The “Crystal Tree” sculpture in the courtyard of the Rudder Complex has 2,500 pieces of glass.
The L.T. Jordan ’29 Collection includes jewelry, porcelain, silverwork, paintings, rugs, and various pieces of furniture from the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia that Mr. Jordan collected during his career with the Gulf Oil Company and the Kuwait Oil Company.
The MSC Forsyth Center Galleries are home to one of the world’s largest collections of English Cameo Glass, as well as 1,200 American and English glass objects and American paintings.
Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin was named for Captain John Bergstrom ‘29, a reservist in the 19th Bombardment Group, who was killed in the Philippines in 1941. He was the first Austinite killed in World War II.
Campus buses transport approximately 150,000 passengers per week.
The Transportation Services campus bus system is the largest university-owned operation of its type in the U.S.
University Libraries offers more than 400,000 e-books.
More than 14,000 Aggie students are student workers.
The sun never sets on Aggieland, thanks to the branch campus in Qatar.
Texas A&M is one of few schools where men students outnumber women—but just barely (53 percent to 47 percent).
Easterwood Field is one of the few university-operated commercial airports in the nation.
What’s the largest university dining hall in America? Sbisa.
140 campus locations collect and recycle 750 tons of material each year.
From the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, the Cyclotron Institute, in cooperation with Houston’s M.D. Anderson Hospital and Cancer Institute, pioneered the treatment of certain types of cancer with neutron bombardment.
The Center for the Study of the First Americans, part of the Department of Anthropology in the College of Liberal Arts, is the only facility in the nation dedicated to answering the questions surrounding man’s arrival to the North and South American continents
Construction of the Academic Building began in 1912, on the ashes of Old Main. At that time, the use of reinforced concrete was so new that Builder Frederick Ernest Giesecke, Class of 1886 and a professor of civil engineering, calculated how much reinforced steel would be required and then doubled it.
The Mitchell Physics Buildings are the first on campus to be financed through a public-private partnership. The $82.5 million facilities would not have been possible without a $35 lead gift from the Mitchell family.
Only two campus buildings are set to true direction. Dulie Bell and Blocker face due west.
The tallest building between Dallas and Houston is the 16 story (239.5 feet) O&M building.
The largest bell in Albritton Bell Tower weighs 6,550 pounds. All of the bells combined weigh 17 tons.
The mosaic that forms the Texas A&M seal under the Liberty Bell replica in the lobby of the Academic Building was created by Joseph Hutchinson, a professor of architecture. It was a gift of the Class of 1978 and contained 36,000 tiles.
There’s a swimming pool in the basement of the YMCA building, and it was in use from 1917 to 1934.
Texas A&M’s first rooftop garden, atop the new George P. Mitchell ‘40 Physics Building, features 10,000 square feet of native Texas plants.
The Williams Administration Building contains the portrait of a young woman, Sarah Orth, the daughter of the superintendent of construction on the building.
From the time it was completed in 1917 until the mid-1980s, the Pavilion was a dirt-floor arena that could seat about 2,500 spectators.
The Texas AgriLife Extension Service annex, across Lubbock Street from Krueger Hall, was built in 1932 as a stable for 50 horses.
Duncan Dining Hall was built on the site of the old campus cemetery, which was moved off campus near the intersection of Luther Street and Marion Pugh Drive.
The President’s Home was completed in 1963, replacing the former home, which burned to the ground. President James Earl Rudder was the first president to live there.
The 1919 football game between A&M and t.u. marked the start of the Thanksgiving Day showdown tradition.
Did you know that no opponent scored against the 1919 Aggie football team?
Texas A&M played its first baseball game, against Navasota High School, in 1891.
Randy Matson ’67, considered by many to be the greatest shot-putter of all time, won the Silver Medal in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the gold in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
The first play-by-play live radio broadcast of a college football game was WTAW’s broadcast of the 1921 contest between Texas A&M and t.u., which resulted in a scoreless tie.
In 1902, government officials sought to convert the Texas A&M campus into an insane asylum. E. B. Cushing, president of what is now the Board of Regents, came to his alma mater’s rescue.
Nagle Hall and the old State Chemist Building are the oldest buildings on campus, dating back to 1909.
Olsen Field is named in honor of C.E. “Pat” Olsen ’23, who played on the New York Yankees team with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
A rodeo arena once stood near where Olsen Field is today.
Seven women attended Texas A&M in 1922 as “special unofficial students.”
On August 23, 1963, the Texas Legislature approved a bill changing the name of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas to Texas A&M University. After that, the “A&M” no longer stood for anything.
Silver Taps began in 1898 in honor of Lawrence Sullivan Ross.
Lafayette Lumpkin Foster served as president of Texas A&M from 1898 until his death from pneumonia in 1901. He is buried on the Texas A&M campus.
In the early 1920’s, the university operated a zoo on the west side of campus that housed several lions and tigers, snakes, an elephant, an ostrich, and an assortment of deer and elk.
The Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band was formed with 13 cadets in 1894.
What is now the University of Texas at Arlington was once a branch campus of Texas A&M.
The Federation of Texas A&M University Mothers’ Club, founded in Dallas in 1922, is the largest organization of its kind in the nation.
The Liberty Bell replica on display in the lobby of the Academic Building was given to the State of Texas in 1950 as part of a U.S. Savings Bond drive. Gov. Allan Shivers presented it to Texas A&M in honor of the sacrifices made by Aggies during wartime.
A museum was once on the site of the current Langford Architecture building. From 1937 to 1965, it contained an Egyptian mummy that is now on permanent loan to the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Edwin Jackson Kyle, Class of 1899 and the namesake of Kyle Field, used his own money to buy wooden bleachers prior to the first game played on the field, on Oct. 7, 1905. Two years later, he purchased a covered stadium from the old Bryan fairgrounds.
Near the current site of the Texas A&M Foundation once stood as many as 50 “project houses.” In the depths of the Great Depression in 1930s, students lived in the houses, doing their own cooking and cleaning, buying groceries wholesale, and providing their own chickens and livestock for food.
Fifty-three live oak trees were planted around Simpson Drill Field in 1920 in memory of Aggies killed in World War I.
The only official Liberty Bell replica that is not in a state capital is here in Aggieland—in the Academic Building.
The stately Century Oak tree in the heart of the campus is about 115 years old.
Seven Aggies received the Medal of Honor in World War II, matching Virginia Tech for the most honorees of any school outside the service academies.
The current site of the Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building was once home to “tent city,” erected in 1906 to house an overflow of students. The tents were replaced several years later by 165 16-foot-square wooden shacks known as “Hollywood.” When it rained, they were called “Hollywood under the Sea.”
