Fossil-ag thanks for all the really cool pictures.

you are welcome, betty.

This is the old Municipal Building in downtown Bryan. Does anyone remember it? It is still there.

WOW, Fossil! I really do appreciate the picture of Pfeuffer Hall, too! I haven't seen this one! It will be a great addition to Project HOLD.

[This message has been edited by LWInk2 (edited 9/13/2007 10:59p).]

http://docarc.cstx.gov/DocView.aspx?id=270271&dbid=1

Check out this happy little group. A&M Campus School Class of 1930. This original photo hangs in the office of Project HOLD.

This photo of Pfueffer Hall (pronounced Fi-Fer Hall by the way) is a good illustration of the tangled history of A&M.



The photo was taken in 1952, not long before the building was demolished. The old feller by the doorway is Pinckney L. Down, Jr., class of 1906 and former resident of Pfeuffer Hall as a student ... and known on the campus by generations of Aggies as "Pinkie Downs."

Now one would expect that the P.L. Natatorium that served as the college swimming pool from 1932 to 1997 was named for Pinkie. That is not correct. The Natatorium was named for Col. Pinckney L. Downs who was the personal secretary to the college's first President, Thomas S. Gathright. That P.L. Downs was the go-to guy in charge of all administration, construction and financial matters in those earliest days of the college.

Now one would also expect that because of the Jr in his name that Pinkie Downs was the son of the other P.L. Downs but that is not correct either. Pinkie was the other P.L. Downs' nephew. Pinkie has just purloined the Jr tag somewhere along the way, and also never left the campus after graduation, and also to my knowledge never had a title on campus in all his years except as "Official Greeter" in the 1950s. But he was a friendly feller and made all the Yell Practices at the Grove so was a popular with students for 60 or so years. Howdy, Pinkie, you are not forgotten.

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 9/13/2007 11:37p).]

The Bryan High School in the picture above (sorry, don't know how to post it again) was on the site of the current Fannin Elementary on Baker Ave. It was the second building for Bryan High School. The first one (no longer standing) was on the same block, but faced south and was situated kind of behind the one in the picture. My great aunt worked for BISD and filled me in on the history. If I can find a picture of the original, I'll figure out how to post it.

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I think the old building is at the corner of Simms and 26th St. It definitely looks like an old school. Symmetrical front, dark brick, playground in back. Go check it out and let us know the history behind it.

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This is the old Bowie Elementary. My aunt said they called it the West Side School. Sometime in the 20's and 30's, there were only two elementary schools: Travis and Bowie. St. Josephs owns Travis now and uses it as a lower grade campus.

Good information AgPup80 ...

I have never lived in Bryan so I am weak in history of those old buildings. Here are some dates to go along with your findings:

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By 1917, growth in the city required the construction of a new school (High School). Voters gave their approval for the new building, which was projected to cost $100,000. Ground was broken in August 1918 at a location on Baker Street, the site of present-day Fannin Elementary. The school contained 40 rooms. It included an auditorium with a seating capacity of 1000 and was at that time the largest assembling place in the city. The 35 members of the Class of 1920 became the first to graduate from the “new” Bryan High School.

From 1921-1928, there was no yearbook to record the history of the schools. It was the seniors of 1929 who revived the tradition. Also in that year, the City Commissioner L.L. McInnis announced that Bryan Schools would have their names changed to honor heroes of Texas history. Bryan High School became Stephen F. Austin High School at that time. The school’s enrollment recorded in February 1929 was 361 students.

The black student population continued to grow as well, and in 1930, Kemp Junior-Senior High School was constructed on W. 19th Street.

In less than 10 years, the student population of Stephen F. Austin had grown so quickly that another school was built. In the fall of 1939, students entered a brand new building at 801 S. Ennis. A gymnasium was added in 1956.

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The current Fannin Elementary has columns saved from the old Fannin, but I don't know if those are the same columns from the picture of Bryan High that was at that site?

Scotch ...

Here are your columns at Fannin Elem. Do they match up?

They don't seem to match the picture above, but maybe the middle portion of the columns were not used.

I agree that there seems to be a mismatch. The columns on the old high school have Greek Angular Capitals (the top most part) and the ones at Fannin have the Roman Doric style. The columns seem to be about the same height.

It does not make sense that they would change out the capitals. I do not know what the other high school looked like ... perhaps it also had four columns and those became a part of Fannin. ???

