Ode to Pig Bellmont: 1914 – 1923

Pig’s dead. Dog gone.

A century ago, the University gathered to say farewell to a true, loyal, and vociferous friend. Pig Bellmont – a tan and white dog named “Pig” – was UT’s first live mascot. A faithful resident of the Forty Acres for nine years, his unexpected death from a car accident on New Year’s Day, 1923, affected the University community deeply. Hundreds of mourners attended Pig’s funeral and burial on the campus, and the event drew national headlines.

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Born February 10, 1914, Pig was but a seven-week old puppy when he was dispatched to Austin to live with his new owners, Theo Bellmont and his family. A native of Rochester, New York, Bellmont (right) attended the University of Tennessee, played football and basketball, ran track, was an accomplished gymnast, and graduated in 1908 with a law degree. A natural leader, his interest in physical training and education won him the position of Director of the Houston YMCA, where he worked to expand the programs and influence of the “Y.”

Bellmont’s efforts were noticed by UT President Sidney Mezes, who was looking for someone to oversee what was a quickly-growing athletics program. At the time, college sports in much of the nation was coordinated by an Athletic Council composed of faculty, students, and alumni, while each sports team was managed by a student volunteer who oversaw the budget, scheduling, transportation arrangements, uniforms and equipment, and gate receipts. By the 1910s, intercollegiate athletics had prospered to an extent that universities everywhere were looking for full-time administrators.

Austin’s Congress Avenue in 1914.

In December 1913, Mezes hired Bellmont as the first athletic director for the University of Texas, a position he would hold until 1929. His many legacies include the “T” Association for athletes who had earned a letter, the founding of the Southwest Athletic Conference, and the 1916 hiring of Berry Whitaker to initiate an intramural sports program, which has since evolved into the Division of Recreational Sports.

Bellmont, his wife, Freda, and their two children moved to Austin the following month, in January, 1914. The family had already purchased a soon-to-be-born pet dog, but the puppy remained in Houston until after he was weened.

The dog joined the Bellmonts in March, and it was immediately evident that he was a special character. An adventurous pooch, he refused to remain confined to the family’s backyard northwest of campus, and instead followed his owner to work on the Forty Acres. The UT campus was an exciting place, full of attentive students, squirrels to chase, fields of bluebonnets in the spring, and plenty of trees. Bellmont introduced the dog to a few sports contests, who found the games loud, fun, and very much to his liking. It wasn’t long before the affable puppy was adopted by the campus community, and though UT athletic teams were already known as “Longhorns,” the dog was understood to be the University mascot.

Of course, the puppy needed a name, a topic which generated serious discussion. The matter was solved later in the spring when the dog, while exploring the environs of west campus, found himself standing next to Gus “Pig” Dittmar (left). A captain of the football team who also hailed from Houston, Dittmar was named All-Southwestern for three years and was mentioned as an All-American by Walter Camp. An honors history major, his professors urged him to apply to Princeton University for graduate school. Dittmar’s nickname – “Pig” – was given to him by fellow UT students who thought he could pass through a defensive line “like a greased pig.”

The football captain, though, also just happened to be bowlegged. “Dittmar was rather noted for the graceful way in which his underpinnings curved,” reported the UT student Longhorn Magazine. With the puppy and Dittmar standing together, students noticed that the dog’s legs evoked some similar characteristics as the football player. Seized by a happy inspiration, “Let’s call him Pig!” was the decision of the day, and the new University mascot was dubbed Pig Bellmont.

For the next three years, Pig greeted students and faculty on daily rounds. He frequented classrooms. Sometimes he reposed under the professor’s desk, while on other occasions he eagerly joined class discussions. He climbed the marble stairs up to the reading room of the University Library (today the Architecture and Planning Library in Battle Hall) in search of a scratch behind the ears or a lap in which to snuggle. When he was hungry, Pig sometimes visited the University Cafeteria, then housed in a temporary pinewood “shack,” though he preferred the cuisine of the boarding houses west of campus. At night, Pig retired under the back steps of the University Co-op.

Of course, Pig was a regular at home and most out-of-town athletic events. He paced the sidelines during football and baseball games, and ventured indoors to the gym for basketball season. Pig merrily lent his voice to the support of UT teams and developed a profound dislike for anything related to rival Texas A&M. “If you say ‘A&M’ to him, he will promptly lie down as though ready to give up the ghost in disgust,” related one account. “On the other hand, say ‘Texas’ to him and he starts barking with joy.”

Pig was so loyal, some of the University’s athletes suggested that he deserved a letter, which was granted by the athletic department. (That the athletic director was also Pig’s owner probably helped in this regard.) Naturally, Pig wasn’t able to don a standard UT letter jacket. Instead, a small brass “T” was fashioned at the University’s mechanical shop and attached to his collar. Pig was inducted as the only canine member of the “T” Association.

Atten-shun!! Pig Bellmont – on the hillside to the right – inspects the UT student members of the Student Army Training Corps, housed in barracks built along Speedway Street. Waggener Hall is on this spot today.

When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Pig enlisted. The war transformed the campus overnight, as the University sponsored three military schools on its grounds. The largest was School of Military Aeronautics (SMA), known informally as the “West Pont of the Air.” A precursor of the Air Force Academy, the SMA was created to provide basic technical instruction for beginning pilots before they moved on to flight training. Housed in the buildings on the Little Campus, just north of the present day Dell Medical School (only John Hargis Hall and the Nowotny Building remain), several hundred soldiers at a time arrived for six-week sessions. Pig joined them. If a long hike was part of the day’s activities, Pig was usually near the front. He kept an eye on the barracks while the cadets were in class and faithfully attended inspection each evening. The cadets recruited Pig as their mascot, included him in their graduation photos, and he twice took the train ride to Dallas where the cadets were sent to begin flight training. When he had time, Pig wandered back to the main campus to check in on UT students, most of whom were part of the Student Army Training Corps.

A blurred Pig Bellmont – lower left – stands near the front with the School of Military Aeronautics band on 23rd and Speedway Streets. The towers of Old Main rise in the distance on the hill. The Gates-Dell Computer Science Complex now stands on this site.

Once the war ended in 1918, Pig resumed his duties on the campus. He was a regular at football rallies and games, was often seen having a “vocal competition with the frogs” at the spring-fed pool just behind library (where the West Mall Office Building now stands), and chaperoned couples taking moonlight strolls across the campus. More than once, he accompanied the women’s hiking club on a 20-mile trek from Austin to San Marcos.

On one occasion, Pig was “expelled from the library for talking too loudly.” The Daily Texan student newspaper reported the incident and defended the dog. “It was a case of gross discrimination,” griped the Texan, “for Pig was not making a bit more noise than various other loquacious occupants of the north end of the reading room.”

Pig, though, was also getting older. By the early 1920s, he had noticeably mellowed from his spirited younger days, and he was going blind in one eye, a condition that would have significant consequences.

Early on Monday morning, New Year’s Day 1923, Pig was hit by a Model T Ford in front of the Texas Theater on the Drag, just north of 22nd and Guadalupe Streets. His partial blindness may well have been a factor. He was apparently only injured and made several of his usual appearances before he decided to retreat under the back steps of the University Co-op, but the injuries were to be fatal in the long term. Pig’s body was discovered mid-afternoon on Thursday, January 4th. The news was a tragedy for the entire campus and the decision was made to provide a proper farewell for the loyal canine.

Pig Bellmont lay in state in front of the University Co-op.

On a partly cloudy Friday afternoon, January 5th, starting at about 3:30 p.m., Pig Bellmont lay in state in front of the University Co-op, while the American flag that flew above the building was lowered to half-mast. He rested in a specially-crafted black casket, draped with evergreen boughs and orange and white ribbon. Assembled the previous evening, the closed casket included a viewing window. For the next hour-and-a-half, hundreds filed by and paid their final respects.

Pig’s funeral procession began down Guadalupe Street at 5 p.m., January 5, 1923. Click on an image to see a larger view.

By 5 o’clock, members of the Longhorn Band had arrived and a one-of-a-kind funeral procession was underway. Playing Chopin’s “Funeral March,” the band led a somber and respectful crowd south on Guadalupe to 21st Street, then east to the old Law Building, where the Graduate School of Business building now stands. Behind the parade was an impressive column of automobiles – mostly Model T’s – which brought still more grievers. Carrying the casket, Pig’s pallbearers were members of a new student group called the Texas Cowboys.

Pig’s casket was carried by members of the Texas Cowboys. Click on an image for a larger view.

The band made its way to a tiny grove of three live oak trees just north of the old Law Building. Rows of folding chairs were provided for the mourners, but quickly filled, and it was standing-room only for the service. A few of the children present, desperate for a better view, scaled the trees and sat in the lower branches.

Mourners assembled just north of the old Law Building, where the Graduate School of Business building now stands. Click on an image for a larger view.

When everyone assembled, Thomas Taylor, the red-haired founder and first dean of UT’s engineering school, climbed upon a wooden crate to be seen by all and delivered an impassioned eulogy for the fallen mascot. “Let no spirit of levity dominate this occasion,” Taylor began, “a landmark has passed away.” The Texan reported that Taylor, “In a voice that he could not restrain from trembling slightly . . . recited those lines penned by Lord Byron as a song to his dog. ‘I do not know what joys await Pig Bellmont on the Other Side. But I do know this: that if there is a place of Elysian happiness for dogs, Pig will join that great dog of Lord Byron. Certainly, no dog was ever more deserving of such a reward as he.’”

Engineering Dean Thomas Taylor – center – gave Pig’s eulogy to the hundreds who attended.. Some youngsters climbed the trees for a better view. Click on an image for a larger view.

Taylor’s speech, published the same month in the Alcalde alumni magazine and later in his memoirs, concluded: “In that haven to which he is gone there is a rainbow spanning the sky, reaching almost to zenith, composed not of the prismatic colors but of two colors – Orange and White – and on that rainbow are the word, ‘Always loyal to the team, and win or lose, the team.’ The Orange in that rainbow will recall to him the golden opinions that he has left behind in the hearts of thousands of students and ex-students of the University, and the White in that rainbow will testify to the fact that for nine long years on our campus his record of loyalty was spotless white.”

Following Taylor’s remarks and with dusk approaching, the band played “Taps” as Pig’s casket was lowered into a prepared grave. “Then, as the last low strains of the call died away,” observed The Texan, “and as the listeners were standing breathless, there wafted on the air the notes of the same call, from another point on the campus.” It was a lone trumpeter who, on cue, played “Taps” for Pig in front of the old Main Building.

A temporary marker which read, “Pig’s dead. Dog gone.” was left at the grave site.

The students left a makeshift, handwritten placard with a simple epitaph: Pig’s Dead. Dog gone. Harry Beck, the University’s long serving Superintendent of Grounds, had planned a formal marble tombstone to read: Pig Bellmont, Only a dog, but true to Texas, Born: February 10, 1914, Died: January 4, 1923. The marker, though, was never placed.

News of Pig’s passing and his funeral was reported in newspapers across Texas as well as in national publications. The Houston Post lauded, “Pig never missed a football game nor any other large assembly of students, and he frequently attended classes and studied in the library,” while the Corsicana Daily Sun claimed, “Students know better than to stride recklessly into a classroom when the professor is in the midst of a profound dissertation, but Pig always chose the middle of the class hour to march majestically in and take his place in front of the desk.” The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that Theo Bellmont had been offered a three-month old English bulldog as a new mascot, but it was simply too soon to replace the venerated Pig. Nationally, the popular Outing magazine provided a full account of Pig’s funeral for its readers and added, “His spirit was genuinely one hundred percent Texas, and he left folks know it. He had a pair of eighty-horse-power lungs that were brought to disturbing defense for his ‘alma mater’ whenever the name was mentioned.”

Theo Bellmont received sympathetic messages from many alumni and friends, including a telegram sent by Gus Dittmar, then in Houston: “I mourn with you and all of Varsity the loss on my old namesake. I hope that he is now in the happy hunting grounds of all good dogs, where there are endless rows of trees, under the shade of which he may lie; where there are huge stacks of fat bones upon which he may gnaw; and where there are thousands of autos for ‘Pig’ to chase.”

One Hundred Thirty-Nine

Above: The earliest known image of the UT campus, taken in 1883 at the present intersection of University Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. The west wing of the old Main Building – where the Tower stands today – is the only structure.

The arrival of the University of Texas wasn’t greeted with trumpet and fanfare, but with neighs and whinnies.

At 10 a.m. on a sunny, sticky, Saturday morning, September 15, 1883, nearly 300 persons gathered for the opening ceremonies in what was the unfinished west wing of the old Main Building. The audience sat on chairs arranged on a makeshift floor of undressed lumber, surrounded by unpainted walls. The incomplete windows were open to the elements, which required the day’s speakers to compete with the brays and snorts of the many horses hitched outside.

The west wing sat near the center of a square, uneven, 40-acre campus, initially dubbed College Hill. It was almost devoid of flora, save for a thicket of mesquite trees and a handful of live oaks, some festooned with Spanish moss. A great gully extended from the top of the hill to the southeast, dry most of the time but a muddy torrent in wet weather. According to Halbert Randolph, who earned his law degree in 1885, the ornamental shrubbery consisted of “cactus sporting its full-grown fruit, looking like the ripe nose of a drunkard.” For a few weeks in the spring, the campus was aglow with a blanket of Texas Bluebonnets, and the pitiful state of the landscape was temporarily forgotten.

Above: The west wing of the old Main Building, about 1885, surrounded by newly planted hackberry trees. It was made from yellow pressed brick with limestone trim, and had grey slate-tiled mansard roof. Plumbing for the building was incomplete. Out of sight and behind the hill to the right was a temporary lavatory.

To the east, beyond the University grounds, lay vast tracts of pasture land and open prairie. Just to the west, along a dusty and unpaved Guadalupe Street, stood two grocery stores, a dry goods shop, and a saloon.

The sprawling town of Austin filled the view to the south, its 11,000 inhabitants still abuzz over the local telephone service that was installed two years earlier. Austin won the privilege to host the main campus of the University after a hotly contested state election, and as it was already the seat of Texas government, civic leaders predicted Austin would soon be the “Athens of the Southwest.”

Fortunately, there were no proposals to change the city’s name accordingly. Through much of the 19th century, as the United States expanded westward, colleges and universities were desired assets of newly-founded, up-and-coming towns with lofty ambitions, and communities sometimes renamed themselves to reflect their goals. It’s no accident that two of Ohio’s state universities reside in towns named Oxford and Athens, that students enrolled at the University of Mississippi travel to Oxford, or that the University of Georgia is located in Athens.

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Ashbel Smith, a 76-year-old physician from Galveston (photo at left), was selected to chair the first Board of Regents, and was entrusted with the Herculean task of creating the new university. A graduate of Yale, Smith was a secretary of state for the Republic of Texas and served multiple terms in the state legislature.

In the final years of his life, Smith’s passion was the University of Texas. His top priority was to recruit the best faculty possible. Smith traveled extensively, visited colleges throughout the country, and spent many late nights devoted to University-related correspondence. His letters, scribbled by candlelight, are now carefully preserved in the University’s archives.

After nearly two years of effort, Smith and the Board of Regents selected eight professors. Six of them formed the Academic Department, and most were assigned to teach multiple disciplines: English, literature, and history; chemistry and physics; mathematics; metaphysics, logic, and ethics; ancient Greek and Latin; and Spanish, French and German. The remaining two faculty members composed the Law Department. Salaries averaged $2,500 per year, a generous sum in the 1880s.

