As we continue to look at the expansive and progressive growth of Austin College during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we must remember how the changes in the college’s history amount and are in comparison to the larger exterior changes that were happening in the state.
East Campus (on Grand Avenue)
The Dutch Treat Tearoom and Bookstore, designed in the 1920s by ‘Pep’ Clyce (son of the college’s President Thomas S. Clyce), was a small cottage with a windmill at the front. This building served as a residence for visiting professors for many years.
The President’s House was built in 1895 as a two-story building, with four rooms on the lower level and a large hallway with an office on the upper floor. Located at the corner of Grand and Richards Streets, the frame house was remodeled and enlarged in 1900 by Dr. Clyce and his wife, Mary. The couple, who inhabited the mansion for four decades, entertained many students and important dignitaries, including President William Howard Taft. After Dr. Clyce’s death in 1946, his wife stayed in the house for a number of years after. The building was torn down in the 1950s and replaced with the ‘Settles House,’ the brick house that currently occupies that location. In the 1990s, President Oscar C. Page enlarged the President’s House by adding a large dining room at the back.
The Lucas Store provided college necessities, snacks, and gifts for students for many years. Once located on the northeast corner of Grand Avenue and Williams Street, the Detweiler House now stands in that place.
The Bennett House, located on the southeast corner of Grand Avenue and Williams Street, was another boarding house for students. Walter E. Long, a 1910 graduate of the college, wrote: “”The House”–my Bennett home for a year. That dear Mrs. Bennett, from the Yankee state of Ohio, never gave me an unkind word. Once, however, when I overslept from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 (milking time) and grabbed the tray of food for the boys with my “milking khakis” on, she did tell me to take off the outside suit!”
One of the first houses on the Austin College campus to be labeled with an address, 923 N. Grand, was the home of Greek Professor Robert Ritchie Harwell and his wife. Ellen Harwell was the college’s librarian, a founder of the campus’s history club, and a staunch supporter of women students after Austin College admitted females in the 1920s.
College Park Presbyterian Church was organized on November 8, 1900 by Dr. Clyce (who served as the church’s first pastor) and housed on a white frame sanctuary in 1901. The church building cost $8,000 with the furnishings costing $2,000. The name of the church was changed to the Grand Avenue Presbyterian Church in 1914. The white framed building continued to serve Austin College students and East Sherman citizens for many years before being replaced by the current brick structure. W. Long would note that “the College Park Church stood just across from the campus. Sunday School and Church attendance was required of all students, either at this church or some other specified. Monitors kept a record of attendance.”
Interior of the church, which served many college students and Sherman citizens.
Once again, archival photographs are found in the Austin College Special Collections.
Information is found in both of Light Townsend Cummins’s books about the college.
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