I think that either Nagle or the Analytical Svcs/State Chemist/Exp. Station (depending on your vintage) is the oldest building currently standing on the campus. Does anyone know if there is a building older than 1909 that is still around?

This came up because of a postcard that I received today.


Postmark:

Dec. 6, 1929
9 - PM
College Station, Texas

Front: Experiment Station, which we now know as the State Chemist building / Analytical services

Text:

quote:

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College Station
Friday Evening

Dear Mother:
I didn't aim to slight you at all, but I didn't know what I was going to do and I do not know yet but I will probably know tomorrow night. I will write to you a long letter then. I think everything will be alright, so don't worry.

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Names are on it, but I do not currently plan to share them.



[This message has been edited by Vestal_Flame (edited 12/19/2011 8:26p).]

Nagle Hall (1909)



Agricultural Experiment Station (Analytical Services) Building. (1909)

Those are the two oldest. Damn shame really, A&M lost some pretty stunning buildings from it's earlier years.

[This message has been edited by p_bubel (edited 12/20/2011 8:21a).]

Simpson Drill Field might be cheating, but it might also be the right answer.

I have this strong memory from 1978--probably from having to transcribe the Ness Hybrid Oak plaque for campo--that either State Chemist or Butler were in red brick. And that, later, ±1980 whichever one it was, was painted the tan color it now has.

Seems there was a trick "Cush Question" back in the late 50's as to where was the oldest recognizable building ON campus.
To the west of the old Exchange Store on Ross, and to the NE of the Fish Pond, there was an open area with a small square of bricks (about two feet high and 3'x3'.) with a little plaque on the side indicating the location of old Gathright Hall.
Well, now after 53 years, Bop thinks it was Gathright ?
Wonder if that little square memorial still exists ? Think not.

[This message has been edited by BeBopAg (edited 12/21/2011 4:18p).]

The plaque was still there when I was a kid in the 1980s.

Approx location of Gathright Hall plaque as I remember it. Square of bricks now gone, plaque changed or moved, best I can tell from Street View.

How do you lose every building from 1876 (construction probably started in 1871) to 1908? No telling how many buildings were needlessly razed. For one Guion Hall should not have been torn down. We needed the Rudder Complex, but not in the exact location where Guion Hall stood. Guion Hall was also the southern anchor of Military Walk.







[This message has been edited by Old Main (edited 12/23/2011 9:29a).]

Bop can just about imagine - campusology Cush Questions have also "vanished" from the scene !

It was once all a vital part of a 9 month integrated circuit, and one Hell-Of-Ah Indoctrination Process, passed (in some form or another) from one Corps class to another.

Yes, times change but some memories never fade.

Fish Camp or Transfer Camp are not the answer (nor not every fish or transfer student attends).

[This message has been edited by BeBopAg (edited 12/23/2011 12:29p).]

It was explained to me that most of the pre-1912 buildings were not of fireproof internal construction (e.g., brick exteriors with interiors largely composed of wood).

Arguably, this probably made those structures more difficult to preserve in the long run.



[This message has been edited by Vestal_Flame (edited 12/23/2011 4:56p).]

That explains Old Main and the 2 or 3 other buildings that burned down. It doesn't explain the other 30 or so buildings that disappeared. The sandy loam soil (too much clay) didn't help either.

For whatever reason Texas A&M decided to tear down dozens of beautiful buildings from the late 1800's and replace them with some of the ugliest buildings ever constructed in the 1970s and 1980s when A&M was growing like a weed. Many of the well-known buildings from the late 1800s were still standing in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. You can see them in the Aggieland yearbooks (I think the last Longhorn yearbook was in 1948) of the 1950s - 1970s.

What I say next is not offered as a defense of the neostalinist architecture, for which I care very little.

The second half of the 20th century was a time of incredible enrollment growth against a backdrop of relatively fixed financial resources.

I'm not a civil engineer, and I've never had an opportunity to discuss the issue with the people who made the relevant decisions, however, my suspicion is that the regents in the second half of the twentieth century barely had financial resources adequate to accommodate growth, much less to provide for historic preservation.

It is frequently easier to destroy old buildings than to retrofit them to code, particularly when they are too damn small to meet current needs.

I suspect that the regents faced a recurring problem of resource constraints.

Look what happened to a classic Greco-Roman outer north zone at Kyle.

Now you've got ah Home Depot facade.


[This message has been edited by BeBopAg (edited 12/23/2011 10:25p).]

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The sandy loam soil (too much clay) didn't help either.

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It was mentioned in one of my Architecture classes that a lot of the older structures had developed significant structural issues due to foundation problems.

That, and as mentioned above, rapid growth found a lot of building in terrible condition and "in the way."

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The sandy loam soil (too much clay) didn't help either.

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Okay, it has been many a moon since Agronomy 301, also known as Murray Milford's Marvelous Mystery Hour, but I'll state for the record that sandy loam soil, by definition, does not have "too much clay". It has loam with some sand.

The soil under most of the campus, if memory serves, is closer to that good old Houston Black Clay. But that's more of a guess.

[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 12/28/2011 1:55a).]

Thanks for correcting me. I don't know that much about types of soil, I just remember reading somewhere that the campus was composed primarily of sandy loam soil and that it wasn't good for the foundations and load-bearing walls that were constructed in the late 1800s.

[This message has been edited by Old Main (edited 12/28/2011 2:49a).]

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Damn shame really, A&M lost some pretty stunning buildings from it's earlier years

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And now parts of Campus look like the old Soviet era downtown Moscow....

Try comparisons with modern socialist architecture of a pre-1989 East Berlin.

(And, it ain't Bauhaus neither.)

The soil in BCS is bad. You just have to drive down the bypass to see the tremendous waves created by the moving soil.

Can't believe someone tore down that beautiful Guion Bldg. at the end of Military Walk. Wow.

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I just remember reading somewhere that the campus was composed primarily of sandy loam soil and that it wasn't good for the foundations and load-bearing walls that were constructed in the late 1800s.

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Loams are a mix of sand, silt and clay. Clays (like Houston Black) are generally the culprit in destroying buildings. The absorb water, swell, then dry and shrink. Not good.

If I remember Mr. Mills from Agro 310 and 318 correctly, the soil series under much of the A&M campus is Lufkin fine sandy loam...

Lc is Lufkin 0-1% slope

Ld is Lufkin 1-3% slope

So, good memory!

Holy thread bump, Batman.

the soils have been reclassified since that published soil survey

it's mostly now called Boonville-Urban and Zach Urban complex or just urban land since its covered in concrete

"Modern" Buildings @ TAMU (over a few storeys) have foundation pillars drilled to the bedrock, to support the building.

They tore town the 1909 State Chemists Building (or whatever it was called) just a couple of years ago, so now Nagle Hall is the oldest surviving building on campus.