Here is what is now Midnight Rodeo (Shadow Canyon) looking from the gas station at the corner.

Loupot's Bookstore and Used Uniforms at Northgate in the 1950s.

This building is still in use today. Who is the current occupant? (Persons who guessed correctly when this was shown on another thread please give the rookies a chance.)




[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 2/23/2007 1:41p).]

GCRanger - FM 60 is University Dr. FM 2154 is Wellborn Rd.

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Loupot's Bookstore and Used Uniforms at Northgate in the 1950s.

This building is still in use today. Who is the current occupant? (Persons who guessed correctly when this was shown on another thread please give the rookies a chance.)

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BCS Bikes? I think it's that bike shop by Kinko's.

Looks like Cycles Etc. BCS is now over by Blue Baker.

Hint.

In the Fall of 1952 Lou's old store was looking a bit shabby and badly in need of paint. A typical Lou business deal in those days, he invited all Corps Fish units to paint their outfit signs on the sides of his building (that Fall all Fish lived in the dorms on the north side.) There were about 20 outfits competing. Lou got his store painted and it only cost him $5 which he paid to the outfit with the best sign. We got the signs painted in one afternoon with only a few squabbles when someone's paint dribbled on someone else's sign. (I can assure that store was a sight to behold ... and it remained that way for the four years I was in the vicinity.)

Great story fossil.

I was at the Chicken earlier tonight with an architect friend who works for the city of CS. We were discussing this thread and the post of the two buildings at North Gate. We figured they were of one half of what is now the Chicken and of Dudleys.
It appears that the Chicken had a portion added on (the front bar back to the mens room), which would explain the height difference in foundations from one side to the other.

Also, for those who don't know, the Chicken and Dudely's both have 2nd floors. You can see the underside of the stairwell at the Chicken through the far left side of the kitchen area.

[This message has been edited by GCRanger (edited 2/24/2007 12:13a).]

This photo of the A&MC Campus was taken in 1894. Old Main Building would burn down in 1911 and the Academic Building would take its spot in 1912-14.


Has anyone else marveled at the logistical problems involved in those early constructions? The railroad could deliver materials to within a half mile of the site but mule teams and wagons were the only means of transporting all that stone, timbers and board planks up muddy Main Drive.

And where did the laborers, masons, carpenters and craftsmen come from and live during construction? Surely not from Bryan which was five miles away ... and not much of a town at the time anyway.

But those four buildings were all the toehold A&MC needed to begin the climb to its destiny. Ross Hall and Pfeiffer Hall stood tall until 1954. Austin Hall served well until 1955. (I knew them well.)

The old Campus Theater still looked that way well into the 1990's. I lived 2 blocks behind it for 13 years in the apartment building on the corner of Boyett and Church streets.

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But those four buildings were all the toehold A&MC needed to begin the climb to its destiny. Ross Hall and Pfeiffer Hall stood tall until 1954. Austin Hall served well until 1955. (I knew them well.)

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It is pretty amazing when you think about it, the little school struggling out on the open prairie.

It makes the loss of the buildings a little more sad, they served well for a long time and it still wasn't enough to save them.

Some of those workers came from Steele's Store community just outside CS off HWY 21. In its day, it was the largest inland agrarian community of Italians in the nation. My great grandparents settled there in the late 1800s. My parents were instrumental in getting the state marker that commemorates the Italians and their contributions to the community. There wasn't much left in later years. The store, the gin and the school were all that was left. The school is gone now.

LWInk2

LWink2 ...

I had not thought of the Italian community that settled in the Brazos Bottoms. That makes perfect sense that among those early settlers would be persons skilled in crafts and trades brought from the Old Country.

I have been told that the ornamental sand castings that decorated the facades of the old campus buildings were done by a local person (the owls at Cushing, the steer heads, the rams heads, the pigs, etc.) Much of the ornamental concrete work was done at the jobsite ... presumably by the same or equal person. (I have not been able to find that story in print.)

Also, many of the chandaliers in Scoates, old Chemistry, and other buildings were done in the college ME shops .... along with the wrought iron work that framed many of the entryways.

