GCR ... In the bottom photo of the fellows in formation at the West Gate Memorial, I figure your dad could well be a member of that group. The cadets are Sophomores as evidenced by the crease in their caps, they are wearing the wool short coats (which were discontinued in the late 50s), and it is a time of change of season evidenced by the khaki uniforms instead of the greens winter uniform. Your dad's situation considered, I would peg the date of that picture November 11, 1949 (WWI Armistice Day, now called Veteran's Day.) We used to do that sort of thing with our memorials. Don't give him a hard time about forgetting details like that. In 50 some-odd years we have to purge our memory banks from time to time to prevent overload.

Fossil, I don't believe he's in the picture. I looked at it with a magnifying glass and dad doesn't stand out, though you are correct about the timing.

I was going through some more of my stuff and found the comencement booklet from the class of '57. It's a little leather bound booklet with leather straps holding it together. Has a list of all graduating students their majors and home towns. Many have College Station listed as their hometown. There are a couple drawings of campus scenes and the spirit of aggieland is printed on the last page.

I also found the centennial issue of The Texas Aggie magazine from November 1975. It has lots of great pics and info in it. I'll try to scan some and get it posted.

[This message has been edited by GCRanger (edited 2/18/2007 12:53a).]

AggiePhil ... I could not link up with much info on Bryan Field. I know it opened in 1943 and served as a pilot training base, apparently at one time or other primary, basic and advanced instrument training. This is a look at the airfield layout:



Although the Air Force let A&M use the field from 1947 to 1952, it apparently retained ownership until it deactivated in 1961 and transferred title in 1963. Jerry O'Malley, commander of Tactical Air Command until 1985 got his pilot wings at Bryan in 1954. I had a flight physical there in 1955 and took a flight in a T-28 that year with Col John Way, PAS&T at A&M. (Gus Grissom served some time there as an instructor.)

TEEX occupies most of the developed areas of the base now with training for linemen, communications people, law enforcement and now Homeland Security. For several year Texas Transportation Institute has used the runways for vehicle crash testing, roadsign and barrier design and testing. Nautical Archeology at one time used one of the buildings for ancient ship preservation and study. The Ocean Drilling Program stores some of its stuff there.

In the part of the airfield where you see a network of streets, that area in the 40s and 50s was covered with frame barracks, dining halls and administrative buildings. When an air base deactivated those buildings were sold as surplus ... to colleges primarily for $1.
A&M bought a bunch of them, and I assumed many or most came from Bryan Air Base. About 25 of the two-story barracks were set up for married student housing in the area now occupied by foreign married student housing. Sixteen of the two-story barracks were set up on campus as classrooms ... between University Drive and the Reed-McDonald building.

With all the various activity taking place at the field now, I would hope someone has painted great big Xs at the end of anything that looks like a runway. (That big tower you mentioned is one of the activities that concerns me.)

I got excited about this historical stuff and couldn't sleep so here are some scans from the magazine.



page 70


page 71


page 83


page 85


page 94


page 103

i love the caption for the picture with the girl in the shorts.

nice

This one is hanging framed on the wall in my office!!

Aggie99 ... Not quite as impressive but still bragworthy was the 1920 football record. The Ags outscored opponents 229 to 7. Unfortunately those 7 points were scored by tu in a 7-3 win in the last game of the season. It might be noted also that of the 229 points scored by the good guys, 110 of those were against Daniel Baker in the first game of the season. D. X. Bible was head football coach.

Someone sent the link to this forum to me the other day because it mentioned Project HOLD (http://HOLD.cstx.gov). If you want to take a spin around some fun (and easy) files to navigate, check us out. HOLD has been around for only five years, but we are growing every day. This is the City of College Station's Historical Online Library Database. We're open 24/7 and are 100% free. If you have photos, documents or memorabilia that is of interest to folks in the Brazos County area, please let us borrow them for scanning or photographing. We currently have an exhibit at the CS Conference Center about the Lincoln Panther football team and Coach Delley. In July, we will open a new exhibit "College Station in the 60s". We are looking for memorabilia and photos for this exhibit. Email us at aboykin@cstx.gov. Help preserve our local history! (And if anyone has a photo of Lincoln School BEFORE the fire, we would be thrilled to borrow it for scanning!)

