquet was held in the Hotel Shattuck in Berkley, with members of the new Fraternity and many guests from the community of the University of California in attendance. Alpha Kappa lambda became the first Fraternity to be founded on the West Coast, indeed west of the Rocky Mountains! Besides being born in the West and spreading east, Alpha Kappa lambda was unique in another way. "Of particular novelty is statement that the Ideals of the Fraternity are to develop the 'social, intellectual, moral, and religious welfare of it members, (and) to foster and encourage among its members Christian principles, service, higher education, culture, and refinement'," reported The Berkeley Gazette (April 27, 1914) a few days following the formal installation of the Alpha Chapter of Alpha Kappa Lambda.

The Oakland Examiner, in reporting the founding of Alpha Kappa Lambda, said, "Alpha Kappa Lambda was launched with a membership of forty-three and has the hearty sanction of a number of the foremost members of the faculty. The membership comprises largely the roster of Los Amigos Club, an organization which has often ranked first in scholarship standing in the annual reports of the University of California. It is considered significant that many prominent members of the faculty not only endorsed the new fraternity, but assisted in its formation."

The eleven founding members were "typical" college men in many ways, yet atypical in their desire to foster brotherhood, scholarship, and service. Their legacy lives on today in chapters across the nation.