Most of the professors hailed from Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. To save on travel expenses, Smith convened the first faculty meeting in May 1883 not in Austin, but at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Above: The University’s first faculty. From left: John Mallet, professor of physics and chemistry; Leslie Waggener, professor of English language, history, and literature; Robert Dabney, professor of mental and moral philosophy and political science; Robert Gould, professor of law; Oran Roberts, professor of law; Henri Tallichet, professor of modern languages; Milton Humphreys, professor of ancient languages; and William LeRoy Broun, professor of mathematics.

The initial entrance requirements were determined by the faculty. Candidates for the Academic Department were expected to know elementary Greek and Latin, though French and German could be substituted for those planning to pursue science or literature. Competency in algebra and plane geometry, English composition, history, and political geography were also required. Admission to the law department did not yet require a bachelor’s degree, though candidates were urged to have a strong background in reading and writing English, and a “familiarity of the history of the United States and England.”

In the weeks before the University was scheduled to open, college-aged youth made their way to Austin to present their credentials and be interviewed by the faculty for admission. In a state where 90 percent of the population was classified as rural, many of the candidates were from farms and ranches, the children of pioneers, raised in log cabins with few luxuries. They were practical and self-motivated, but their preparatory education was incomplete. Many did not possess high school diplomas, and the standards for admission were too high. One prospective student who hoped to study mathematics, when asked how much math he had taken, proudly responded that he’d completed a class in “discount and bankruptcy.” Though hindered by a lack of formal education, the young Texans managed to impress the faculty. According to chemistry professor John Mallet, “Boys whose spelling and arithmetic were much behind their years, talked and thought like grown men of house building on the prairie, of cattle driving, even of social and political movements.” At the end of the first day of entrance examinations, the faculty met, discussed the situation, and with a collective shrug decided not to rigidly enforce the “grade of scholarship” established for admission, due to the “limited advantages for education in this state.”

From the beginning, the University was open to women, a progressive statement at a time when opportunities for women in higher education were rare. That UT would be co-educational was the result of a compromise in the state legislature as it debated the bill to create the University. Some members of the House who were opposed to female students were also political opponents of Governor Oran Roberts, and they feared that Roberts, whose term in office was coming to a close, would be named UT’s first president. In order to support the inclusion of women, the legislators demanded that the University be modeled after the University of Virginia, which was then led by a faculty chairman instead of a chief executive. An agreement was reached. Women were admitted as students, but for its first decade, University affairs were the responsibility of the elected head of the faculty. Roberts was denied the possibility of serving as UT’s president, but he was appointed one of the two initial law professors.

While the 1876 Texas constitution mandated the creation of the University, it also required the legislature to “establish and provide for the maintenance of a College or Branch University for the instruction of the colored youths of the state,” which denied the Austin campus to African Americans. It would take another 70 years, starting with the 1950 enrollment of Heman Sweatt in the School of Law, for the University to truly become of and for all Texans.

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Among the speakers for the opening ceremonies was Dr. John Mallet (photo at left). Hired away from the University of  Virginia to teach chemistry and physics, Mallet was elected by his fellow UT professors to be the first Chair of the Faculty.

Mallet cautioned those present not to expect too much too soon, and prophetically compared the progress of a university to the growth of a tree. “It must have a fruitful field . . . but you will be disappointed if you expect it to grow from the seedling to the proportions of a stately tree in a single night. And more will you be disappointed if, in your efforts to hasten its growth, you pluck it up by the roots to see how much the roots have grown.” Mallet also spoke of the students, “to whom the faculty look with peculiar interest and hopes,” and then, directly to the students in the audience.

To the students: “We ask you to be fellow workers with us. You should try to understand your true relations to the University. You frequently hear the phrase used, ‘coming to the university,’ not remembering that you are the university. More than the faculty – more than the Board of Regents – more than all else – it is the students that make the university. It is not the crumbling stones of Oxford, nor the memories of its hundreds of able teachers that make it the great university of England, but it is the never dying intellectual and moral life of the five and twenty generations of men who have gathered there as students. The students are, in the highest and truest sense, the university themselves. If Texas is to have a university of the first class, worthy of the name, the work of the faculty can form but a small part in its success. Its development must be the result of the united efforts of the people of Texas, of the State government, of the Board of Regents, of the faculty, and above all, of the students of the university.”

With an incomplete building, sitting on a mostly barren campus, boasting an inaugural faculty of eight professors, and joined by 221 students, the University took its first, tentative steps upon the stage of Academe.

Advice for UT Freshmen

The next class of “greenhorns” – the Class of 2026 – is preparing to become part of the University of Texas. Since I’m asked about this on occasion, below is some friendly advice for UT freshmen. I hope some of it is helpful.

The Texas Box

Imagine your upcoming college experience as something packed into a great, mysterious box – wrapped in burnt orange paper, of course! – ready to be opened and explored. Surprises, adventures, challenges, and good times are waiting inside. The wrapping peels off easy enough, but before you open the box, you notice a couple of phrases stenciled on the side. They’re found on lots of packages, offer both caution and counsel, and neatly summarize much of the well-meaning advice given to college freshmen:

Batteries.Assembly

A college education isn’t something that happens to you; it’s something that you make happen. Once the school year begins, no one will check on you each morning to be sure you’re on time for class or ask if you’ve finished your homework. You’ll need to find ways to energize and motivate yourself. In other words, batteries aren’t included.  And while the courses you’ll take to complete a degree were designed by your professors, how much you learn from them – in fact, what you take away from your entire college experience – is entirely up to you. Think of the University of Texas as a large community loaded with world-class resources: professors, counselors, tutors, fellow students, libraries, laboratories, residence halls, student organizations, athletic facilities, museums, and theaters, all at your disposal to help build and shape your college education. But this won’t happen by itself; some assembly required!

This isn’t Temporary

Dr John MalletWhen UT first opened its doors on September 15, 1883, chemistry professor John Mallet (photo at left) told the students, “You frequently hear the phrase used, coming to the university, not remembering that you are the university.”  The same holds true today. For now, you’re technically an entering freshman and it’s common to say that you’re “coming to,” or “enrolling in” UT. But on the first day of the fall semester, when you’ve entered a classroom, found a seat, and the professor begins your first ever college class, at that moment you will, in part, be the University of Texas.

Welcome to the community! Though you may only be on campus for a few years, the experiences you have and the friends you make will forever be with you. This isn’t temporary. You will always be a part of the University, and it a part of you.

Be a Sponge

Classes, homework, and library books! Concerts, plays, and intramural sports! Research papers and lab reports! Weekend parties, Longhorn Runs, late night road trips to someplace fun! Football rallies and spring break tans! Study groups and final exams!

The UT campus could not be a dull place if it tried. Gathered here are more than 50,000 students from all parts of the globe, taught by a distinguished faculty whose research is literally creating the future, and assisted by a team of administrators, librarians, custodians, architects, curators, counselors, landscapers, chefs, and many, many others who make sure that everything is running smoothly. There are more than a thousand student organizations, visits by famous authors, entrepreneurs, and world leaders, musical performances by accomplished virtuosos, Broadway shows in the Bass Concert Hall, and exciting athletic events year round. You didn’t come to Austin to hide in your room. Get out there, be a sponge, and soak it up!

There’ll never be enough time to experience everything. Seek out the student activities that interest you, visit the campus museums, attend concerts and special lectures, volunteer for a public service project, and purposely meet others who are different, whose culture or world views are unlike yours. You may never again live amid such extraordinary diversity, and to explore it is an important part of your college education.

With that said –

Your Mileage May Vary

MLK Statue.East MallWhat and how much you do will be different from others. If you’re like most freshmen, you’re about to experience two important milestones: leaving home and living on your own for the first time, and adjusting to college life with new people and in new surroundings. Don’t think that you have to “keep up” with others around you, and don’t feel pressured to take part in activities that don’t interest you just to feel included. Certainly, you’ll want to try new things and expand your horizons, but this is your college experience, so make it your own. Take the time to find the pace that suits you. Keep in mind that sometimes less is more.

Go to Class

It sounds too easy, but this simple habit is, by far, the best way to thrive at UT. No, seriously. No . . . seriously. Just go to class. If you want to succeed at the University – as well as in life – you first have to show up!

On the first day of the semester, take a look around you. All of the other students enrolled in your class will be there. But after a week or two, especially for larger classes, you’ll notice that attendance has dropped off. That is, until the day of the first exam, when there’ll suddenly be a crowd of unfamiliar faces. A stranger might even be sitting in your usual seat! Who are all these people? Many are students who think they can cut class, just show up for the tests, and do well. My sincere advice is not to be one of them.

There are plenty of excuses for not going to class. Some seem legit, most are not: there’s a paper due and you want to spend more time on it, or you’d rather study for a big test you have later the same day. True, there’ll be times during the semester when one class needs more attention than the others, but make sure that you’re still attending all of them. If you miss one, it’ll take longer to catch up than if you were there. Besides, more professors are finding ways to reward those who come to lectures. Some let students know what’s best to study when preparing for tests. Others announce in advance there’ll be extra credit questions on exams, but the questions will be on topics only discussed in class. There may be days when you’re not all that motivated (remember, batteries not included), but if you go to class, you’ll find it’s easier to keep up with everything.

Main Building Inscription

Professors are your Friends

Full stop. Raise your right hand and repeat: “I promise to meet all of my professors within the first two weeks of every semester.”

This is standard college advice, but many students never follow it. Some didn’t talk much with their high school teachers and have continued the habit. Others are a little intimidated. After all, professors are big-time experts in their fields and have other things to do. Would they want to bother with questions from a freshman? The answer is a definite “yes.”

All professors have office hours, designated times during the week when they’ll be in their offices to talk with students. But too often, usually for the reasons mentioned above, only a few appear at the door. “My office hours are a ghost town,” grumbles the lonely prof. Remember, a professor has made a career of research and teaching in a particular academic field, and has a genuine passion for their subject. A curious student, or one who just needs some help with homework and makes the effort to stop by, is welcome.

Introduce yourself to each of your professors within the first two weeks of the semester. Don’t have any questions about the class yet? No worries. Instead, find out more about your instructor. Where did they go to college? Why did they decide to be a professor, and how did they choose their field? What kind of research are they doing? You can also simply ask, “What’s the best way to study for your class?” Once you’ve broken the ice, conferring with your professor during the rest of the semester is easy.

Don’t forget, along with helping you with classes, professors can also be mentors, assist with student research opportunities, or be references for grad school or your first job after graduation.

Study like a Tortoise

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Do you remember Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare? A smart-alecky hare teases a tortoise about his slow, deliberate plodding until the irritated tortoise finally challenges the hare to a race.

At the start, the overconfident hare easily jumps into the lead. Certain that he has the race won, he stops to rest under a tree. When he accidentally falls asleep, the tortoise pulls ahead, and despite a last minute sprint by the hare, the tortoise crosses the finish line first. The moral of the story: slow and steady wins the race.

On the first day of class, each of your professors will distribute a syllabus that includes a description of the course, what textbooks you’ll need, how grades will be determined, the professor’s office hours, and a list of dates for exams, due dates for research papers, or other projects.

This may take a little effort, but create a calendar, either on your computer or something to hang on a wall, and fill in all the tests and other important due dates. You’re looking for a “big picture” view of the semester. You might discover that you have two tests and a paper due in the same week (Ugh!!), but at least you know about it early and can plan ahead.

For each exam, mark the date two weeks before it as the day to start studying. No, this doesn’t mean endlessly poring over your textbook for hours every night. Just start with a half hour or so each day. Review a week’s worth of lecture notes (Don’t just look them over, learn them.) or reread a chapter in the book. Is it a math class? Review one section in the text and work a few problems. A history course? Write out short descriptions of a few people or ideas that are likely to be on the test. As the exam nears, when other students are just getting started and will have to stay up late to catch up, you’ll discover that you already know most of the material. More important, you’ve allowed time for the ideas to “sink in” and truly understand them.

Academic sprinting – trying to cram lots of information into your brain at the last minute – usually results in extra stress and promptly forgetting all that you learned five minutes after the test ended, which means you’ll have to relearn it before the final exam. There’s an old saying: By the yard, life is hard. By the inch, it’s a cinch! Study like a tortoise, slow, steady, and in small pieces, and you’ll be much better off in the academic race.

College is Hard

To have been admitted to the University of Texas, you must have done well in high school. Earning good grades – perhaps straight A’s – may have been relatively easy. But graduating from a research university with all A’s is more difficult and less common. College is intense and challenging, and it’s designed to be that way.

It’s not unusual for a freshman who excelled in high school to struggle in at least one course. It happens. The first test is returned with a grade of “C,” or worse. A poor mark can be unsettling. It can shake self-confidence. “This never happened before,” some students think to themselves, and are embarrassed to tell anyone, including their family. A few resolve to study twice as long for the next test, only to wind up with the same result. They begin to doubt themselves, never realizing that it’s not the time spent studying, but how they study that needs to be remedied.

A few weeks into the semester, if you feel lost in a course, can’t finish the homework, not sure how take lecture notes, or just didn’t do well on a test, don’t panic. What you’ll discover is that, in the long term, you actually learn more from setbacks, from surmounting obstacles, than from breezing through with successes. What’s important is to figure out what went wrong and work to make it right. A lecturer in the business school is quick to tell his students, “Don’t let failure define you. Let it refine you.”

If you find yourself struggling, don’t keep it to yourself, and don’t wait. Use the many resources on campus to assist you. (Some assembly required!) Talk to your professor, classmates, and academic advisor. The Sanger Learning Center offers programs on study strategies and one-on-one tutoring, while the University Writing Center can assist with any and all writing assignments. Check with the UT Counseling Center for help with stress or test anxiety.

Remember, everyone, and I do mean everyone, is overwhelmed by college at some point. Struggling to learn is a time-honored part of the experience. But don’t hold off until the end of the semester. If you need help, seek it early.

College Knowledge

  • Try to make friends as soon as you arrive on campus. Even if you think you’re shy, just remember that starting college is something new for all of your freshmen classmates, and everyone will be a little anxious.
  • Participate in the 360 Connections and join a Freshman Interest Group – a FIG – where about 20 students attend many of the same classes and meet once a week. You’ll see familiar faces right away.
  • Textbooks are expensive. While the local bookstores are convenient, check online retailers (Amazon, Textbook.com, etc) and shop around. Keep in mind that a few classes – Calculus I and II (M 408C and M 408D), for example – use the same textbook. It might be less expensive to buy a used copy than rent the same book for two semesters.
  • When you’re ready to register for courses, keep a map handy to see where your classes will meet. While 10 to 15 minutes are allowed for changing classes (depending on the day), you don’t want to have to sprint across the campus just to be on time.
  • Each building has a three-letter abbreviation, which is part of the campus lingo. The Physics-Math-Astronomy Building is known simply as “PMA.” Lots of freshmen confuse the W.C. Hogg Building (WCH) for Welch Hall (WEL), which are next to each other.
  • If you’re living on or near campus, you probably won’t need a car for your freshman year. Most of your time will be spent on campus anyway, and a car will just be an extra hassle. Besides, the University has an extensive shuttle bus system, and students ride for free on city buses. But if you need a vehicle, keep in mind –
  • There are never enough parking spaces for students. Or for faculty and staff. A campus parking permit is better known as a “hunting license.” It’s easier with a garage pass, but pricey.
  • Bicycles are a great way to get to and from campus, but are not as easy to ride during class changes. Remember, there’ll be tens of thousands of students and professors changing classes with you. Don’t forget to register and secure your bike. A U-lock with a flat key is best, though the UT Police Department recommends double locking your bike.
  • Sit in the front half of the classroom. You want see what’s being written on the chalkboard or projected on a screen. If it’s a science class, the prof might have a physics or chemistry demo. Some claim sitting up front scores points with the professor. Maybe. But if you just show up, take part, and visit during office hours, they’ll get to know you. It’s more important simply to sit where you have a good view.Battle Hall Reading Room
  • Where to study? Your dorm room usually has too many distractions. Try a study lounge or a library. The Perry-Castaneda Library – the PCL – is popular, in part because you’re allowed to bring food with you. (Yes, students have pizza delivered to the PCL!) Another good place, especially for group study, is the first floor of the Flawn Academic Center, or the FAC. The most collegiate looking is either the Hall of Noble Words in the Tower or the Architecture Library on the second floor of Battle Hall (photo at right). It was originally UT’s first library building, opened in 1911. No food allowed, but great atmosphere.
  • Bring an umbrella! It does rain in Austin occasionally, and you’d be surprised how many students forget. They trudge across campus in a downpour without any cover and show up to class drenched and dripping. It’s not pretty.
  • Do your laundry on a weekday and avoid the weekend rush. (And don’t forget, hot water for whites, cold for colors!)