My mother has done extensive research of the Brazos Valley Italians. In fact, that's the title of the book she wrote on the subject. I'll have to ask her about that. Most of our relatives were cotton farmers in Steele's Store. They left to go back to Galveston after the floods wiped them out. But after the Great Storm took its toll there, they finally settled in Dickinson and became grocers. Mr grandfather, after having heard all of the horror stories of flooding, decided to go to A&M and become a Civil Engineer. He graduated from A&M in 1924 and did his graduate work at Cornell. He eventually became the Galveston County Engineer. During his term, the addtional improvements were made to the sea wall. My mother remembers going out to the fields with her dad to oversee the survey crews who were building the Gulf Freeway.

First A&MC Football Field (L to R Buildings are Ross Hall (1892), Old Main(1875), Science Hall(1900) and Foster Hall(1899.)Pheuffer Hall(1887), mostly obscured by trees and Foster Hall, sat partly in front of Science Hall.

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Caption: "Football Stadium," Football field; earliest games were played on the drill field; the school's first "stadium" came into being when E.J. Kyle, chairman of the athletic council, ordered a section of land fenced, 1904; Varsity hadn't and wouldn't play in College Station until 1915.

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[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 2/24/2007 4:34p).]

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 2/24/2007 4:42p).]

Fossil-Ag, my Grandpa worked on A&M buildings but i dont know which or when. Probably before 1920. He was from Austin - suspect he was with a contractor named Wattinger.

[This message has been edited by BigJim49 AustinNowDallas (edited 2/24/2007 10:48p).]

Big Jim ... I am sure somewhere on the campus, probably buried in the College Archives, is a fairly detailed record of who was involved and how they went about building early day A&M. It would be a fascinating read. You can be certain all the tools for high and heavy lifting were devices the workers themselves fashioned as the work progressed. Skids, A-frames, blocks and tackles, common hand tools and ingenuity was the level of construction technology at their disposal for those major buildings.

Frame housing for the faculty and for minor buildings was a different matter. Complete kits of lumber, moldings, hardware, doors and windows in one of several designs could be ordered from a Sears Roebuck Catalog and shipped by rail to the local siding.

Airplanes in the Pavilion!

In WWI of 1472 total graduates of A&MC to that time 702 served in the military, 668 as commissioned officers. 55 died in defense of their country.

When war was declared in 1917 TAMC President Bizzell put the college on wartime footing. The college increased to 10 hours a week military training classes and increased the amount of firing range practice.

In addition, the college set up training for US military members in a number of needed skills such as vehicle mechanics, meterology and aircraft mechanics. More that 4,000 personnel trained on the A&M campus.

The Pavilion became the classroom and laboratory for WWI airplane maintenance. Scoates Hall became the laboratory for truck and other vehicle mechanics.



David W. Chapman, University Archivist, provided a more detailed account of this bit of history in the April 1994 edition of the Texas Aggie magazine. For access to all of David's articles on A&M history visit the following website.
http://library.tamu.edu/portal/site/Library/menuitem.2d2523c97cb4262ebd078f3019008a0c/?vgnextoid=be43c35b248c0010VgnVCM1000007800a8c0RCRD


[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 2/25/2007 12:11a).]

This thread gets better every day. I'll talk to my dad next Sunday and see what kind of info I can get about the late 40's and early 50's. I'll try to get him to write a detailed letter about his time at A&M.

What does one have to do to get the Texas Aggie? I got the stupid 12th Man magazine for a while or whatever, but what about the Texas Aggie? Maybe they're the same thing and I'm just thinking they're different, I dunno.

You guys are early birds! And speaking of early birds, it's the early bird who contributes a minimum of $50 per year to the Former Students Association who receives a subscription to the "Texas Aggie" magazine.

LWInk2

This thread is awesome.

What's the shelf life of a thread? At what point do "they" close it? I hope not for a long time. Is it possible to print some of these? There is such valuable information here that I would like to capture some of it.

If anyone has scrapbooks, photos, memorabilia, etc., that pertains to A&M, College Station, Bryan and surrounding areas, to share with Project HOLD, please let me know. We can scan them in to our database and then give the items back to you. Check us out: www.hold.cstx.gov

At the moment I am especially interested in the 1960s decade. I am preparing an exhibit to open in July.

