Captain Eric L. Barr was the founder of the University of Washington Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps Unit.  The NROTC Unit at the University of Washington was one of six original units established at universities throughout the country in 1926 to provide a source of reserve officers to fill active duty naval billets.

The son of Mary Ellen and Andrew Barr, CAPT Barr was born in Huron, South Dakota, 4 September 1887.  Following his mother’s death in 1987 from typhoid fever, his father moved the family to Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush.

The Barr family later moved to Los Angeles where CAPT Barr attended high school and won a competition appointment to the US Naval Academy in 1907.  After graduating in 1911, he married former Ellen Ceulver, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Ceulver of New London, Connecticut.

CAPT Barr first came to the University of Washington in 1926, where he was responsible for organizing the NROTC Unit.  After a two year assignment he returned to the fleet for eight years.

CAPT Barr was a submarine qualified officer and in World War I, received the Navy Cross Medal, the nation’s second highest medal, for his work at keeping submarines based at the Azores.  He took the E-1, the smallest submarines to cross the Atlantic under her own power, to the Azores.  Among his other awards were the Navy-Marine Corps Medal for heroism during both World War I and II and the US Mexican Service Medal (1911-1917).

During his naval career, he also commanded the salvage vessel ORTOLAND and the submarine tender ALERT as well as the submarine base in San Pedro, California.

He returned to the University of Washington in 1936 and became the Commanding Officer of the NROTC unit in 1938.

He retired as Director of the Summer Session in 1958 at age 70.  Three years later he and Mrs. Barr moved to Poulsbo where he lived until the time of his death on 25 March 1975.