Is there a campus map from the 20s or 30s with the location of buildings marked? I'm particularly interested in the old campus houses. I'd like to see where some of them were, and then be able to pick them out in some of the aerial pictures.

Portions of the original columns are preserved at Fannin inside in the lobby.

KonaAg05 ...

This photo will be a good place to start in a quest of knowledge about the old faculty homes on campus. This photo was taken in about 1900 or so.

The building on the left with the funny domes is the old Assembly Hall (1889-1929) and the larger building on the right is Foster Hall (1899-1951.) The five faculty homes shown face on what would later become Lamar Street and they are sitting on real estate that would in later years become the site of the Rudder Complex and the MSC. Other faculty home pretty much filled in that open space behind those five homes. (And other homes were located in various other parts of the campus but not in the numbers found in the Southgate area.



You may be able to locate a map showing and naming the old buildings at University Archives but I have never seen one. If you have a photo and have questions I can identify the building for you.

This Aerial View 1921-1930 gives a good idea of the campus layout at the time ... but the faculty housing area to the south is not fully show.



[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 9/14/2007 9:28a).]

that last picture makes you realize what a monumental move it was when they built Eastgate and turned the campus to face the other direction toward Texas Ave

Can you imagine the shock and awe (and outrage) when the campus architect, F.E. Giesecke, pointed to that main livestock barn and announced "I want to put my Systems Administration Building right there" ... "and build a new Main Drive running eaststraight through the fields and pastures to a Highway that will be built there."

Found this interesting picture dated 1919-1921.

That's my house.

[This message has been edited by KonaAg05 (edited 9/14/2007 12:27p).]

Listen up, Ags ... I have another campus history lesson for you, and a bit of information that thousands of Ags before you never came to realize. (I will share that secret to you Texags readers.)

Just to the left of center of the photo below and about half inch above the bottom margin is a two story dormitory. That is Austin Hall, built in 1889, a twin building to Pfeuffer Hall that we examined a few posts ago.



The thing you will notice when you identify Austin Hall is that it sits cockeyed to all other buildings in the photo. The secret behind that unique characteristic is the Austin Hall was the only building on campus ever constructed that faces due south.

The front door to Austin faces generally to the back side of Bolton Hall (built 1912, originally housed EE department and in 1989 changed to Political Science department.) So, if Austin Hall faces due south, what direction does Bolton Hall face? Answer: Southeast.

And if Bolton Hall faces southeast, what direction does the Systems Administration Building (and New Main Drive) face? Answer: Northeast.

So, running backs on Kyle Field do not run North-South .... they run Southeast-Northwest.

I had always noticed that our campus directions were off. I once heard an oldtimer say that it was because the tracks are north-south in Bryan and so in CS, we just followed suit and based north-south off of the tracks. Just watching the sun tells you we are off.

It took me some time to get oriented in College Station. When I finally figured out that the corners of campus point North, South, East, and West I was able to get oriented in town.

Northside is more like Westside, and Southside is more like Eastside. Any stories behind the naming of the dorm areas on campus and how they're not really in the direction they suggest?

I think everyone through the years has just adjusted their internal compass to play as if the campus is laid out in cardinal directions with New and Old Main Drives oriented due east and west. (Call it Aggie East and Aggie West.

Check out a local map and you will readily see that Texas Avenue through College Station to the Bend in Bryan is laid out Northwest-Southeast. After the Bend in Bryan, Texas Avenue is oriented almost due North-South.

I posted the photo below on the Aggie Football board to answer questions about Jersey Street, which was the earlier name for George Bush Drive.

I figured some of you on this board would also enjoy seeing the first step in the history of College Station's south side development. This aerial photo was taken in about 1931 or 32. (Recall that Highway 6 was not completed until 1936 and the city of College Station was not incorporated until 1938.)



At that time A&M College had made plans to go out of the business of providing homes on campus for faculty members and had made offers to residents to sell them the houses they were living in at a good price if they would move them off campus.

Some developer (and we need to know his name) platted about 20 acres for homesites along the south boundary of the campus to accommodate families wishing to accept the offer.

The photo above shows the layout of that new addition as it was just beginning to be populated. Also, you can see the lane that ran east-west along the southside of the A&M campus that would be named Jersey Street.

