Spring Street

Spring Street is Williamstown’s quaint, yet lively commercial center, and it showcases the great intersection between Williams and the town/community. It features almost everything a college student might need: a new college bookstore, pharmacy, restaurants, sandwich shops, a coffee shop, a movie theatre, a barber shop, ice cream and more! Though most of our events are "free or three" (free or $3 maximum), and there is never any need to spend money on campus, Spring Street is a great place for students to splurge on a quick bite to eat or meet up with friends for coffee.

Down the street, visitors will find the Williams Bookstore, which recently opened in August 2017. Not only can students purchase all of their course materials here, but they can also buy plenty of Williams paraphernalia. The bookstore has an indoor/outdoor café space and price matches for course materials. As many visitors might know, our colors are purple and gold and our mascot is a purple cow named Ephelia.

The story of the color purple: In 1865 the Williams baseball team was going to play a game against Harvard. As they were about to leave Williamstown, two ladies (one being Winston Churchill’s mother), the sister and cousin of a Williams student, were avid Williams fans, learned that while Harvard had adopted magenta as its college color, Williams was without any. They hurriedly purchased some royal purple ribbon and made small rosettes out of it, and pinned one on each member of the team. Williams went on to win the game, and purple has been our official school color ever since. Gold was added later.

The story of the purple cow: The history of the purple cow is unknown but may have been derived from a campus humor magazine. In 1907, the Purple Cow humor magazine went to press for the first time with a number of student authored pieces and clever cow graphics. The name for the campus publication was the winner among many suggested.

The editorial staff gave credit for its whimsical title to Frank G. Burgess and his jingle: "I've never seen a purple cow/ I never hope to see one/ But I can tell you anyhow/ I'd rather see than be one.” Ephelia, our mascot’s name, is named after our founder Ephraim Williams. We are known as the Ephs in athletics.