Break Out of the Burnt Orange Bubble

Burnt Orange BubbleFrom classes to residence halls to student groups to football games, you’ll wind up spending much of your time on campus. But don’t forget to break out of the campus bubble now and then and explore the city of Austin. Visit the Texas Capitol, swim in Barton Springs, climb the steps to Mount Bonnell for an amazing view, or dress up for the giant Halloween party on Sixth Street. The Austin City Limits Music Fest and the South by Southwest Conference make international headlines for a reason. Be like the locals and go kayaking, paddle boarding, or sailing on area lakes, or running and biking on the trails. Or just enjoy some of the live music that’s everywhere: along Sixth Street, in cafes around town, and in some grocery stores. (Yep. In Austin, bands perform in grocery stores.) There’s something going on just about every weekend.

Better yet, just go away. If at all possible, participate in a study abroad program sponsored by UT’s International Office, if only for a summer. There are major-specific options where courses taken will count toward your degree, shorter summer programs led by UT faculty, and scholarships available to help with costs. If you haven’t traveled outside of the United States, to immerse yourself in a different culture, with its own language, food, and customs, where you are the visitor, is a great adventure and a guaranteed life-changing experience.

Eiffel Tower.Paris

UT Phone Home

You’ll be busy, but remember to call, text, email, Facebook, Tweet, Tik Tok, Snapchat, Instagram, shout, or just wave in the general direction of home occasionally. Your family wants to hear from you.

Stop and Think

You’ve probably heard the adage: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. There’s a higher ed version: You can lead a student to college, but you can’t make him think!

In the 1950s, former UT President Harry Ransom described the campus as a “field of ideas,” and believed the pursuit of those ideas to be “one of the major undertakings of a university freshman. It is a highly personal undertaking, as unpredictable in its opportunities as it is in its rewards.”

Student life is hectic, but in between the barrage of classes, homework, and student activities, find some time to stop, think, and take stock. What are you learning this semester, and how does it fit into a overall view? How do your various courses – literature, science, business, history, engineering, culture – connect together? (They do.) “A student may choose his courses, pore over his texts, listen to his teachers, exchange opinions with his contemporaries,” wrote Ransom, “but still miss the main chance for developing ideas significant to him. If he is to complete the pursuit of ideas, he will get off by himself, shut up, and think. Too much higher education today neglects that lowly exercise.”

Why are You Here?

UT Tower FireworksWhy go to college? Easy. By far, the most popular answer is “to get a job.” And it’s true. A college degree opens doors to more higher earning opportunities. At least one study claims a college graduate earns, on average, $1 million more over a lifetime than someone without a degree. But while you’re thinking about a career, keep in mind that there’s more going on here.

If you go looking for the purposes of a college education, you generally find three distinct goals. The first is practical: to be more employable. Be aware, though, that some of what you’ll learn will eventually become outdated. A broader education that gives you the ability to grow and adapt to new things is best.

Your parents are a good example. They would likely have been your age in the 1990s. As they set out into the world – whether or not they went to college – they encountered new inventions such as email, the internet, e-commerce, smart phones, and social media, all of which radically altered the world and the workplace and created jobs that no one had yet imagined. After you graduate, the world will continue to change in surprising ways. While you’ll have a major field of study, remember that a UT education shouldn’t limit you to a single profession. Let it prepare you to grow into professions not yet invented.

Commencement,Main BuildingA second reason for going to college has been boldly displayed on the University’s Seal for over a century. The Latin motto Disciplina Praesidium Civitatis comes from an 1838 speech by Mirabeau Lamar, a president of the Republic of Texas. He declared that a “cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy.” Lamar echoed the thoughts of John Adams in the 1700s, “Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.”

After graduation, you will be more than your chosen profession. You’ll also be a voter, a juror, perhaps a leader in your community. To know and understand the issues of the day, to be able to articulate opinions and make educated choices, to be a participating citizen, all of this is crucial to the future.

The third aim of college is more vague and difficult to measure, but your time on campus will allow you experiences that might otherwise be unavailable. Perhaps it’s gaining an international perspective through travel, a refined appreciation for music, art, film, or architecture, a deeper understanding of classical literature, or a better grasp at the importance and wonder of the latest scientific discoveries. College isn’t just about learning to make a living; it’s also about learning what makes life worth living.

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Orange BoxDon’t forget! There’s a great, mysterious box waiting with your name on it. Inside are surprises, adventures, challenges, and good times. Soon it will be time to open it. Before you do, pack some extra batteries. You’ll want all of the energy you can get!

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A reminder: The UT History Corner is not an official publication of the University of Texas. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author.

Myth-Conceptions: Some UT Campus Myths

Have you heard? The main library at Indiana University is sinking into the ground at the rate of an inch a year. The fault lies with the building’s designer – a graduate from rival Purdue – as he didn’t take into account the extra weight of the books on the shelves. At Iowa State University, any student who carelessly steps on the bronze zodiac inlaid on the floor of the student union building is thereby “cursed” to flunk their next exam. Undergraduates at Princeton warily avoid exiting through the Fitz Randolph Gate at the campus entrance before they graduate. Otherwise, they may never complete their degrees. And at Columbia University in New York, the famous statue of Alma Mater has an owl hidden within the gatherings of her robes. Incoming freshman are told that the first person to find the owl will become the class valedictorian.

Above: The Alma Mater statue at Columbia University. Looking for the owl? Check the robes just behind the left leg.

These are all campus myths, of course. They’re as endemic to college life as all-night study sessions during final exams. The University of Texas has its own collection of myths and lore. Some have been rooted on the campus for decades, while others are relative newcomers to the Forty Acres. Below is a sampling.

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Myth: When viewed from an angle, the UT Tower looks like an owl because it was designed by a Rice University graduate.

This myth is as old as the Main Building. When the top of the Tower is seen diagonally, two of the faces of the clock appear to be a pair of owl’s eyes, while the pointed corner of the observation deck suggests a beak. This is intentional, as the story is told, because the Tower was designed by a graduate of Rice University, whose mascot is the owl. The same myth has been extended to Austin’s Frost Bank Building downtown. Apparently, Rice alumni are very busy.

Actually, the architect of UT’s Main Building and Tower was Paul Cret, who was born in Lyon, France in 1876 and graduated from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, then considered the finest place in the world to study architecture. When he was hired as consulting architect by the University in 1930, the 44-year old Cret had immigrated to the United States, was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and had his own private practice with offices in downtown Philadelphia.

In 1933, Cret completed a campus master plan that influenced the University’s architecture for decades. The South Mall and its “six pack” of buildings, the West Mall guarded by the Texas Union and Goldsmith Hall, the East Mall with the Schoch and Rappaport Buildings, Hogg Auditorium, Mary Gearing Hall, and Painter Hall are all among the products of Cret’s directions.

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Myth: The Perry-Castaneda Library was designed in the shape of Texas.

University librarians were fielding questions about the shape of the Perry-Castaneda Library well before it opened in 1977. The PCL – informally known as the “PiCkLe” – was planned by the San Antonio architecture firm Bartlett, Cocke and Associates, Inc. and proactively designed to ease the pedestrian traffic around it. Instead of a traditional square or rectangular footprint, corners were trimmed to allow for diagonal pathways in front and behind the building. Other parts were extended to make the best use of available area. The end result was actually meant to better resemble a pinwheel, not the Lone Star State. The Board of Regents approved the plans in March 1974, along with $17 million for construction. (For more about the PCL, see: Forty Years on Forty Acres.)

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Myth: The campus purposely has no North Mall as a Southern snub to the “Yankees.”

This is one of several North vs. South-themed myths which have pervaded the Forty Acres for decades. Another one claims that George Littlefield, the original owner of the Littlefield Home and a Confederate Major, donated the original land for the University campus but stipulated that no building be allowed to face north. None of this is accurate.

A North Mall was indeed planned for UT, a feature of Paul Cret’s 1933 campus design. Extending north from Mary Gearing Hall, where University Avenue can be found today, the mall was to have been the centerpiece of an intended Women’s Campus and bordered by women’s residence halls, Mary Gearing Hall (then used for the home economics department), and the Anna Hiss Women’s Gym. The mall was to have been longer than its counterpart to the south.

Above: An architectural rendering of the women’s campus north of the Tower, with the Alice Littlefield Dorm for freshmen women at far left and Anna Hiss women’s gym toward upper right. In the center, extending north from Mary Gearing Hall, was the proposed North Mall.

Funding issues delayed the mall during the Great Depression in the 1930s and again when World War II diverted the University’s priorities to the war effort. After the war, the needs of the campus had drastically changed. Returning veterans on the G.I. Bill flooded colleges across the nation; UT’s enrollment more than doubled in just three months, from 6,800 students in June 1946 to more than 17,100 the following September.

The land along University Avenue was needed for other purposes, including a Student Health Center at the corner of University Avenue and Dean Keeton Street (opened in 1950 and since replaced by the Biomedical Engineering Building) and a new facility for the College of Pharmacy, which was sharing an overcrowded Welch Hall with chemistry. With the additional traffic, University Avenue was needed for access and parking, and when the Blanton Residence Hall opened in 1955 on the west side of the street, a grand North Mall no longer seemed feasible.

Above: A 1958 view from the Tower Observation Deck. What was to have been the women’s campus now has a Student Health Center (top right) and a Pharmacy Building on the east side of University Avenue, and the Blanton residence hall to the west. The needed parking prohibited the development of a North Mall.

Why isn’t there a mall on the north side of the Main Building? The reason is a boring, practical one. The Main Building and Tower were completed in 1937 as the new central library, and while malls do extend directly from the building to the east, west, and south, one side needed to be left available for deliveries and emergency vehicles.

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 Myth: The Board of Regents refused to name the East Mall Fountain, “Peace Fountain.”

As the story goes, when the East Mall and its fountain were completed in 1969, UT students, many of them engaged in anti-Vietnam War protests, asked the Board of Regents to label the new water feature “Peace Fountain.” Allegedly, the regents sarcastically responded by naming it “Pease Fountain” after Elisha Pease, the 1850s Texas Governor who strongly advocated for the founding of the University of Texas. There is some truth here, but only with the first half of the tale.

Completed in May 1969, the East Mall Fountain was an instant hit on the campus, and briefly became something of a mini-Barton Springs. Bathers, waders, and floaters were common in the shallow pools, while others sat along the upper level with legs dangling over the cascade, or lounged and sunned on the grassy expanse of the East Mall. In true Austin style, skinny dippers were occasionally spotted in the fountain late at night.

At 2 p.m. on the sunny afternoon of August 3, 1969, several hundred “hippies, would-be hippies, and clean-cut American kids” gathered at the fountain. Organized by the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, a brief ceremony  dubbed the structure “Peace Fountain” before the group took full advantage of the cooling waters on a hot summer day. The event was reported in both The Daily Texan and The Austin American.

Less than two weeks later, on August 14, the Board of Regents voted to ban all wading and swimming in any of UT’s fountains. There were numerous complaints of trash, including beer bottles, left in an around the East Mall Fountain. The glass covers of the underwater lights had been removed and broken, with the electrical wires torn out, which created a hazardous situation. There were also genuine concerns over someone falling from the fountain’s upper level.

Though wading was prohibited, the unofficial name “Peace Fountain” remained, and the new campus landmark often became a focal point for anti-war activities. When the LBJ Presidential Library was dedicated in May 1971, and with Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon at the ceremony, members of Veterans Against the Vietnam War tossed their military medals and ribbons into the fountain as a protest.

There was never a student request to rename the East Mall Fountain, but “Peace Fountain” was the preferred campus moniker for almost a decade. The Texan regularly used it as late as 1978.

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Myth: The window pattern on Burdine Hall resembles a punch-out computer card because the building was supposed to house the computer sciences department.

Certainly, the window pattern on Burdine is unusual, and this kind of thing is ripe for a campus myth, but it’s not true. Burdine Hall was opened in May 1970 for the departments of Government and Sociology. It’s named for John Alton Burdine, a longtime government professor who also served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (which has since been separated into several colleges and schools).

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Myth: Destined to be cut down for a construction project, the Battle Oaks were saved by Professor William Battle when he sat in one of the trees with a shotgun and defied the administration.

Not a chance. In fact, using a shotgun at all would be very much out of character for the bookish Dr. Battle.

A native of North Carolina, Battle was a newly-minted Harvard Ph.D. when he joined the UT faculty in 1893. A professor of Greek and classical studies, he quickly rose through the academic ranks, served as Dean of the University (today called the Provost), and was appointed President ad interim. Along the way, Battle founded the University Co-op through a $2,300 personal loan (his annual salary was $2,500), compiled the first campus directory, and designed the University Seal.

Perhaps Battle’s greatest contribution to UT was his tenure as chair of the Faculty Building Committee, which oversaw the development of the campus. Battle headed the committee for nearly three decades, from 1920 to 1948, and he took great care to ensure that campus designs and buildings were both appropriate to their setting in Texas and reflected the high aspirations of the University.

Above left: A 1932 photo of Dr. William Battle with a bundle of drawings for the future plans for the campus.

In the early 1920s, plans emerged to build a Biological Labs facility at the southeast corner of Guadalupe and 24th Streets, which would have required the removal of the University’s oldest live oak trees. Students and alumni raised concerns, while a faculty group  presented Battle with a formal petition. Battle agreed that the trees should remain, took the matter up with the Board of Regents and convinced them to move the building farther east, where it stands today. The oaks were later named for their champion.

Above: The Biological Labs building under construction. It opened in 1924.

A potential source of this myth can be found in the UT archives. Among those who advocated for preserving the trees was former law professor (and future Board of Regents chair) Robert Batts. In a letter to Battle, Batts passionately wrote that he would “come down to Austin with a shotgun, if necessary” to save the oaks.

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Myth: The George Washington statue is on the South Mall because Washington appeared on the Seal of the Confederacy.

A decade ago, there were six additional statues along the South Mall as part of the Littlefield Gateway, and four of them were of persons with direct ties to the Confederacy. It’s understandable that a visitor back then might think the likeness of Washington was connected to the same undertaking. It was centrally positioned, surrounded by the other statues, and was sculpted by the same artist. A closer inspection of the dates and inscriptions, though, shows the Washington statue was a separate project with a very different intent.