[/URL]


my dad and "the motivator" as he called it

[This message has been edited by dead zip 01 (edited 2/25/2007 10:39p).]

What bldg is that in the background? Trigon?

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In 1901 the Villa Maria Academy was moved to Bryan following a Galveston hurricane. The Ursuline Sisters were in charge of the school. The Villa Maria Convent was built on St. Ursula's Hill, a mile northeast of St. Joseph's Church. In 1926 Villa Maria Academy was closed after 25 years in Bryan.

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Does anyone know exactly where this Ursuline Academy/Villa Maria Academy was located? Best information I can find only says 1 mile NE of St. Joseph's Church on Ursula's Hill. I'm wondering exactly where it was and what is there now. Can anyone help?

[This message has been edited by AggiePhil (edited 2/26/2007 5:43a).]

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Does anyone know exactly where this Ursuline Academy/Villa Maria Academy was located? Best information I can find only says 1 mile NE of St. Joseph's Church on Ursula's Hill. I'm wondering exactly where it was and what is there now. Can anyone help?

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I think it was located on or near where the Federal Prison is on Ursuline St. Seems like I remember hearing that Allen Academy was located there sometime after Ursuline Academy.

That building behind the guy with "the motivator" looks like Puryear or Law. My bet is Puryear based on the inside corner being on the left, not the right.

[This message has been edited by Birddog (edited 2/26/2007 9:00a).]

Aggie Phil ...

I have not found another photo to verify but my guess is that the pic was made in the quadrangle between Law and Puryear Halls. I am fairly certain there was a spider-web set of sidewalks that connected the ramps.

Corps days at Bryan Air Field 1947-52.

A week or so ago we were discussing the years after WWII when Fish were relegated to Bryan Air Base due to overcrowding on main campus ... and we could not locate pictures in the Archives to document those days.

I finally found a picture (miscaptioned "Veterans line up for housing after WWII.) that in my opinion captures those first days at the Air Field.



My guess is the date is Fall 1948 and the individuals pictured are members of the Class of 1952. Buildings sealed with tar-paper and firring strips were common on military bases at that time. The auto pictured is a 1946 Fleetline Chevrolet. The building in the background I am sure was to become the "Exchange Store" when the campus was spruced up a bit (a combination Bookstore and snack bar.) I visited a buddy there in 1950 and that building is familiar. Those fellows in line are incoming Fish. By 1950 the appearance of the remote campus was greatly improved but still a hot, dry and dusty place.

This aerial photo dated 1931-40 shows the sidewalk pattern within the Law-Puryear quadrangle. It matches the photo above.

A Fruit Orchard on the Drill Field.

The time was 1931, the Great Depression was well underway. In an earlier post I described how students short on funds grouped together in CoOp houses to cut expenses, aided by their parents who contributed farm produce and whatever else they could to get their sons by. Those hard time were not limited to the students. In order to keep the school's shrunken operating budget from collapsing, everybody from President T.O.Walton on down took heavy salary cuts. The college farms went into full production to provide supplemental foodstuff for the dining halls. And the Drill Field was converted to a fruit orchard to do its part.



Perhaps the orchard on the Drill Field was more symbolic than practical (seeing as how much open land was available.) But as it mobilized the campus in WWI, A&MC took action it perceived as necessary to meet the Depression head on. Apparently the orchard served its purpose because by 1936 it was gone as can be seen in the photo above this one.

There are some buildings west of the Law/Puryear complex in the 1931 photo that are not in the 1936 photo. Do you know what those buildings were?

Tom ... That is "Hollywood."

Those buildings were temporary housing for cadets (one-man structures one step above tents.) The head of the Board of Directors (now Regents) was incensed that students would be living is such and that was the impetus needed to get Law and Puryear built in 1928. (Actually, L and P were built where Hollywood was previously located and the college reerected Hollywood just to the west of its former location.)

The building that adjoins the back of Law and Puryear is the Assembly Hall/Dining Hall for residents of Hollywood. A couple of years earlier it was at the north edge of the Hollywood compound.

[This message has been edited by fossil_ag (edited 2/26/2007 2:31p).]