I recently stumbled upon some archival photographs from the Austin College Special Collections. It amazes me how much a small university can change in 150+ years (and will continue to change, regarding the sudden increase of students). I am currently researching/writing about the history of the student housing department at Texas A&M University-Commerce, the academic institution I work at. Therefore, I found this blog post appropriate for the times.
Old Main & College Hill
Old Main, Austin College’s first building, was constructed between 1876 and 1878, and was located north of the present-day Caruth Administration building (rumor has it that the outline of the building’s foundation is still visible where the grass refuses to grow, however, I never saw such a thing when I studied at Austin College). This two-story brick structure housed administrative offices, classrooms, and a well-stocked library. Though the building was an impressive sight among the tumbleweeds of rural East Sherman, the college exhausted its energies and finances and struggled to stay afloat in the 1880s. In December 1895, Professor Davis Foute Eagleton noted that the library had been renovated and a East wing was built to accommodate the rapidly-increasing student enrollment. President Samuel Luckett’s wife, Jewel Link Luckett, offered $2,000 to complete the addition of a west wing (the second floor of this wing was furnished as a meeting room for literary societies), and the F.M. Files Company of Files Valley proceeded to donate a cotton compress for the school. Trustee J.M. Thompson donated $500 worth of lumber to strengthen the interior beams of Old Main. The students, an active bunch, had lobbied for am equipped gymnasium and a swimming pool, but not until the presidency of Reverend Thornton R. Sampson (who served in office from 1897-1899), did the dream become a reality. During Dr. Clyce’s administration (1900-1931), the college rebounded from financial troubles, however, Old Main did not survive. The original college building was set fire on January 21, 1913, by a student who missed home and wanted to miss his classes. Its destruction altered the complexion of the campus dramatically by robbing it of a focal point. Though destruction spread its evil tentacles on the Sherman institution, classes continued the next day and the college stayed open, braving troubles and lack of infrastructure. Eagleton would write, “Austin College on fire and every particle of wood reduced to ashes–and walls rendered totally unfit for use. Oh, dies irae, dies irae! – The dear old building in which I have labored for twenty-four years, gone! What traditions, memories, griefs, joys, were associated with it! The carpenters were approaching the completion of their work. The new English room was completed, the library room was soon to be ready. They literary societies lost everything. I lost all books, or, [those] in my class room. The laboratories were almost a total loss. Fortunately, the library, records, and office furniture were all in the new Y.M.C.A. building…. Before the fire had begun to die out, the Senior class called the student body together and they pledged themselves by classes in writing to stand by the Faculty and the College, and that no one would leave. The Faculty also met shortly after and unanimously decided to continue college work the next day as usual, meeting their classes in places designated. Probably not another institution in the State could have done this. But the old College building is gone forever!!!”
College Hill, like Austin College’s focal point in Huntsville, was located to the East of Sherman’s small town square. The place where the college was located in the 1870s was not an impressive sight to visitors. Upon his campus tour, Professor Eagleton would write about the depleted sight on September 1, 1889: “Dr. Luckett met me at the depot Saturday afternoon and we walked a half mile up College Hill to our stopping place, passing corn field, cotton field, orchard, weed field, apparently out in the country beyond the final limit of street and houses,–on to a jail-like brick building with wire fence about its ten acre campus, broken window glass and dilapidated air generally…. A few lonesome cottages about it–one hut on the lot where Dr. Luckett afterwards built; another rude, box house then occupied by W. G. Venable, Sr., where Dr. Luckett and his wife, a most elegant lady, were boarding and where I found my meals; another newer and somewhat more pretentious cottage, a block or more away, owned by Mrs. Lyle, Mr. Venable’s widowed daughter, where I met her brother, Sidney Venable, a graduate of last year, and where I engaged board for the coming year, provided I would occupy a room with a student, Mr. Gooch, a two hundred pounder; another little cottage or two on the South side of the campus and nothing more.” Austin College did not have an address in the latter-half of the nineteenth century, and was listed in the 1892 Sherman City Directory as “the north side of E. College between Hurt and Grand Avenue.” It was not until 1914, in the aftermath of the fire and the construction of Sherman Hall, did Austin College have a numbered Grand Avenue street address.
The above drawing was created by Walter E. Long, a 1910 graduate of Austin College. The drawing depicts Old Main, the college grounds on Grand Avenue, and four one-story plank dormitories (these were constructed in 1890-1891 as the Board of Trustees invested between $800-$1000 in residential spaces–there was never enough dorm space for students at this time; many found a bed in costly boarding houses in Sherman). The chain link path, which was used for military drills when the college was briefly a military training school, is marked.
The North Side of Campus
Eagleton House was the home of English Professor Eagleton and his family. It was located on the present parking lot north of the Abell Library. For many years, the Eagletons provided rooms and board for many students. After the college acquired Eagleton House in the 1930s, it served as a dormitory, a center for foreign students, and a guest lodge. It remained on the campus until the late 1970s.
The Hardy House was named for the college clerk during the 1890s, John Hardy. Located at the northeast corner of Richards and Hurt Streets, the house became a popular stomping ground for students who desired a ‘family meal’ with the Hardys.
Another boarding house for students on Richards Street was the Bailey House. Most of the boarding houses around the campus disappeared after Luckett Hall was built in 1908. The Bailey House burned down in 1922.
Luckett Field was used by students after 1902, when former President Samuel Luckett donated a six-acre park, located northwest of Old Main (currently the land south of the railroad depot and north of the Marjorie Haas Village on Grand). The athletic field was used by the football team. Within two years, a wooden grand stand was erected on site. The athletic field was no longer used after Cashion Field and the current Apple Stadium were constructed a couple of decades after.
The Physical Plant building was located on the South side of Richards Street (currently north of Dean Hall) and built in 1914 at a cost of $15,000. The two-story building housed the college’s boiler and fuel rooms, a pumping station, and a workshop. Classrooms would later be added to the interior. The building also included a basement, used by the campus’s electrical engineers. The smokestack was never used for its original purpose, however, became a symbol of student pride, adventure, and ritual. Students would try to climb the smokestack and try to not get caught in the process. Furthermore, students would graffiti and paint their class year on the iconic tower. The building was demolished in the 1990s.
The YMCA, located east of the Physical Plant (in current location of Dean Hall and the art building), was the original student center. Built by students and completed in 1911, the YMCA housed a gymnasium, swimming pool, bowling alley, several meeting rooms, and facilities for the yearbook & newspaper staffs. Like other YMCAs in the country, this building became the original headquarters for the Austin College athletics department. When the college became coeducational in 1919, the YMCA was outfitted with female dormitories and a cafeteria. After World War II, the bowling alley and swimming pool were covered and faculty offices were built there. The YMCA was demolished in 1964 to make way for Dean Hall.
The Annex, built adjacent to the YMCA in the 1930s, was a frame building that housed the first student unions. The college’s post office was also in this building. The Home Economics Department and its faculty were housed in the Annex. The Annex was torn down at the same time as the YMCA.
Photographs found in the Austin College Library Special Collections.
Information found in Light Townsend Cummins’s two books on Austin College– Eakin Press & Arcadia Press.
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