The statue of George Washington was the dream of Austin resident Frances Campbell Maxey, an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) and the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, the first historic preservation group in the nation, where Maxey served as the Association’s Texas representative for 36 years. The main visitor gate to Mount Vernon, opened in 1899 as the “Texas Gate,” was built because of Maxey’s fundraising efforts in the Lone Star State.

Maxey read a 1924 newspaper report that claimed Texas was the only state in the Union without a likeness of George Washington. The issue remained with her for years until the D.A.R. began discussions on how to best observe Washington’s 200th birthday in 1932. At Maxey’s suggestion, the D.A.R. asked the University if it might donate a sculpture of Washington for the campus. The UT Board of Regents “heartily” approved of the idea at its September 1930 meeting.

The intent was to have a statue installed by the Washington bicentennial in February 1932, but the Great Depression made fundraising difficult, as well as the Second World War that followed. (The same affected construction of the North Mall as discussed above.) Not until the 1950s was fundraising completed and artist Pompeo Coppini, who’d sculpted the Littlefield Fountain and other South Mall statues, secured for the project. The statue was dedicated in 1955.

While a likeness of Washington did appear on the Confederate seal, it wasn’t the motivation behind the statue on the Forty Acres. (For more about the Washington statue, see: How George Washington came to the University of Texas.)

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Myth: Bevo was named because of the Aggies.

Some myths are stubborn. This legend was debunked more 20 years ago but continues to be told, especially by football fans in College Station.

For decades, the claim was that Texas A&M was directly responsible for naming the University’s longhorn mascot “Bevo.” The steer was a gift from UT alumni, presented to students at halftime of the 1916 Texas vs. A&M football game in Austin. The Longhorns went on to win 21 – 7, but several months later, in February 1917, a group of Aggie pranksters snuck into town late at night and branded the steer 13 – 0, the score of the 1915 game in College Station when A&M prevailed. Thus far, this is accurate.

Aggie fans, though, went on to assert that, in order to save face, UT students altered the brand. The “13” was changed into a “B,” the dash into an “E,” a “V” inserted before the “0,” and thus was born the name “Bevo.” This is a myth.

First, there is ample printed evidence soon after the football game that the steer was already known as “Bevo,” both in the Alcalde alumni magazine and in newspapers around the state. One of the articles was dated December 12, 1916 – less than two weeks after the game – and published in the Bryan-College Station Weekly Eagle (left), the hometown newspaper for Texas A&M!  This was two months before the steer was branded.

Second, there’s no record that the brand was ever changed. No photo of the mascot with “Bevo” on his side, no mention in any newspaper or any other published source. Some might argue, “well, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” but history requires evidence. Using the same line of thought, we could also claim that Bevo was abducted by space aliens; the lack of supporting proof doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!

Besides, there are several accounts that describe the UT mascot as sporting his original brand. Perhaps the most important is from the Longhorn Magazine, published by UT students. It ran an article about the January 1920 football banquet – in honor of the 1919 team – where the steer, too wild to bring to football games and too expensive to maintain, wound up being the main course for dinner. A delegation from A&M was invited to attend and the history of the mascot was told. The magazine specifically mentioned the original, unaltered brand: “The half of the hide bearing the mystic figures 13 to 0 was presented to A and M with appropriate ceremonies.”

The steer was called “Bevo” months before he was branded and the brand was never changed. (For the story oft he first Bevo mascot, go here.)

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The Great ‘Dillo Debate

Fifty years ago, UT students considered replacing the Longhorn mascot.

It was never meant to be taken quite so seriously. On Tuesday, November 2, 1971, the University’s Student Senate unanimously approved a resolution, introduced and supported by Student Body President Bob Binder, to poll UT students about switching the University’s mascot from the longhorn to the armadillo.

The idea originated the previous August at the annual National Student Association conference, where student leaders from neighboring states were divided into regions. Those from Texas and Oklahoma were considered the “Greater Southwest,” but they didn’t care much for the moniker and opted instead to call themselves the “Armadillos.” The name resonated with Binder and the other UT students who attended the conference, and they wondered if a mascot change might have some interest on the Forty Acres.   

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The nine-banded armadillo – dasypus novemcinctus – is a medium-sized, mostly nocturnal mammal that feeds on insects and grubs rooted from the ground by the claws on its forefeet. As anyone who has seen one knows, an armadillo’s most recognizable trait is the tough bony shell that protects most of its body like a shield of armor. Actually, “armadillo” is a Spanish term that translates as “little armored one.”

Though its appearance might not be all that impressive, a ‘dillo is not without its talents. It can hold its breath for nearly six minutes – probably developed after keeping its snout buried in the ground for long periods searching for food – and when it needs to forge a creek, there’s no need to swim. The armadillo simply holds its breath and saunters across the creek bottom. If startled or threatened, it can launch itself three or four feet in the air or run short distances up to 30 miles-per-hour, faster than an Olympic sprinter. The former is likely meant to surprise a potential predator and give the ‘dillo a few moments to scamper to safety, but when an armadillo crosses a busy Texas road and is scared by a passing car, a jump up and into the underside of the vehicle is often, unfortunately, deadly.

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On campus, news of the Senate’s resolution was met with shock, disbelief, and laughter. Head Football Coach Darrell Royal chuckled with no additional comment, while quarterback Donnie Wigginton responded with a long, incredulous “why?” Some students voiced their support of the idea. “I think it’s great. I do. I think we need a change,” stated one student in The Daily Texan. “I think it’s just student attitudes towards the system. I like it,” echoed another.  “The armadillo represents the state of Texas as well as the longhorn,” said a third, “they’re all over the highway, too.”

Alumni were less accommodating, and Binder’s mailbox was soon full of letters from unhappy UT graduates: “The prospect of having an armadillo as a mascot may amuse some of the students, but I’m sure I speak for several thousand Texas Exes when I tell you that we are, very definitely, not amused.” Another was less tactful, “I have heard of some fantastically idiotic happenings at the University of late but this has to be the most blasphemous piece of rot that ever crept across the campus.”

The news media had a field day. Not only did newspapers and TV stations across Texas carry the story, it was mentioned as far away as Orlando, Florida, north to the town of Petoskey, Michigan, and west to the California coast. The University of Texas, after all, had been named national football champions for the past two years, in 1969 and 1970. For the Longhorns to consider trading in their iconic image for the humble armadillo was, well, news.

Above: Headlines from the nation’s newspapers.

When asked, Binder claimed that the armadillo was a “peaceful and ecologically-minded animal, and cheaper to maintain than a longhorn.” The comment fit well with the times. University students were caught up the activism of the late 1960s and early ‘70s, including civil rights and anti-war protests, women’s liberation, and the ecology movement, where pro-environment political action had led to the passage of the Clean Water Bill and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. On campus, students had already made international news over their protest against the removal of trees along Waller Creek (see The Battle of Waller Creek) and had unofficially named the new East Mall Fountain, “Peace Fountain.”

Pervasive as it was around Central Texas, the ‘dillo had also gained a following in Austin. The Armadillo World Headquarters, opened in 1970, quickly became the city’s best-known music venue, and when the Austin American-Statesman’s Capital 10,000 race debuted in 1978, “Dash the ‘Dillo” was the event mascot.

Still, not everyone on the Forty Acres was convinced. “I fail to see why an insect-eating armadillo is more ‘peaceful’ than a grass-eating steer,” opined one UT student, while another thought that the Student Senate “might have more important things to worry about.” Texan columnist Hartley Hampton pointed out that, “Bob Binder is a peaceful and ecologically-minded animal, and cheaper to maintain than a longhorn,” and promptly suggested that Binder be the new mascot.

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As the fall semester progressed, the ‘dillo debate continued, though much of it more sarcastic than serious. The Friday after the Senate approved its resolution, a football rally was held in Gregory Gym where many of the students attended holding images of armadillos mounted on poles. Chants alternated between “Texas Fight!” and “Root ‘em ‘Dillos!” But when head cheerleader Jose Pena asked the crowd if there were any UT Armadillos present, the answer was a resounding “No!”

An Armadillo Marching Band was organized with 40 students in the ranks and with internationally-respected psychology professor (and future Plan II director) Ira Iscoe as the group’s faculty advisor. The band made several well-received appearances, but eschewed traditional musical instruments in favor of kazoos, washboards, and spoons. “We don’t say we favor the change in mascot, but we do believe in the armadillo,” one of the members explained. A letter to the Texan was a bit more candid: “As an indication of the overall attitude of the band, it might be noted that were the University mascot in fact changed, in all probability this organization would immediately disband and transfer to the local agricultural institution.”

Above: A pair of orange-painted ‘dillos on Kyle Field.

Texas A&M supporters were eager to voice their preferences. The Thanksgiving Day football game between the University and A&M was held that year in College Station. At the start of halftime, a pair of armadillos (above), splashed with orange paint and with “TU” written in white on their backsides, was released on Kyle Field just as the Longhorn Band was about to perform. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “one was picked up by an assistant Texas band director and carried off the field while the other high-tailed it toward the Longhorn cheerleaders. He knew where he belonged.” The pranksters were thought to be Aggie freshmen. No matter. At the end of the game, UT had prevailed 34-14, won the Southwest Conference title, and earned a berth in the Cotton Bowl to face Penn State.

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Above: “Texas Armadillos” bumper stickers were popular in Austin.

With all of the interest surrounding the ‘dillo debate, it was inevitable that some would want to cash in on an opportunity. Less than two weeks after the Senate passed its resolution, local entrepreneurs were selling three varieties of bumper stickers: two displayed the words “Texas Armadillos” with a pair of fierce-looking ‘dillos on each side, printed either orange on a white background or white on orange, and a “Root ‘em Armadillos” sticker printed white on orange. The stickers were carried by the University Co-op (and elsewhere) and quickly became bestsellers. It wasn’t long before the bumper stickers were seen throughout Austin.

Above: Days after UT’s football team won the Southwest Conference and was going on to the Cotton Bowl to play Penn State, “Dig ’em ‘Dillos” bumper stickers were being sold in stores along the Drag. 

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After the start of the New Year, discussion about the mascot had run its course and all but vanished. The idea received plenty of attention, but it was never fully supported on campus, and the Student Senate didn’t follow through with its poll. Besides, replacing the longhorn required approval of the Board of Regents, which was unlikely. There were, though, a couple of reminders.

In late January, 1972, country music singer-songwriters (and married couple) Mitch Torok and Ramona Redd composed a song that offered a compromise solution, a merger of both longhorn and armadillo, called “The Texas Hornadillo, Part 1 & 2.” Torok explained, “We thought it might be good to resolve matter through a song and a little humor.” A record was produced by Torok’s Calico Records in Houston, and the song performed by the Orange and White Barroom Singers and Dancers, Class of ’49. The recording included voice impersonations of Coach Darrell Royal, several Texas politicians, and “the head of the Institute of Texas Animal Crossbreeding.” The “Hornadillo” was available in record stores statewide and was occasionally heard on the radio.

Above left: A Ben Sargent cartoon of the “Hornadillo” appeared in the Austin American-Statesman.

Toward the end of the semester, at what was then the Round-Up Parade down Guadalupe Street and Congress Avenue, the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and Acacia fraternity teamed up to construct one of 17 floats in the parade: a longhorn steer – made from chicken wire and papier-mache – accompanied by an armadillo. The float won Best Overall honors.

Above: A Round-Up Parade float that featured both a longhorn and armadillo was named “Best Overall”.

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Not all was lost for the modest armadillo. In 1978, students at Oak Creek Elementary School in Houston asked the Texas Legislature to name the ‘dillo the official state mascot. Their senator, Jack Ogg, sponsored a resolution, but despite a growing number of supporters from all parts of Texas, the Legislature resisted both in 1979 and 1981. One senator described the armadillo as a “God-awful animal.”

Ogg (photo at left), though, served as president pro tempore of the Senate, and on October 3, 1981, with the governor and lieutenant governor both out of the state, Ogg was sworn in as “governor for a day.” Traditionally, this was an honorary position, but Ogg dedicated his brief administration to “the most important people in the state – our children,” and issued an executive decree naming the armadillo as the Texas mascot. Ogg signed the proclamation “because it is important that [the children] see the system work.” 

Eventually, the reluctance of the Legislature softened. In 1995, lawmakers officially designated the ‘dillo as the “small mammal of Texas.” What was the large mammal? The longhorn, of course.

A Few Words from an “Eyes of Texas” Committee Member

It was an extraordinary journey. After four months of meetings, researching, and writing, the Eyes of Texas History Committee released its report on Monday, March 9, 2021. The route wasn’t always a smooth one. As with everyone else, the group had to contend with a global pandemic, then work through Thanksgiving break, end-of-semester final exams, and the holidays. By the start of the New Year, the committee had discovered so much material it asked UT President Hartzell for a month extension to organize it all. Then, just as everything was coming together, Texas was blindsided by the “Big Chill” winter storm which closed the University – and much of the state – for a week.

Despite the complications, being on the committee was a wonderful experience, and most of the credit goes to our chair, Rich Reddick. This was not a group where a few labored and most watched; everyone actively contributed to the task at hand. The members were highly diverse in their backgrounds, ages, and relationships with the University community, which led to far-ranging, frank, and substantive discussions. Four of our faculty members were trained historians. While we usually convened on Thursday evenings via Zoom, it was already Friday morning for one alumnus who lived in Singapore. He greeted the rest of us “from the future.” Another on our roster became a parent for the first time.

The committee was primarily charged with documenting a history of “The Eyes of Texas” as accurately as we could muster, so that any conversations about the song would be grounded in historical fact. The group culled through newspaper accounts and Cactus yearbooks, searched the Board of Regents minutes, examined catalogs of historical recordings, combed through feature films and literature, and interviewed student organizations and former student-athletes. While the Briscoe Center for American History – which houses and preserves the all-important UT archives – was closed because of the pandemic, the Briscoe Center staff heroically spent hours scanning the contents of multiple files and made them electronically available to the committee. The Austin History Center also generously contributed research materials.

Our meetings often included guests. We heard from Diane Boddy and Jeanne Klein, granddaughters of Lewis Johnson, who in 1903 encouraged fellow UT student John Sinclair to compose “The Eyes”. Diane and Jeanne shared a manuscript written by Johnson on the origin of the song. The committee also met with: internationally-admired artist Michael Ray Charles, now on the faculty of the University of Houston; ethnomusicologist Charles Carson, an Associate Professor of Musicology at UT’s Butler School of Music; as well as a group of students and student-athletes to better understand their experiences with the song.

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The Eyes of Texas Report wasn’t meant to be exhaustive, but “complete”, in order to best relate the extent to which the song had evolved and traveled. To avoid the curse of being tedious, not all of the information discovered was included in the final draft. Among the anecdotes omitted:

At 33-years old, many thought Major League Baseball pitcher Jim “Tex” Carleton was ready for retirement. From 1932 -1938, Carleton had played for the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs, but a persistent sore pitching arm dropped him to the minor league in 1939. He thought about returning home to Fort Worth.

At the start of 1940 spring training, Carleton was granted a tryout with the Brooklyn Dodgers, won a conditional contract, and joined a team with four other Texans on the roster. For the rest of training and after the season opened on April 16, those same Texans began to sing “The Eyes of Texas” each time Carleton jogged out to the pitcher’s mound. The song may have worked some magic. Carleton threw his first and only career no-hitter on April 30 against the Cincinnati Reds. (Image courtesy of the Society for American Baseball Research.)