LWInk2

Also, did anyone remember that the inscription above the entrance to the old Guion Hall was "Ignorance is the curse of God, knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven"? As a kid in the early 50s we stood on the stone steps, faced the building and walked backwards as far as we could without falling to gaze up and read the inscription on the building. The old Roman letters bothered me for years, what the heck was a "C-V-R-S-E"? If they could make an S curve, why not a U?

LWInk2

[This message has been edited by LWInk2 (edited 2/18/2007 10:44a).]

I've seen the Lincoln High exhibit at the conference center. I enjoyed it throughly.

I was 7 when it burned. It seemed like the whole southgate area stood in the streets and watched it that night.

Here are a couple of interesting ones of Kyle Field when third deck was being built.

Guion Hall ... Chapel, auditorium and theater. Construction completed in 1918. Architect and supervisor of construction was F. E. Giesecke, Class of 1886, who also was architect for Sbisa, YMCA, Cushing Library, Chemistry Building, System Administration Building, Hart Hall and Walton Hall. All Giesecke-designed building are still standing in original glory except Guion Hall. Guion Hall was a beautiful and functional classical structure.


Guion Hall was the southern terminus of Military Walk with Sbisa at the northern end.
Guion Hall was demolished in 1971 to make room for the Rudder Center. Giesecke's crown jewel resisted the blows from a wrecking ball for three days before it surrendered to modern design. ("Ignorance is the curse of God ..." In 1975 Military Walk was demolished and turned into a pedestrian mall.

In 2006, prompted by President Gates, TAMU received design proposals and bids to restore Military Walk to its former image. I suppose a monument will stand in for Guion Hall.

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 2/18/2007 11:46a).]

If only the growth ramp up of A&M hadn't started in the architectural black hole that were the 1970's...you hate to see a building like Guion Hall demolished for a 70's successor.

I realize the evolving architecture was more functional and practical. More attractive? Definitely not.

Its a shame that A&M hasn't paid more attention to preserving its historical architecture.

The YMCA Building is just standing there, unoccupied, wasting away. I hope they get started on the renovations soon.

One of the best examples of recognizing architectural heritage has been the renovation of the second floor of the Cushing Library. I doubt a lot of folks even know it exists.

And I know "culture" is important, but building that appendage on to the MSC known as the Stark Galleries just ruined the Flagroom (and killed some huge trees). Those tall, bright windows made for a great atmosphere. (at least they did get rid of the "Planned For the Future" statue ....)

[/rant over]

[This message has been edited by AGnCS (edited 2/18/2007 12:09p).]

The O&M Building (1973) and the Langford Architecture Center (1978) were the ugliest buildings ever constructed on main campus. On the day of opening ceremonies for the Architecture Center, early that morning someone unfurled a 40-50 foot banner at the top that said "Gawd, I'm Ugly!"

Agree on both accounts............MSC flagroom was ruined after they built that stupid gallery............Langford is not the best build building on campus on top of that.

I remember going over to the Cushing Library for some snacks while I was studing over at Evans during finals. If I remember correctly, you had to go down to the second floor (Evans) to be able to get to the Cushing Library.

[This message has been edited by meteoag (edited 4/10/2009 6:56p).]

The Leaning Tower of O&M.

Another TexAgs urban legend?

I don't think you can get into Cushing from Evans. Maybe you used to could. And who knows, I might be wrong altogether.

Regarding the O&M Bldg., I heard rumors a few years ago that they were thinking about tearing it down. No truth to that at all? At that time they had a covered wood walkway around the building because supposedly some of those huge tiles had fallen off the building. Oops. Is that walkway still there today?

And whoever said that Langford and O&M are the two ugliest from the 70s? As much as I enjoyed living in Dunn, I'm thinking that the Commons dorms probably fit that category even better.

quote:

---

I don't think you can get into Cushing from Evans. Maybe you used to could. And who knows, I might be wrong altogether."

---

You still can, but you have to have the key.

Fossel is correct about the swimming pool in the YMCA. It is still there under the basement floor and can be accessed through a trap door in a maintenance room. This will disappear when they tear down the back half of the YMCA during restoration of this building.

The two fire places are still in the front half of the building and look much the same as seen in the picture of the lounge.

Until the mid-40s, the only ladies' rest room on campus was at the YMCA.


