Cal Poly San Luis Obispo was established as the California Polytechnic School in 1901 when Governor Henry T. Gage signed the California Polytechnic School Bill after a campaign by a journalist Myron Angel. The polytechnic school held its first classes on October 1, 1903, to 20 students, offering secondary level courses of study, which took three years to complete.[10] The school continued to grow steadily, except during a period from the mid 1910s to the early 1920s when World War I led to drops in enrollment and drastic budget cuts forced fewer class offerings.