Early in 1942, just after the United States entered the Second World War, the Imperial Japanese Army conducted a swift campaign to seize control of the Philippines. By April 9, after the fall of Bataan, the final holdout for the Allies was Corregidor, a four-mile long island with a single prominent hill, heavily fortified and strategically located at the entrance to Manila Bay. The remaining U.S. and Filipino forces persevered for as long as possible, which provided critical time for the Allies to prepare defenses for Australia, but were well overmatched. The island was surrendered on May 6.   

Among the U.S. troops stationed on Corregidor were 24 Texas A&M University former students. Two weeks before the surrender, and knowing that the odds for success were slim, “word came back that they bade farewell to home with a song, ‘The Eyes of Texas,’” reported the Odessa American.  John Lomax, who served as UT’s first alumni association director and was internationally famous for his efforts to preserve American folk music, penned a letter to John Sinclair, then in New York: “A bunch of A&M boys led by General Moore, whom I taught at A&M College, lined up at Corregidor and sang [‘The Eyes of Texas’] as a last shout of defiance.” Twenty of the Aggies became prisoners of war.

Two years later, in 1944, Marine Corps pilot Lieutenant Paul Sanders from Pawhuska, Oklahoma was shot down over the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. Landing in the water and paddling ashore after nightfall, Sanders survived several days in the tropical forests before finding a local village.

“For some reason, the natives wanted to give me presents,” Sanders recounted, “so about 50 gathered around and gave me a quantity of beads, sea shells, and the like. . . They sang a lot of songs and I taught them ‘The Eyes of Texas.’ I had to sing it to them six times, but they got it pretty well. We had a great time.”

The song was evidently passed along to other communities. Later the same year, a second U.S. pilot, this time from Texas, was downed over a different part of the Solomons. He was rescued by a group of islanders and fed yams and breadfruit, before a group of local children gathered around and – to his great surprise – serenaded him with “The Eyes”.

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After the committee’s report was released, several questions were raised. Let me try to answer some of them. This is meant to be informational; neither the Eyes of Texas Committee nor I want to tell people how they should feel about the song.

  • Why did the committee believe there was no “racist intent”?
  • After the report was released, a UT professor wrote what he claims is the “true” origin of the song. Was “The Eyes” – as the professor asserts – created from scratch early in the morning of May 12, 1903 as simply a minstrel song for a minstrel show?

The answer to the last question is, emphatically, no. Let’s look at a chronicle of events using the resources seen by the committee, which includes the UT archives:

1902: Lewis Johnson dearly wanted UT to have its own college songs and convinced his friend and fellow student John Sinclair to collaborate on what became known as “We are the Jolly Students.” It used the music from a popular tune at the time – “The Jolly Students of America” – with Sinclair having re-written some of the lyrics. (This is important, as it set a pattern Sinclair would use for “The Eyes.”) Composed in 6/8 time, “The Jolly Students” was well-received and would probably have made a good beer drinking song, but it didn’t take off. Johnson wanted to try again and asked Sinclair for a new song.

February 18, 1903: Johnson authored an extended editorial titled “A College without a Song” for the Texan student newspaper. Part of it read: 

“There is no activity of college life that is so characteristic of its vivacity and spirit as singing its songs – songs that represent the whole gamut of its feelings, from the nonsensical jollities to its whole-souled reverence and devotion to the university itself. There is nothing that so completely serves as a bond of union to all within its walls, not even the treasured yells. It has been said that there is between the old graduates and the new students no bond of union like the college song. It is the one thing that can be carried with you, and at any and all times will bring up the dear memories of the alma mater.”

Possibly March, 1903: On campus, John Sinclair gave Johnson a scrap of brown laundry paper with the original version of “The Eyes of Texas,” already set to the tune “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” that is now on display at the alumni center. According to Johnson’s manuscript, where Johnson described himself as the “director” (the student manager of UT’s musical organizations) and Sinclair the “author”: 

“With the added responsibility and flushed with enthusiasm over the reception of “The Jolly Students” another conference was held by the director and the author at which time the latter was reminded that he had been there longer than the director and knew conditions fully as well and especially the needs of more college songs; that he was at liberty to select the tune to suit his fancy and to write the words likewise but was requested to confine his efforts to another type of song, preferably a patriotic hymn to the dear old alma mater.

“On many occasions after such request, the author was asked how his muse was coming along; how much courting of it he was doing and when he would hand in another composition. Weeks passed and one day he pulled from his pocket an irregularly shaped piece of yellow wrapping paper from a laundry bundle and handed it, with one of his cunning Scotch smiles, to the director without comment. When the latter read it over, another thrill came, and with the reply, ‘That will live and endure here long after you and I are dead and forgotten.’ That prophetic forecast seems to have come true for that was the original manuscript of ‘The Eyes of Texas.’

“Copies were made for use in the Glee Club and put into rehearsal at once. It met an enthusiastic response from the Club members thereby giving it an auspicious start in the world.”

Johnson’s manuscript is partly confirmed by a letter from John Sinclair to Johnson found in the UT archives:

“In tribute to your perspicacity, I may say that I remember your predicting, as soon as you had given the words the once-over, that they would last as long as the University, and be there to represent us when you and I are gone.“ (Sinclair to Johnson, June 8 1925)

We don’t know when the “conference” between Johnson and Sinclair took place. A likely time would be near February 18, when the Texan editorial was published, as the issue would have been on Johnson’s mind. If so, that would mean Sinclair wrote the original version of “The Eyes” in mid-March. It could have been earlier or later, but it’s clear that the intent was to create a UT song in the spirit of Harvard’s “Fair Harvard.” The exchange took place between the two, not with others present, and there’s no mention of it being for a minstrel show.

April 1, 1903: A minstrel show was announced in the Texan, initially scheduled for May 1 as a fundraiser for the track team to compete in Atlanta. Of note here is that the newspaper emphasized the show would be a rare opportunity for the students to poke some fun at the faculty:

“One specialty will be jokes on members of the faculty and parodies on songs wherein incidental references might be made to some of them. As one of the northern college papers said recently, “a college minstrel show is the only occasion for the students to get even with the faculty. The faculty has its time the rest of the year; this is the student body’s time.”

The idea of a minstrel show originated with Homer Curtiss, the director of men’s physical education at UT, as well as the track coach. Lewis Johnson, as the student manager for all of the campus musical organizations, was naturally included in the planning.

April 12 – 20, 1903: The Glee Club and Mandolin Club went on their third annual concert tour through North and Central Texas. Glee Club Director Dan Penick – who was also a classical languages professor and the University’s tennis coach – convinced his fellow faculty members to allow the groups to miss a week of class.

During the tour, John Sinclair missed the train twice – once allegedly because he was talking to a young lady – and had to purchase his own ticket aboard a freight train to catch up. The Texan had some fun with Sinclair’s mishaps (Texan, April 29, 1903):

“There was a young man named Sinclair, who paid for his own railroad fare. Twice left at the station, causing great trepidation; hereafter he’ll always be there.”

An important note here is that the Glee Club’s concert program included either “The Levee Song” or “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Newspaper sources mention both titles. Since the Glee Club was rehearsing for the concert tour all spring, this is likely why Sinclair was recently familiar with the music when he composed “The Eyes.”

April 29, 1903: A second Texan article about the upcoming minstrel show reiterated the theme of poking fun at the faculty:

“All students will enjoy the occasion immensely. This is the only time they get even with the Faculty; local hits and jokes on all the professors will be leading features of the evening.”

The article also stated that the date of the show would be announced soon.

May 5, 1903: The earliest mention of the minstrel show date as May 12 in the Austin Statesman. The date must have been decided as early as May 4, which left only about a week to get everything ready.

Early May, 1903: Several events happen here, and we have evidence to help us piece it together. 

  •  The program: Unlike today, when a concert program can be designed and hundreds of copies printed in an afternoon, a minimum of several days would have been required in 1903. A copy of the minstrel show program is in the UT archives, and the first part of the show is listed as: 

Overture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘Varsity Band

Opening Chorus . . . . . . .  “Oh, the Lovely Girls”

Chorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Old Kentucky Home”

Song “The Castle on the Nile”  . . . . . Mr. Harris

Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ‘Varsity Quartette

We know from the post-show newspaper reviews that the “selection” by the quartet was “The Eyes of Texas.” This tells us that when the program went to be designed and printed, the ‘Varsity Quartette didn’t yet know what song they would sing. “The Eyes” hadn’t yet been included in the show.

And, as an aside, the term ” ‘varsity ” with an apostrophe is simply a contraction of the word “university.” Think of university -> ‘versity -> ‘varsity. In 1900s Texas, a student attending the “College” was understood to be at the A&M College of Texas, while someone enrolled at “‘Varsity” was at the University in Austin.

  • The show deadline: There would have been a deadline to finalize the content of the show so that full run-through rehearsals could be held. Some of the cast members had multiple parts and the stage crew at the Hancock Opera House needed to become familiar with the performance. The Austin Statesman mentioned on May 12 there had been a week of rehearsals and at least one full run-through.

We have several reminiscences of there being a last-minute or late-night dash to finish one more song for the show. The deadline, though, wasn’t the show itself, but to finalize the program. The original version of “The Eyes” was already available and known to the Glee Club, but its lyrics – comparing “eyes of every hue” to stars in the Texas nighttime sky – wasn’t in line with the well-advertised theme of the show to poke fun at the faculty. Sinclair revised the lyrics to be specifically about President Prather, a “Prather Parody” version.

Some of the better-known versions on the origin of the song have come from then Dean of Engineering Thomas “T. U.” Taylor and Fannie Prather, President Prather’s daughter, who authored an article for the Dallas Morning in 1926. Both claim the song was written entirely the night before the minstrel show. But neither were actually present, and we also have a letter from Lewis Johnson to Dan Penick dated December 7, 1928 in the UT archives:

“You have read dear old T.U.’s long write up of [“The Eyes”], Fannie Prather’s page in the Dallas News etc. and know that none of them have been able to give the authentic history of its conception and birth.”

  • Horace Whaling letter: Once the lyrics were revised into the “Prather Parody” version, Sinclair brought a handwritten copy to fellow UT student and friend Horace Whaling, Jr., who had been editor of the Texan in the 1902 spring term. Sinclair sought Whaling’s feedback on the song and then left the copy with his friend. Whaling kept the sheet for almost half a century, mailing it to the University Libraries in 1950, along with an explanatory letter that Sinclair had visited Whaling at his student residence on Lavaca Street. The lyrics and the letter are now in the Texas Composers Letter File in the UT archives at the Briscoe Center.

A close inspection of the lyrics shows that one line is different than what was actually sung at the minstrel show. The chorus begins with the now-familiar “The eyes of Texas are upon you, all the live long day,” but continues with, “However hard you try (dog-gone you!) you cannot get away.” Apparently, there were first and final drafts of the “Prather Parody” version.

  •  The May 11 newspaper ad: An ad for the show appeared in the Austin Statesman on the morning of May 11 that announced “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You” would be sung. The ad would have been ordered no later than May 10. And so, we know the “Prather Parody” version of “The Eyes” was in the show by May 10. Sinclair may have also visited Whaling on the same day.
  • Contest of Colleges” Baseball Game: A baseball game between the University of Texas and Southwestern University was scheduled for the afternoon of May 11. A sizable contingent UT students planned to make the trip to Georgetown, as did the Glee Club and Mandolin Club, who were set to perform a concert on the Southwestern campus that evening. At the last moment, heavy rains cancelled the contest.

The Austin newspaper reported that there was a full rehearsal of the minstrel show on the night of May 11, but had the weather been clear, the Glee Club – including the quartet – the Mandolin Club, and Lewis Johnson as a soloist, would all have been in Georgetown. Since no one knew the baseball game would be rained out, it’s likely there was a full run-through May 10 (thought to be the last), and then an unexpected opportunity for an additional rehearsal May 11.

May 12, 1903: The Austin Statesman morning newspaper claimed that the students were ready for the show, and explained:

“The jokes and grinds are all original and local, and hit off well known people in town and in the University. This is the only chance the students have to take a rap at the faculty, and it is said they have made the most of it.”

“The rehearsals have been going on all the past week, and all the details have been watched so that the entire performance goes off smooth and without a hitch. At the rehearsal last night Mr. Walker and the opera house staff pronounced the performance the finest thing of its kind ever given in Austin.“

May 12, 1903: “The Eyes of Texas” debuted in a minstrel show at the Hancock Theater downtown. Coach Homer Curtiss and the track team actually left before the show was over to board the train for Atlanta as the track meet was that Saturday.

January-February 1936: On page 31 of the Eyes of Texas Report, as UT student Ed Nunnally corresponded with John Sinclair in order to obtain a copyright on “The Eyes”, Sinclair sent Nunnally additional lyrics he hadn’t shared before. They were meant to replace the second verse because what was sung at the 1903 show was “to be of too limited interest for general use.” –  

“For though we may wander, here our hearts remain; Texas bids us welcome, when we come again. Still in kind remembrance we hold the days of yore, and those to come we pledge anew to Texas, evermore.”

While the original version of “The Eyes” had been revised into the “Prather Parody” for the minstrel show, Sinclair still considered the song as something for the University in the long term, and crafted a verse that didn’t simply make fun of the president. As we know today, only the chorus became popular, and there was never a need to replace the second verse.

In all, we know of four versions of lyrics to “The Eyes of Texas. (Click on the image above for a larger version.)

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Given the evidence from newspaper reports, the Lewis Johnson manuscript, and documents in the University archives, the committee found that the song was initially intended to be a “patriotic hymn to the dear old alma mater.” An opportunity to perform it came with the minstrel show, but the lyrics needed to be revised to fit the show’s underlying theme of having fun with the faculty. Sinclair, concerned the song might forever be thought as a joke on President Prather, penned what he believed to be a more appropriate verse for the song’s original purpose.

Today, we would certainly never approve of the venue – the minstrel show – in which “The Eyes” was first performed, but the committee saw a difference between the setting and what Johnson and Sinclair intended with the song.

I’ll try to answer more questions about the report in a second part to this post. Jim

Tower Light, Tower Bright

How the Orange Tower Tradition Began

1.OrangeTower.Lead.

It was a night like no other. On Tuesday, October 19, 1937, as the sun dropped behind the western hills, the azure sky darkened to dusk, and a full moon peeked above the eastern horizon, floodlights illuminated the University of Texas Tower for the first time. Austin was changed forever.

Frank White and Bob Wilkinson, reporters for The Daily Texan student newspaper, stood on the Main Mall in front of the Tower, looked up and took in the scene, but struggled to express what they saw. They eventually agreed upon the phrase “majestic splendor” for the following morning’s issue, but were open to suggestions. “If you can think of any better description for the bath of orange and white light that flooded the Library Building Tower last night for the first time, you should be writing this story. Seriously, the splendor was majestic; so majestic, in fact, that students seeing it with us were entranced with its colorful beauty, and found no words to describe it.”

The splendor was just beginning. For the University, the Tower was an instant icon, purposely designed to be the seminal landmark of the campus. As architect Paul Cret explained: “In a large group of buildings, be it a city, a world fair, or a university, there is always a certain part of the whole which provides the image carried in our memory when we think of the place.” The Tower was meant to be that image.

For the citizens of Austin, the Tower was a radical addition to the city’s skyline. It was the first building to rise higher than the venerated dome of the Texas Capitol, which generated more than the usual share of controversy.

1.5.Austin skyline.Tower.Capitol

The Tower was also built 20 years earlier than planned. It arrived in 1937, at a time when modern, lofty buildings had just come of age in American cities, along with a popular new development: the use of floodlights. Sometimes described as “painting with light,” architects in the 1920s and ‘30s widely experimented with external lighting on the walls of high-rises, often with dramatic colors and dazzling effects. This, in turn, influenced what was a pivotal decision to install floodlights on the Tower.