When G.Rollie was under construction in the early 50s a rumor swept through the Corps that stand-up urinals were being installed in the ladies' rooms. I never heard the outcome of that story but it certainly created a buzz in the Corps (most were concerned about what their country mamas would think of such a fixture.)

The Memorial Student Center was dedicated in 1950 to the 916 Texas A&M Former Students who lost their lives in WWII.

This is an aerial view of the A&M campus taken sometime between 1947 and 1950. Obviously many buildings you are familiar with are missing in the photo ... but with a bit of study you see many items present at that time that are no longer present.



First thing, notice at the bottom of the photo that College Station had a traffic circle at that time. It connected University Drive with College Road. And that is the source of the name for the Circle Drive-in Theater you may have heard of ... located in the lower right corner where the semi-circle parallel lines can be seen ... where the Albertson Shopping Center and Mud-Lot are now located.

Lower left in the photo is College View married student housing area. At least one WWII GI barracks can be seen. About 25 others are there but out of the picture.

Above and to the right a bit of the circle is a row of 6 or 8 GI barracks moved in for classroom space. They were refered to as the "shacks."

Bizzell Street did not exist at that time to connect College Road with the semi-circle drive around the Systems Building and continuing to Jersey Street (now George Bush.)
The buildings removed to make way for Bizzell were cow barns ... what is now parking lot and the Polo Field were then cow pasture. The horse pasture was converted into the A&M Golf Course in 1950. (The Stallion Stable is still in use as an office building ... near the bus stop between Teague Center and Commons.)

Note the Baseball Field located behind Kyle Field where tennis courts and parking lots now occupy space.

Edit: Note the grid like shapes in front of the Systems Admin Building. This was concrete sidewalks in a geometric pattern, interspersed with benches. Apparently it was intended as some sort of a formal garden but was never finished as such. The grid was removed some years ago.



[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 2/19/2007 11:35a).]

Traffic circles are cool. There used to be quite a few Texas towns that had them...now many are gone. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two that remain...Waco and New Braunfels. I'm sure that others still survive but I don't know where. Abilene used to have one that was reworked (no longer a circle) sometime in the 80s.

Oh, and "Mud Lot". HAHA...haven't heard that term used in years. Does that still exist? IIRC, that's what people called the free parking lot(s) back behind Northgate, maybe somewhere next to A+ Tutoring?

As for Womens restrooms...isn't there something odd about the Womens restroom in the basement of the MSC? Seems like the girl I was dating in college used to talk about how they had urinals in them or something...anyone know the story behind that? There's a Mens restroom down there too, so...

fossil, do you have a recollection of a place called Arnold's? My dad came to A&M for grad school in the late-1950's, flunked chemistry, and never came back. When I was at A&M in the 80's he asked me a couple of times if Arnold's was still aorund. I told him i had no clue what he was talking about. From the osund of it, it was on Northgate somewhere, perhaps near the circle.

Burdizzo ... I cannot recall any business called Arnold's. After my Fish year we were all housed in the "new" dorms on the south side of campus. Few students owned automobiles so transportation was a problem. The only attractions at North Gate then were churches, a couple of bookstores, Holick's, a barber shop, Wyatt's Sporting Goods, Campus Theater, and a greasy spoon "restaurant" owned by the Arhopulos family. There were no beer joints like line the street today. Generally Corps members rarely ventured to North Gate. The nearest thing to a night out was to hitch a ride to one of the two drive-in cafes ... one at the triangle and the other where Chicken Oil is located. We could buy beer there and oggle the car hops.

Did he mean Arnold's BBQ?

Maybe not, but if so Arnold's BBQ was located somewhere around Eastgate, I think in the vicinity of Red Lobster. Maybe further south around the old Sambo's / Wings n More / now Raising Caine's, but I'm not sure. When Tom and John Beltrand moved here in 1971, they bought it and it became Tom's BBQ.

I think north of Red Lobster, close to where On the Border is.

here's a few pics that I have in my library, mostly from old postcards:

Good pics, warhymnAg. I would suggest you someday think about passing them along to Archives but last time I checked they were 2 or 3 hundred thousand behind in their postings on the website.

Has anyone ordered prints or scans from Cushing? I'm curious to know the scan quality of the photos. Thinking of buying a few to frame up.

i wish those pennants were still around.

I think you fellows are like me ... afraid to visit the Archives in person because once you got inside their collections you would never come back out.