Jersey Street was an appropriate name because other streets in that little addition were also given names of different breeds of cattle (odd but true.) Those streets still exist ... and the street names are the same: Angus, Kerry, Guernsey, Ayrshire, Dexter, Welsh, Hereford, Aberdeen, Shetland and Suffolk. The creekbed in the center of the addition would later be named Brison Park.

The houses on campus that were sold and moved were north and east of Kyle Field. Some of the larger houses were kept by the college and used as classrooms and other purposes for a few more years, but most were moved out.

Also, other additions were platted on the southside after this photo was made to make room for other houses being moved.

Note that the street north of Kyle Field that would later become Joe Routt Boulevard if followed to the east deadended at a square building. That building was at that time A&M Consolidated schoolhouse. In 1940 Consol moved to a new building on the south of Jersey Street between Timber and Andersen streets that would be platted after this photo was taken.



[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 9/17/2007 5:19p).]

Hey Fossil! Love the aerial! The gentleman who helped to develop Southside was Herschel Burgess. Here is a link to Project HOLD and an early plat of the area.
http://docarc.cstx.gov/DocView.aspx?id=56357&dbid=1

The last campus house to be moved off campus was bought by the Ballinger family in the early 60s. The house was moved into two neighborhoods and was booted out of each. The neighborhoods claimed the house was unsightly. The final resting place was at the very end of Laura Lane, 1700 just outside the city limits at that time, 1964. The large rambling white frame two-story house with the big front porch was always one of my favorites. We lived across the street from it and grew up with the Ballinger children.

One more thing....Brison Park used to be called Dexter Park. The center was a lake. But the lake became a haven for mosquitoes and so was drained leaving the small creek and Billy Goat's Bridge. As children, we never referred to it as Dexter Park, we called it Billy Goat's Gruff. All of us children played there: the Worleys, the Boykins, the Baileys, the Holmgreens. In fact, our special little hidden place in the trees with the big tree trunks grown together is still there. I hope to show it to my grandchildren some time.

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So, running backs on Kyle Field do not run North-South .... they run Southeast-Northwest.

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This is obvious when you go to an evening game and notice that the sun sets between the Zone and the West side stands.

Rex Racer ... Perhaps I should have pointed out to the other customers that the A&M Campus is not laid out in a north-south, east-west orientation. The top of the photo is not due North.

The top, right hand corner of the photo points more accurately to due North. The top, left corner points almost due West.

Wellborn Road and Texas Avenue, like Kyle Field run Northwest-Southeast. At the bend in Bryan, Texas Avenue turns to due North-South.


(Ain't nobody gonna believe it but I tried.)

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 9/17/2007 11:16p).]

Very cool pics

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I'm right, you're wrong, have a nice day!

anyone of you older ags recall how twu was a sister school of tamu?

I do! One of the first letters written once an Aggie moved into his dorm was not always a letter home, it was to his "boxmate" at TWU. Aggies wrote letters to the same P.O. Box number at TWU in hopes of striking up a friendship or at least a blind date to a football game. Families all over Bryan and College Station were recruited to host (and chaperone) young ladies for football weekends. It wasn't proper for a young lady to come to a football weekend unchaperoned. A young lady staying at a hotel for the weekend might have been viewed as "loose".

When football season rolls around each year, I miss all of the football mums being sold on the street corners. No self-respecting Aggie's date would be without one! If the Aggie had a bit of money to spend, he'd spring for a $5 mum purchased from the florist complete with ribbons, bells, maroon chenille stem TAM and a mum net! The net kept the petals from falling off after touchdowns. ;-)If money was an issue, Aggies could buy mums on the street corner for $2. These often ended up with nothing but a stem especially if it was a high scoring game. The ultimate use for the mum was to wear to church the day after the game. Worn like a badge, the mum was an opportunity for a young lady to show off the fact that she had a date to the game the night before. Let's bring back the mums! Their not just for homecoming any more!

Bump!

The photo below was taken in, or slightly before 1912, looking east from Old Main, taken probably from the top of the Chemistry and Veterinary Building (built in 1902 at location where Cushing Library would go. (Another barn photo taken about the same time shows Old Main's turrets in the background.)

But the point I want to direct your attention to is in the left foreground of this photo. That very large woodpile provided the heat for cooking and for heat in wintertime for all buildings on campus. You can imagine whose task it was to keep each dorm and classroom building supplied in fireplace wood, cut to specification. "Fish Jones, we are running low on fire wood!)