The Tower lights, especially the use of orange and white, brought with them a great surprise. The sight of the University’s colors, displayed on such a grand scale against the backdrop of a Texas night, transformed the Tower into something more than a landmark. The lights added a new and unexpected dimension to the building, both in its nighttime appearance and in the swell of public affection at the sight of it. Had construction of the Tower waited until the 1950s as intended, it would have been built when new stylistic trends in architecture minimized the use of external lighting. The Tower might not have been floodlit at all, and the University could have missed out on one of its best-loved traditions.

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2.AAS.1937.Skyscraper headline.

3.UT Library.Main Building and Tower.1930s Postcard.In the mid-1930s, construction of the UT Tower was front page news. The Austin American-Statesman described it as “luxurious and palatial,” while the Texan waxed poetic: “Like the shining spire of some fabled city, the new Library Tower will rise in the air to keep company with the birds and airplanes.” Austin was getting a new tallest building, though not everyone was happy about it.

Make no mistake. The Texas Capitol was first in the hearts of Austin citizens. Finished in 1888, the building’s 302-foot dome was taller than the National Capitol in Washington, DC, and affirmed Austin’s role as the seat of Texas government, something the locals didn’t take for granted.

4.Paul CretOn March 8, 1930, after a decade of mixed success in campus planning, the University hired Paul Cret  (image at left) as its consulting architect. A 53-year old native of France, he was a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux Arts (“School of Fine Arts”) in Paris, at the time considered the finest architecture academy in the world. Cret had immigrated to the U.S., opened a private practice in Philadelphia, and was a professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

Cret was tasked with providing UT with a campus master plan for future development, as well as finding a solution to the University’s acute library space problem. The existing library – today’s Battle Hall – had been judged inadequate for some time. There were several proposals, among them was a new library placed either north or south of the old Main Building, or a sizable addition to the existing library. All of the plans were either too expensive or inadequate.

5.1926 proposed addition to Battle Hall library.

Above: 1926 proposed addition to the UT library. Greene, LaRoche, and Dahl of Dallas. Today’s Battle Hall is on the left, while the extension would have been to the north.

By April 3rd, less than a month into his University employment, Cret sent the Board of Regents a “Report on the Library,” and argued that the best location was on top of the hill in the middle of the Forty Acres, the site then occupied by Old Main. He explained that the library would need to be centrally located and easily accessible. Because of the space requirements for book stacks and reading rooms, it would also be the largest and most monumental structure on the campus, which required a prominent setting. To Cret, the proper location of the new library was vital, as it was quickly becoming the focus of his campus master plan.

6.1933 Campus Master Plan.Paul Cret.

Above: The 1933 campus master plan for the University of Texas. The Tower is the focus, from which malls extend in the four cardinal directions. (The North Mall wasn’t implemented.) UT Buildings Collection, Alexander Architectural Archives, UT Austin.

While University authorities knew that the eventual removal of Old Main was likely, they weren’t prepared for it just yet. After all, the ivy-draped, Victorian-Gothic Old Main was the first building on the campus. It had great historical and sentimental value, especially with the alumni.

To solve the library space problem, keep the desired site, reduce costs, and not offend the alumni, Cret proposed building the library in two phases. The back, lower portion of the library would be constructed first. Officially designated the “Library Annex,” it included a main desk and reading rooms, along with several floors of book stacks. (Today, the area is used by the Life Sciences Library.) The north wing of Old Main would be razed, but it housed an auditorium that had been declared unsafe by the Austin Fire Marshal in 1916 and was unused. The annex would be connected to the rest of Old Main by a hallway.

After a period of time – Cret suggested 20 years, or sometime in the 1950s – when the campus had grown used to the annex and more funds were available, Old Main could be retired. The south façade and stack tower would be finished to complete the new Main Building, which would then assume the role as UT’s central library.

As discussion continued about a proposed tower at UT, the Austin City Council moved to protect the view and importance of the Capitol. The concern was understandable. Through the 1920s, fellow Texas cities of Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio had all added near 400-foot tall skyscrapers to their skylines. Some feared that a similar development in Austin could shroud the all-important Capitol dome.

On April 23, 1931, Austin passed its first zoning plan, which limited the height of new downtown buildings to 150 feet. (It was later amended to 200 feet.) Exceptions could be granted. Two days later, on April 25th, the Board of Regents approved Cret’s two-part construction plan. Funding was granted in 1932, and the Library Annex completed the following year.

7.1933.Construction of Library Annex.Phase one of Main Building.

Above: Construction of the Library Annex, which included a reference desk and and two large reading rooms: The Hall of Texas and The Hall of Noble Words. The central tower of Old Main  is on the right. (For more construction images, see: How to Build a Tower.) UT Buildings Collection, Alexander Architectural Archives, UT Austin.

Phase one was to quietly sit behind Old Main for the next two decades, but pressure was mounting to find a way to complete the building early. Despite the economic challenges of the Great Depression, the 1930s were boon years for the University. The discovery of oil on UT-owned West Texas land had caused the Permanent University Fund to balloon with newly-acquired oil royalties, while a special constitutional amendment allowed the University to borrow directly against the PUF and launch a multi-million dollar building program. The Texas Union, Gregory and Anna Hiss Gymnasiums, Hogg Memorial Auditorium, along with new facilities for chemistry (Welch Hall), business (Waggener), architecture (Goldsmith), geology (W. C. Hogg), physics (Painter), and home economics (Mary Gearing) were all included. All of this activity generated an abundance of construction jobs, which helped to spare Austin from the brunt of the Depression.

Wanting to continue the trend, the University hoped to go ahead and finish the library. It applied for and was granted a loan from the Progress Works Administration, one of the many New Deal programs created by President Franklin Roosevelt. The  Austin City Council approved a height exemption for the 307-foot Tower, the only building to receive such an allowance for the next 30 years. Steam shovels began construction on phase two of the library in January 1935, and the completed Main Building was dedicated on February 27, 1937.

8.J Frank Dobie“Austin’s bid for metropolitan fame is progressing,” announced the Statesman. The University’s new Tower was not only five feet taller than the Capitol, the UT site was on a hill farther up the Colorado River valley and higher than the Capitol grounds. All told, the Tower enjoyed a 48-foot advantage in elevation.

Most of Austin’s citizens approved of the new Tower, but not everyone. Famed author and folklorist J. Frank Dobie was pointed: “For a university that owns 2,000,000 acres of land . . . it’s ridiculous. It’s like a toothpick in a pie.”

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9.1923 Thanksgiving Eve.Old Main floodlit.

Above: Old Main floodlit on Thanksgiving Eve, 1923.

Initially, there were no plans to illuminate the Tower. After all, it wasn’t supposed to be built for another 20 years. Floodlights, though, had already been on campus for some time. In 1916, as part of a great homecoming celebration for Thanksgiving weekend, temporary lights were installed in front of the old Main Building. The south façade was brilliantly lit, and Old Main’s Gothic-arched windows and steep rooftops could be seen for miles. It was a first for Austin. The lighting effect was so popular, it became a biennial tradition.

10.1926 floodlighting of Texas Capitol domeNot to be outdone, the Texas Legislature appropriated funds to illuminate the Capitol dome. (Image at left.) In February 1925, more than 90 General Electric floodlight projectors, most of them placed on the roofs of the Capitol’s east and west wings, were aimed at the outside of the dome, while 20 amber-colored lights were placed inside to shine through the windows. Another three amber lights were located in the “tholos,” the glass-enclosed, lighthouse-like room just above the dome. The arrangement was similar to what was then being used at the National Capitol.

The efforts to floodlight the Texas Capitol and, to a lesser extent, Old Main, were part of a much larger, national discourse between lighting engineers and architects on the use of external lighting for buildings. With origins dating back to the late 19th century – the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris featured the Eiffel Tower as a “light tower,” while the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago was famous for its vivid “White City” – the increasing use of electric lights had reinvented the nocturnal urban landscape. As skyscrapers grew ever taller in the 1910s, experiments in external lighting soon followed. By the 1920s and ‘30s, aided by a substantial drop in the price of electricity, thousands of buildings in the United States were illuminated.

11.1893.Columbian Exposition.Chicago.

Above: The 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The use of electric lights to outline the buildings and illuminate fountains had a profound influence on urban planning and the nighttime environment of cities. 

12.Jewels in the Sky.New York scene.Some architects considered floodlights a new building material, and proactively designed their projects to be seen after sunset. “Night illumination attracts attention like a spotlight on a stage,” claimed skyscraper architect Harvey Corbett. “The possibilities of night illumination have barely been touched,” added Raymond Hood. “There is still to be studied the whole realm of color, both in the light itself and in the quality and color of the reflecting surfaces, pattern studies in light, shade and color, and last of all, movement.” The use of floodlights seemed to accessorize what might otherwise have been dark and ominous structures. It gave them bright and cheerful nighttime garments, which transformed the American city. “There is a new Manhattan skyline – a new city of light and color rising above an old one,” reported the New York Times in 1925, which described downtown as “a huge city of illuminated castles in the air.”

Above right: An idyllic image of a 1920s skyscraper with floodlights on the upper levels, described as a “jewel in a setting.”

The lights included colors and special effects. Red, amber, green and blue filters were the standard selection, though colors could be mixed to create different hues. On some buildings, repeating dimmers allowed colors to brighten and darken and blend in an endless variety.

Naturally, General Electric, Westinghouse, and other electric companies encouraged the use of illumination, especially after the onset of the Great Depression, when the sales of electrical appliances had declined. The companies published a series of booklets that not only provided detailed engineering specifications on how to install floodlights, but included essays by noted architects on aesthetics and design. At one point, GE launch an ad campaign that claimed building illumination was a means to counter the gloom of the Great Depression.

13.Floodlighting booklet covers.

Above: In the 1920s abd ’30s, General Electric, Westinghouse, and other electric companies produced booklets with lighting specifications and essays by prominent architects.

14.Dallas.Houston.San Antonio.1920s Skyscrapers.

Above: In the 1920s, other Texas cities added illuminated high-rises to their skylines, all about 400 feet tall. From left, Dallas’ Magnolia Building with its iconic red Pegasus, Houston’s Gulf Building, and San Antonio’s Tower Life Building.

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In June 1934, the Board of Regents met in the President’s Office – then in Sutton Hall – to review the final plans for phase two of the Main Building, which included the south façade and Tower. Paul Cret traveled from Philadelphia to personally present the sketches and drawings, and to answer the regents’ many questions. After a lengthy discussion, the designs were enthusiastically approved. Contracts were awarded in November, and construction began the following January.

Among the plans was a recommendation by the Faculty Building Committee. Influenced by national architectural trends, knowing the impact the Main Building would have on the Austin skyline as a counterpart to the State Capitol, and in deference to the much-loved tradition of illuminating Old Main, floodlights were proposed and approved for the Tower. The decision received scant attention for more than a year, until well after construction was underway. The Texan mentioned: “An indirect lighting system accomplished through the use of flood lights at strategic points along the ascension of the tower will render it visible at night for many miles around Austin.”

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15.Carl Eckhardt.The person assigned to oversee the floodlight project was 34-year old Carl Eckhardt, Jr. (Image at right.) Twice a UT graduate, he earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1925 and a master’s in 1930. Eckhardt joined the engineering faculty as an instructor in 1926, was promoted to adjunct professor when he completed his master’s degree, and was made a full professor in 1936.  An avid collector of the writings of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Byron, Browning, Thomas Paine, and others, he made it a habit to end each of his engineering classes with a tidbit of prose or poetry as a thought for the day. “In my opinion,” Eckhardt explained, “an engineer should be as cultured as anyone else, even more so.”

Along with his faculty responsibilities, Eckhardt took on several demanding roles on the Forty Acres. He was appointed Superintendent of Power Plants in 1930, and then was promoted to Superintendent of Utilities in 1936, just as he was named a full professor. In 1950, he helped to organize the physical plant department and served as its inaugural director for two decades. Eckhardt was, quite literally, in charge of the campus. His hours were legendary. Eckhardt usually arrived for work at 7 a.m., and, but for two half hour breaks for lunch and dinner, usually stayed until 10 p.m.

16.Spring Commencement Maces.For anyone who has spent some time on the Forty Acres, it’s difficult not to encounter one of Eckhardt’s many contributions to the University. Starting in 1956, he originated most of the ceremonial maces used for commencement. (Image at left.) Some made from pieces of Old Main, each one is full of imagery pertaining to the schools and colleges, University leadership, and alumni.

In 1958, as part of UT’s 75th anniversary celebration, Eckhardt oversaw the reconstruction of the Santa Rita oil pump on the south side of campus. Until recently, an audio recording at the pump relayed the story of the oil well and its effect on the University. Eckhardt was the voice of the narration.

He planted trees across campus, including many of the cypress along Waller Creek, advocated for an annual Service Awards program to recognize the efforts of UT’s non-teaching personnel, and self-published six booklets on University history, on topics that ranged from portraits of UT’s first 20 presidents, a volume about the University’s early years, and a booklet that explains the symbolism of each of the commencement maces.  (The works are in the library, and can still be found in local used book stores.) In 1980, a then-retired Professor Eckhardt was awarded UT’s Presidential Citation. The University’s Heating and Power Complex is named for him.

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17.DT.1936.03.03.Amber and White Lights.

18.Tower.Proposed use of Amber for top.To start, Eckhardt’s crew reviewed all of the literature they could find on external illumination, including the booklets published by the electric companies, and especially those by General Electric. The University would use GE’s “Novalux” light projectors (image below right), similar to what had been employed at the Texas Capitol.

Along with white lights, the available colors were red, green, blue, and the popular amber. Initially, Eckhardt considered amber to highlight the upper portion of the Tower,  (image at left) particularly around the Doric columns that enclosed the Tower’s belfry. Amber, though, is a yellow-orange hue. One look, and Eckhardt immediately realized that amber was too close to orange not to go ahead and use the University’s colors. Orange wasn’t a standard choice, however, and GE first proposed alternating red and amber lights to acquire an orange tint. But this meant extra lights would need to be installed, and, besides, the shade of orange wouldn’t be consistent along the surface of the building. Instead, Eckhardt ordered custom orange covers for the floodlights.

19.General Electric Novalux floodlight projectorThe floodlights arrived May 1937, the last significant piece of the Main Building, and were installed and individually positioned through the summer. While the building had already been dedicated on February 27th, the University wasn’t to officially occupy the space until the fall.

In all, 292 floodlights, half orange and half white, were placed on the four recesses, or “setbacks” of the Tower. The largest were the 96 1,000-watt lights at the Tower base, another 64 250-watt lights placed on the observation deck, 48 500-watt projectors to illuminate the belfry, and 84 100-watt bulbs around the parapet at the top. There were two circuits at each setback: one for all-orange lights, the other for all-white. Switches on the ground floor of the Main Building permitted the choice of color for each level.

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20.Tower.First use of floodlights.Oct 19 1937.The evening forecast for Tuesday, October 19, 1937 was postcard worthy: clear, cool, star-filled skies with a full moon. Everything was ready. At dusk, just before 6 p.m., the Tower was officially illuminated for the first time.

Eckhardt’s crew didn’t go for a simple, all-white or all-orange Tower. For this first attempt, they opted for something more subtle and elegant, and practical at the same time. Perhaps inspired by the images of multi-colored buildings in the floodlighting booklets, the crew wanted to try out more of the available palette, which, in this case, included a shade of light orange by combining orange and white lights together.

