Uncle Scrooge at Webfoot Tech

[Rob Klein]

Unlike Don Rosa, who has a perfect right to ignore Barks' 4-pager stating that 
Uncle Scrooge attended Webfoot Tech (University) during the 1880s, I choose to 
accept that as fact. Barks wrote that story as well as having drawn it. When I 
asked him, in 1969,why he had Uncle Scrooge attending college around the same 
time he had informed readers that he was mining copper in Montana, he gave me 
the same answer that he gave to me many other times:- that he used whatever 
characters, setting or story events or props needed to make that individual 
story work.  He did NOT have an overall plan or time line or "encyclopedia of 
what was already used" to refer to to assure against creating contradictions 
from one story to another. He told me that after having used Uncle Scrooges 
wealth or going on adventure to increase his wealth as the motivating force in 
almost all his previous stories, he decided to write a story using one of his 
other assets (wisdom and experience from old age).  

I prefer to believe that while in the Western USA, making his first fortune, 
Scrooge had a short lull between his copper mining in the early 1880s, and what 
he did in the later 1880s. He spent this time selling to Webfoot Tech 
students "crib notes" and toothpicks to hold their eyes open when studying for 
examinations late into the nights. Webfoot Tech was in Oregon. Barks had 
already told us the town of Webfoot was in Oregon. Oregon was the State just 
north of Calisota.  He also showed us that the Webfoot River was north of 
Duckburg. He signed up as a student at Webfoot Tech, as the University had 
banned him from the campus for "soliciting" (trying to sell his wares). The 
only way he could provide his "services" to the students, was to become one, 
himself.  In this way, he could build up his grubstake for his next fortune 
building venture.  As a student, he was eligible to play on the school football 
team. As a feisty, competitive sort, he decided to join the team. With his 
crafty ideas, he could assure that they would win all their games, and by 
betting on his team to win, could thus, greatly increase his grubstake money. 
He used all the money made at Webfoot Tech to buy the land by the Duckburg 
River, where Old Fort Duckburg was.  

Rob
Klein

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