21.Orange Palette

On the night a floodlit Tower made its debut, the lower portion remained white, while the area just above the observation deck – which included the clock faces – was bright orange. Above that, the belfry displayed a light orange tone, while bright white shown from the crown.  (Image above left.) Today, the colors might be likened to an orange creamsicle.

The lights drew raves on and off campus. The following morning, Texan reporters Frank White and Bob Wilkinson called it “majestic splendor.” Their fellow students, “seeing it with us were entranced with its colorful beauty, and found no words to describe it.” The Statesman’s gossip columnist “Peeping Peggy” Harding gushed, “that the University colors of orange and white could blend so perfectly as they did that first night in the lights on the tower was a surprise to me; but the shading from bright orange at the base of the clock to white at the peak was a splendid sight. I think that experiment after experiment may be tried but none will be as effective as it was the first night.”

22.Peeping Peggy Harding.column heading.The experiments to which Harding referred were a seemingly endless variety of Tower lighting schemes that began October 19th and continued for nearly a year. In her column, she praised “Carl Eckhardt, supervising engineer of the beautiful doings taking place on the tower of the administration-library building on the campus. The effects gained with the various combinations that have been shown are wonderful, and at night as the hills lift their purple crown over the city, heads turn in the direction of the university to see the beauty there.”

Which design (or designs) University officials favored remained a mystery. “Tonight you may see an entirely different lighting arrangement,” stated the Texan, “depending upon the mood of the experimental crew. Acceptance of the lights is pending University approval, and what you see for the next few nights is definitely not definite.”

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23.UT Football Coach Dana X BibleFor UT football fans, the 1937 season was a long one. First-year head coach Dana Bible (image at left), recruited from the University of Nebraska to serve as both athletic director and coach, said that he would need five years to turn around what was then a lackluster football program. By the end of the season, it looked as if he might need all of it, and then some.

Texas opened with a win. Under cloudy skies and in front of a sparse 12,000 fans in Texas Memorial Stadium, the Longhorns scored a dozen points in the final quarter to beat Texas Tech 25–12. The undefeated streak, though, was short one. A trip to Baton Rouge, Louisiana the following week resulted in a 0-9 drubbing from LSU, and the third game of the season ended in a 7-7 tie with rival Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl. Texas then posted three consecutive losses to Arkansas, Rice, and Southern Methodist.

24.1937.Texas 9.No 4 Baylor 6.

Above: 1937 Texas (in white jersey and helmets – with no face guards!) vs. Baylor.

25.1938.West Mall.First Color ImageThe great bright spot of the season came Saturday afternoon, November 6, in Waco, when a late field goal launched the Longhorns over the 4th-ranked Baylor Bears 9-6. Celebrations in Austin continued well into the night, especially on campus, where the weekly All-University Dance was held in the Texas Union Ballroom. Just a few steps from the Union, up the West Mall, the Tower base glowed white with the top portion bright orange. Like a giant victory flame in the middle of the Forty Acres, it reflected the jubilant mood of the University.

This has often been recorded as the start of the orange Tower tradition. While it’s true that the Tower was floodlit orange on the night of a Longhorn win, the former didn’t yet depend on the latter. Floodlights had been used for less than three weeks. No guidelines had been set, even the idea to use the orange lights in such a way hadn’t yet occurred to the lighting crew. The Tower was already set-up and scheduled to shine as it did, regardless of the final score in Waco. As Eckhardt later explained, “At the time we attached no importance to it. Like so many things that have become traditions, it only became important later.”

Above right: From 1938, one of the earliest color photographs of the Tower and Texas Union on the West Mall.

26.Tower.Top floodlight orange.Eventual victory lights.The campus was jazzed all week after the Baylor game. Was it a fluke, or had the Longhorns turned a corner? With Texas Christian University coming to Austin the next weekend, a Friday night football rally was scheduled on the newly-paved Main Mall, which hadn’t yet been landscaped with hedges and oak trees. On the morning of the rally, the Texan reported, “Even the University administration has gotten into the spirit of things. Bright orange lights, at special expense, will be diffused around the Tower tonight.”

Just after 7 p.m. Friday evening, a torchlight parade led by the Longhorn Band set out from the front of the Scottish Rite Dorm, marched down Guadalupe, turned east on 21st Street, and then up the South Mall to the Tower, which was floodlit in the same way it appeared the previous Saturday, with the top portion orange. (Image upper left.)

27.1937.TCU Football Rally on Main Mall.

Above: A crowd gathers on the Main Mall for the Beat TCU football rally. The familiar hedges and oak tress haven’t yet been planted. Below, Bevo III at the rally. 

28.1937.TCU Football Rally.Bevo III.More than 2,000 fans, Coach Bible, the football team, Austin Mayor Tom Miller, and Bevo III (image at right) made it the largest and loudest rally of the season. Unfortunately, Texas went scoreless on Saturday while TCU prevailed 0-14. The next week in College Station, Texas A&M beat the Longhorns 0-7, and the soon-to-be-forgotten 1937 season ended at 2-6-1.

Still, the win over Baylor and the TCU rally planted an idea with Eckhardt: what if the orange floodlights, instead of being used every night as part of a standard lighting scheme, were instead reserved for special occasions?

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29.60_000 Ways Headline

30.Tower.Light orange base.Orange and white top.The Tower light show continued into 1938 and was gaining a fan base both inside and out of the Austin city limits. “When lighted at night, the Tower can be seen in Round Rock, Manor, and other surrounding towns,” reported the Statesman. “Persons at San Marcos say it can be seen from the hills around San Marcos.” The best view was from the south, when entering Austin along present-day South Congress Avenue. “From the crest of the hill (today’s South Congress at Ben White Boulevard), the lighted Tower behind the lighted dome of the Texas Capitol offers a breath-taking sight.”

University officials boasted that, just by changing a single bulb, there were an estimated 60,000 possible lighting schemes. Among them, as the Texan described, “Some nights the main body of the Tower is white with a faint orange tinge. Solid white light plays on the clocks and deep orange lights on the area above.” (Image above right.)

31.Mary Lou HumlongAt other times, the lower part of the Tower was left dark, with only the upper portion lit up in some combination of oranges and white. From a distance, the effect made it seem as if the illuminated clock and belfry were disconnected from the rest of the Main Building, suspended over the campus. More than a few students voiced their support for the idea. Journalism major and track team sprinter Hiram Reeves said, “I don’t like the whole Tower flooded with light. The two sections at the top are enough. The first one should be orange and the next white.” Anida Derst chimed in, “Isn’t it beautiful? I think only the top should be lighted. I like orange and then white.” Mary Lou Humlong (image upper left) agreed with order of colors, but wanted to go bigger: “I would like to see them flood the complete lower part of the Tower with orange, and use white only at the very top.” The use of white lights on the upper portion also highlighted the extensive gold leaf that was originally placed around the clock and the belfry. (See: The Tower Gold Rush.)

At one point, the lighting crew attempted a striped Tower, with a center white stripe and orange along the sides. Students, though, claimed it reminded them of a barber pole, and joked that the University was advertising itself as a barber college. The stripes didn’t work all that well anyway, as the lights diffused and blended with height, which blurred the vertical lines. Alternating each of the four sides of the Tower in orange and white was also tried.

32.Full Tower Graphic.1.

Above: Some of the early Tower lighting experiments. From left: the “creamsicle” Tower seen on the first night, the top-lit only Tower, a vertically striped Tower, and a horizontally striped Tower with alternating orange and white levels..

 As winter warmed into spring, and on into summer, the Tower lights continued to entertain, but were more often seen in four basic configurations: all-white, with an orange base and white top (as Mary Lou Humlong preferred), with a white base and orange top, and all-orange. While light orange was popular and still made an occasional appearance, the use of both orange and white lights on the same setback made that section a little brighter than the rest and created an uneven composition.

33.Full Tower Graphic.2.

Above: The four basic lighting patterns that began to appear in the summer of 1938.

34.Tower.Alternate white and orange base to top.At the same time, the crew determined that lighting the upper portion of the Tower more than one color was difficult to see from greater distances. For example, the four levels of the Tower could be lit – and was, as one of the experiments – alternately white and orange from bottom to top, with an orange crown. (Image at left.) On campus and nearby, the design was easy enough to see, but from two miles away and farther, the details were harder to discern. Eckhardt determined it was best to light the entire upper portion of the Tower a single color.

As the fall semester opened, an all-white Tower was more often seen. Eckhardt began to use the orange lights sparingly, as reported by the Statesman, “confined to those times when the campus is visited by out-of-town and out-of-state groups, or when the university sponsors some annual event.” This included the June 1938 commencement ceremonies, held for the first time on the Main Mall, when the top portion of the Tower glowed orange to honor the graduates.

While the lighting experiments had slowed, there was still no set policy on the use of the Tower floodlights. Why so long to make a decision? At the time, the University was without a formal president. The much-loved Harry Benedict, who‘d served as UT’s chief executive for a decade, died unexpectedly in May 1937. The Board of Regents appointed John Calhoun, a math professor and the University’s comptroller, as president ad interim. Calhoun was a longtime and influential member of the Faculty Building Committee and had suggested the inscription that was carved on the front of the Main Building (See: The Inscription), but opted to leave the final decision on the Tower lighting to his successor.

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35.1938.Coach Bible at football practice.

Above: Coach Bible at a Longhorn football practice.

If the 1937 football season was bad, 1938 was worse.

At the start, the Longhorns suffered a frustrating, one-point, 18-19 defeat at the University of Kansas. LSU came to Austin the following week. The Tigers picked up where they left off the previous year, and handed Texas a second, 0-20 drubbing. Oklahoma was next on the schedule.

On Tuesday morning, October 4th, a few days before the showdown with the Sooners, the Statesman printed its popular and chatty “Town Talk” column by Editor-in-chief Charles Green.

36.Town Talkk Header“They’ve been having such a good time out at the University of Texas with the tower on the administration building that it seems a shame to say anything” wrote Green. “But why not have a little meaning in the change of the lights of the building – at least during football season? How would it be to flash on the orange lights and white lights when Texas had been victorious so that everyone would see and know and each night see and know again? And, on the other hand, when Texas goes down in defeat, light the tower in the calm white light? So that football players, as well as others, would see it every night and remember just what it meant.”

“Well, it’s just an idea,” Green continued. Maybe it’d be an inspiration. But any way you take it, that tower agleam with light is something to look at.”

The Texan responded. “One of the good ideas “Town Talk” in a downtown paper developed the other day was a new lighting system for the Tower. The plan called for lighting the Library shaft with the orange and white lights the following week if Texas won the football game and using solid white ones if we lost. The lighting effect would remind players as well as other students of the game the previous week and might help get them in the mood to keep the lights from being all white.”

While the time periods were different – Green proposed using orange lights only for the night of the football game, while the Texan had orange lights on the Tower for a week – the basic idea was the same. It fit perfectly with Eckhardt’s notions for making the orange lights special, and he welcomed the suggestion.

37.Tower.All orange.The “victory lights,” though, would have to wait a while. Texas was blanked by Oklahoma 0-13, and the Longhorns followed it up with losses to Arkansas, Rice, SMU, Baylor, and eventual national champion TCU. Only one game remained. The lone chance to redeem the season was the Thanksgiving Day bout with Texas A&M in Austin.

As had been the custom when the game was played at UT, alumni turned it into an unofficial homecoming and invaded Austin in droves. This was also the first home game versus the Aggies when the Main Building and Tower were fully operational. In the spirit of the prior tradition of floodlighting Old Main, Eckhardt ordered a distinctive all-orange Tower for the alumni the nights before and of Thanksgiving. (Image upper left.)

38.DT.1938.11.24.HeadlineWednesday night’s Thanksgiving Eve began with a football rally of 4,000 in front of Gregory Gym, followed by a second, bonfire rally on present-day Clark Field, and then a march en masse to Sixth Street downtown. Thanksgiving Day was a holiday for most, but much of UT held an open house in the morning to accommodate the surge of visitors. The president’s and deans’ offices, library in the Main Building, Tower observation deck, and campus museums were all available until 1 p.m. The Texas Union, then headquarters for the alumni association, was open all day. Kick-off for the game was at 2:30 p.m., and the University-wide Thanksgiving Dance was set for Gregory Gym that night.

More than 35,000 fans packed the stadium as an inspired Longhorn defense kept the game scoreless for three quarters. Early in the fourth, halfback Nelson Puett made a dramatic dive over the goal line to give Texas a touchdown, and while UT hadn’t converted an extra point all season, Wally Lawson found his mark to give the Longhorns a 7-0 lead. The win seemed assured until, with less than 20 seconds left, a botched Longhorn play meant to run out the clock resulted in a fumble that was recovered by the Aggies in the end zone for a score. Texas, however, managed to block the extra point as time – and the season – ran out, leaving the final tally 7-6. Jubilant fans rushed the field.

39.1938 Texas vs Texas AandM in Austin.Winning Touchdown

Above: The Longhorn’s winning touchdown to beat the Aggies.

As had happened the year before with the upset over Baylor, campus reveling continued well into the night, though this time centered at the Thanksgiving Dance in Gregory Gym. An all-orange Tower presided over the Forty Acres, and while it would have been orange regardless of the score, by now, too many people connected the floodlights with the football win. What Green had suggested in the Statesman, combined with Eckhardt’s own thoughts on the use of the orange lights, as well as the lighting crew’s year-long experiment on how best to light the Tower, had all matured into a new University tradition.

40.1941 Cactus.White Tower for 1940 losses.Orange Tower for wins.And this time, the UT football program had truly turned a corner. The following 1939 season would be a winning one. Newly-appointed President Homer Rainey formally approved the idea of victory lights (with an all-orange Tower reserved for wins against A&M), and left the use of orange lights for other occasions at Eckhardt’s discretion.

Which made Eckhardt a very popular person.

Above: From the 1941 Cactus. In a recap of each game of the 1940 season, an image of a white or orange-topped Tower signified wins and losses. 

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“Dear Professor Eckhardt, Would you please light the Tower orange for . . .”

Over the next several years, the Tower victory lights for football, spring commencement, and a few other dates became a well-established tradition, and seemed to have everyone’s attention. “If anything is wrong after some football game or some other event,” Eckhardt explained, “I get as many as two or three hundred calls at home.” There was, though, still no formal schedule for the lights, and Eckhardt constantly fielded requests, or, as he described it, “a great host of individuals who possessed a wide variety of reasons for wanting to call attention to a function in which they were participating.” Among the functions were alumni meetings and retirement parties, academic conferences hosted in Austin, fraternity formals, milestone birthdays, and championships won in sports other than football. Occasionally, Eckhardt acquiesced (always, of course, if the request was made by the president), but most were politely refused. Orange lights on the Tower were supposed to be rare and distinctive.

41.Texas Ranger.September 1942.In 1941, soon after the U.S. entered the Second World War, Austin was deemed too close to the Gulf coast and within range of enemy bombers. An air raid siren was installed on the top of the Tower, and the city formally placed on a nighttime blackout. From January 25, 1942 to November 1, 1943 – about 19 months – both the Capitol dome and Tower were dark, though the Tower was allowed to shine for spring commencements and a Thanksgiving Day victory over Texas A&M.

Image at right: Cover of the September 1943 Texas Ranger student magazine. A UT freshman during wartime is portrayed as a paratrooper, landing on the Forty Acres next to a dark Tower under blackout.

When the blackout was lifted, student Mary Brickerhoff (image below left) cheered via the Texan. “The Tower isn’t a building. You thought it was? That’s natural, but the building part is only an optical illusion . . . The Tower is Texas, symbolically speaking, and it is at its most impressive and its most Texan when it is lighted up at night.”

42.Mary Brinkerhoff“That tall column of stone,” Brickerhoff continued, “silhouetted against a blue-black night sky and looking as though it were lighted from inside transparent walls instead of from the outside, has been affecting many very different people in the same way for a long time. In our mind’s eye – or in what we have left of it after four years of study – we can see the Tower from a dormitory window on a night of our first year here. It was several blocks away then, and it looked big and impressive. But it wasn’t unfamiliar. Something about it said, “Don’t be scared. You’ll have both fun and trouble in this place, and when it’s all over you won’t want to go back and change anything. And the Forty Acres will mean more to you than anywhere you’ve ever been.”

Brickerhoff expressed what many of her fellow students felt – and what future generations of UT students would feel – about the Tower, especially freshmen, who were both on their own for the first time and adjusting to college life. During the day, the Tower could be seen (and heard) from almost any spot on campus, but at night, standing proudly under a starry sky or buffeted by a Texas thunderstorm, the illuminated Tower was an image of stability and purpose in an otherwise hectic college student’s life. Had the decision been made not to use floodlights, to leave the building dark after sunset, the Tower would still have been the iconic campus landmark, but wouldn’t have engendered the same kind of passion Mary Brickerhoff described.

43.1940.UT Tower at night.postcard.

Above: A 1940 postcard image of the UT Tower at night.

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After years of endless special requests, Eckhardt at last decided that a formal lighting schedule was needed. Late in 1946, with the president’s approval, a seven-member committee discussed the issue at length, and announced their guidelines in October 1947.

44.UT Tower.Top OrangeThe victory lights – with the top portion of the Tower orange – were to be lit on nights when the football team won, or when the men’s baseball, basketball, track, swimming, golf, and tennis teams secured a Southwest Conference championship. The lights would also be used for spring commencement and various holidays: Easter, Christmas, Texas Independence Day (March 2), San Jacinto Day (April 21), Victory in Europe Day (May 8), Victory in Japan Day (August 14), and Armistice Day (November 11). As the Second World War had ended only recently, and the University campus was crowded with veterans who’d enrolled through the G.I. Bill (See: Life in Cliff Courts), the last three holidays were still widely observed.

An all-orange Tower was to be a rare sight indeed, seen only on Thanksgiving nights when the Longhorns defeated the Aggies. A great many students, though, were out-of-town for the holidays and missed out on the view. After a decade of complaints, the policy was amended in 1957 to include both Thanksgiving night and the following Sunday evening to greet returning students.

45.1952 Flashcard Section.Daytime and Orange Tower.

Above: The 1952 flashcard section flipped from a daytime to a nighttime orange-topped Tower, with the moon in the upper left corner. Courtesy Bob and Lou Harris. 

As the years passed, the lighting schedule continued to evolve. The World War II-related holidays were eventually replaced with Memorial and Veterans’ Days. It was also quite obvious to everyone that the victory lights were reserved only for men’s sports. In 1952, Jaclyn Keasler, president of UT’s Cap and Gown, a senior women’s organization, wrote to Eckhardt about the possibility of using the lights for Swing Out. An annual spring event since 1922, part of the program involved transferring a long bluebonnet chain from the shoulders of the graduating seniors to the juniors, symbolic of passing the campus leadership roles and traditions on to the succeeding class. Eckhardt was receptive to the idea and brought it to the committee, which agreed. On May 1, 1953, the top of the Tower finally glowed orange for a women-only activity. Almost 20 years later, with the passage of Title IX in 1971 and the creation of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) in 1972, the University began to sponsor competitive women’s sports. By 1976, the victory lights were shining for their achievements as well.

46.1923.Swing Out and Bluebonnet Chain.

Above: 1923 Swing Out and Bluebonnet Chain ceremony on what today is the South Mall.

47.1963.Orange Tower with UT.On Thanksgiving night 1962, Longhorn fans were in for a surprise. The football team had not only defeated Texas A&M, but had completed its first no-loss record in over 40 years. If not for a mid-season, 14-14 tie game with Rice when Texas was ranked number one, UT would have earned the national championship.  In honor of the team’s success, and in the spirit of the lighting experiments of the 1930s, Eckhardt ordered an all-orange Tower and had his crew spell out “UT” in the windows, the first time the windows were a part of the display.

 

48.1963 National Football Championship.Tower with 1.

The next year, the football team finished the 1963 season undefeated and ranked first, then soundly defeated number 2-ranked Navy in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day to clinch the University’s first national football championship. To celebrate, the Tower was orange for three nights, from January 1 – 3, 1964, with a “1” lit in the windows on each side. To prepare, Eckhardt’s crew spent two days sealing more than 100 windows with sheets of black plastic, and then left reminders in the appropriate offices to leave their lights on for the night. Today, a specially designed pull-down shade makes the process quicker and easier.

49.UT Tower 75th Annivesary.Logo and Tower.

On February 27, 2012, the Tower turned 75 years old. Students distributed birthday cake on the West Mall, the Alexander Architectural Archives, housed on the ground floor of Battle Hall, sponsored an open house with some of Paul Cret’s Tower sketches and drawings on display, and a historical tour of the Main Building was conducted in the early evening. Thanks to special approval by UT President Bill Powers, the Tower glowed orange that night with a “75” in the windows – the first time the Tower was lit orange to celebrate itself!

50.2019 and 2020 Spring Commencement.

Above: The 2019 Spring Commencement was the 25th year fireworks were launched from the Tower. The pandemic interrupted the 2020 ceremony, though the Tower still sported a “20” in its windows. Photos by Marsha Miller. 

By the 21st century, the Tower lights were thoroughly enmeshed in the University’s culture. Today, the Tower shines orange to recognize academic pursuits, including Honor’s Day, as well as faculty, staff, and alumni awards. The Tower lights not only mark the achievements of UT’s athletic teams, but national titles earned by the sports clubs under the Division of Recreational Sports. At times, the Tower is darkened in memoriam for members of the University community who have passed.

Best known, perhaps, is the use of the Tower for Spring Commencement, the signature event of the academic year. Held on the Main Mall since 1938, it was a somewhat staid ceremony with average attendance. In 1995, UT President Bob Berdahl asked that commencement be reinvented with more pomp and excitement. Special lighting effects were added to illuminate the Tower the designated color of each school and college, and the graduation year was lit in the windows. The most significant change was the addition of fireworks at the end of the ceremony. In just a few years, Spring Commencement was attracting overflow crowds of more than 20,000 persons.

The Tower lights, added almost as an afterthought to a building that was constructed 20 years early, has matured well beyond its “majestic splendor” and become a vital part of the University’s identity.

  • Sources: William J. Battle Papers, Carl Eckhardt Papers, and the UT President’s Office Papers in the University Archives, preserved at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History; Robert Leon White Papers in the Alexander Architectural Archives; UT Board of Regents minutes; Architecture of the Night by Dietrich Neuman; various booklets on floodlighting published by General Electric and Westinghouse in the 1920s and ’30s. The Daily Texan and Austin American-Statesman newspapers; Texas Ranger and Alcalde magazines.
  • Special thanks to the Austin History Center for helping to determine the height and site elevations of the Texas Capitol and UT Tower.

Why Texas Exes Celebrate March 2nd

The tradition has held fast for more than a century. On March 2nd, Texas Independence Day, some 40 Texas Exes chapters will gather for dinner, sing college songs, reminisce about their days as UT students, and learn something about the current goings on at the Forty Acres. It’s a time to celebrate everything and everyone connected to Texas and strengthen the bonds with the University.

Don’t forget, though, to thank Bob Saner.

~~~~~~~~~~

Robert Edward Saner (photo at right) hailed from the wilds of southwest Arkansas, born in 1871 on a farm near the small town of Washington, about 40 miles from Texarkana and the state border. He grew up attending public schools in one-room schoolhouses, and then won a scholarship to Searcy College in Arkansas. Bob stayed a year before he went on to Vanderbilt University in Nashville. For the next three years, he alternated between working various jobs and attending classes full-time, slowly making progress toward a law degree.

In the fall of 1895, when his family had relocated to Dallas, Bob elected to transfer to the University of Texas. At the time, aside from a $15 “matriculation fee,” tuition for in-state students was free. By then, Bob was only a year away from graduation, and the move to UT made financial sense. Bob’s younger brother, John, also registered, as a first-year law student.

With an enrollment of just under 500, and sprawled on a 40-acre campus with a Victorian-Gothic Main Building that was only two-thirds complete, the infant University of Texas was still very much a work in progress. Bob divided his time between law classes and assisting Professor Robert Batts with several legal publications, including Batts Annotated Statutes of Texas. John, meanwhile, found time to join the Athenaeum Literary Society, volunteer part-time at the law library, and pitch for the baseball team. For both, the highlight of the academic year turned out to be March 2nd, Texas Independence Day.

Above left: Only two-thirds of the old Main Building had been completed in 1895.

As Bob and John were newcomers to the Lone Star State, neither had experienced the unique swell of public Texas pride that accompanies the second day of March, but it was soon to make a deep impression on both of them. In 1896, Texas Independence Day was a state-wide holiday, except at the University, where classes were to be held as usual. For years, students had petitioned for the day off to celebrate their state, but their requests were always refused.

This time, the first-year law students, including John, decided to take matters into their own hands. Despite articulate and insistent pleas from Professor Batts, the group voted to skip classes en masse. Instead, they repaired to Scholz’ Beer Garden and spent the afternoon imbibing refreshments and waxing eloquent upon the virtues of everything Texas.

Though Bob didn’t participate, he’d certainly taken notice. He graduated in June with an LL.B. – a Bachelor of Laws and Letters, as law degrees were then called – and then returned to Dallas to prepare for the state bar exam and seek employment.

The following year, 1897, John’s law class again decided to celebrate Texas Independence Day, but this time legally borrowed a cannon from the Capitol, pulled it more than a mile to campus, and then fired it in front of Old Main. University President George Winston was persuaded to address the students, and claimed that while he’d been born and raised in the land of liberty, “Texas University students take more liberty than anyone I’ve ever come in contact with!” (see How to Celebrate Texas Independence Day) The decision to use the cannon was a hit, and a new University tradition was born.

Above right: The 1897 senior law class fires a cannon in front of Old Main to celebrate Texas Independence Day. Click on an image for a larger view. 

John completed his LL.B. that spring, and then stayed an extra year to earn a master’s degree – an LL.M. – before joining Bob in Dallas where they soon founded their own law firm.

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While Bob’s tenure as a UT student was brief, his relationship with the University was just beginning. Coming to Austin in June to see his brother graduate, Bob sat in on the alumni association meeting, which was then held annually the day before spring commencement. After a couple of years, Bob was hooked, and became a regular attendee for the rest of his life. At one point, he served as the association’s vice president.

In 1900, the alumni gathered in the auditorium of Old Main, where a serious discussion arose on how to increase membership and participation in the association. At the time, the University was less than two decades old. The alumni association, founded in 1885 by the first two graduating classes of ’84 and ’85, was observing its 15th anniversary. With very few exceptions, the oldest alumni hadn’t yet reached their 40th birthdays, and the majority of UT graduates were still in their 20s.  They were busy with new families and building careers. What was needed was an additional event, another excuse for alumni to gather, and something that was nearer to their homes rather than in Austin.

Above: Some UT alumni living in New York City gather on a chilly March 2, 1913.

Bob had an idea. In just a few years, Texas Independence Day had become a popular tradition on the Forty Acres. Might it be extended to the alumni?

In the middle of the discussion, Bob penned a brief resolution, and then passed it to the front to be reviewed by the officers and read to the group. It stated: “Whenever two ex-students of the University of Texas meet on March Second, Texas Independence Day, they shall sit and break bread together and pay tribute to the founders of the Republic of Texas, who made our education possible.”

The resolution was well-received and immediately passed, but nothing further was done to help alumni to contact each other, much less organize an event to “break bread.”

Later that summer, the University’s Board of Regents appointed Bob as UT’s Land Agent. While he continued to practice law in Dallas, Bob had to familiarize himself with the more than two million acres of University-owned lands in West Texas. Provided by the Texas Legislature when UT was created in 1881, it was the basis for the Permanent University Fund. At first, income was generated primarily through grazing and farming leases, but once oil was discovered in 1923, royalties exponentially grew the fund and forever changed the campus. Bob served as UT Land Agent for 30 years, a position that only strengthened his affection for the University.

Above: The Fort Worth alumni held their 1914 banquet at the Westbrook Hotel. At the bottom of the program cover is the Rattle-de-Thrat yell, which was then popular at UT sports rallies and games. 

While the alumni association had seemed to not follow through on Bob’s resolution, he persisted, and decided to do something locally. He helped to found the University Club of Dallas – among the first UT alumni chapters – and at its December 31, 1901 meeting to elect officers for the following year, Bob suggested an annual banquet be held on March 2nd, both to celebrate Texas Independence Day and the University. The idea was carried unanimously, and a five-person committee, with Bob as chair, was appointed and charged with “getting up the banquet.”

The idea was reported in The Dallas News the following day, and a month later, surfaced in The Texan student newspaper. “The Texan wishes to lend its hearty approval to this plan,” wrote the editor, “and insists that the alumni of the counties all over the state profit by the example.”

The Texan continued, “Nearly every county is represented by the student body, and the students should urge upon the alumni the necessity and wisdom of falling into line with this movement.” The 1902 Dallas banquet was a rousing success and quickly became the focus of spring activities.

The alumni association, though, continued to sputter and stall, much to the frustration of a small group of ex-students, including Bob, who saw alumni at other colleges and universities grow more active. It wasn’t until association president Ed Parker issued his seminal letter to alumni in December 1910, plainly stating that the association had no complete records, no funding, no headquarters, “no really effective organization,” did the outlook begin to improve. (see The Alumni Room)

Above left: The alumni association published an information booklet for Texas Independence Day in 1924. It included a brief history of how March 2nd came to be celebrated on campus, information about the association, and words to UT songs. 

The following June, at the 1911 annual meeting, the association made great strides to reorganize itself. Bob followed up his decade-old resolution with the suggestion that 31 vice-presidents be appointed, one for each state senatorial district, “whose special duty should be to bring University men and women in the district together for a University celebration on Texas Independence Day.” The association found 31 volunteers, along with two more for New York City and Mexico City. Success wasn’t immediate, but within three years, 14 cities were hosting annual banquets, and the number continued to grow.

To promote the March 2nd events, the Alcalde alumni magazine, which debuted in 1913 as part of the association’s reorganization, provided ample room for detailed reports from each banquet. Along with New York and Mexico City, groups in Boston, Saint Louis, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle joined the out-of-state list, which grew further to include London, Paris, and Tokyo.

Above right: The 1931 program for Boston’s March 2nd banquet included a performance of cowboy songs.

In 1916, UT President William Battle addressed both the Dallas and New York groups from the Austin banquet at the Driskill Hotel via long distance telephone. The “conference call” was a first for AT&T, which loaned a substantial amount of equipment for the effort. (see UT’s First Conference Call)

Above: On March 2, 1932, sculptor Pompeo Coppini, who created the Littlefield Fountain and the George Washington statue on the South Mall, hosted UT alumni in New York at his Manhattan studio. Coppini is standing in the back, fourth from left. Look close. Along the wall to the right is a plaster copy of one of the servicemen seen on the Littlefield Fountain. Click on an image for a larger view. 

As the popularity of the March 2nd banquets increased, so did the demand by alumni for news from the Forty Acres. A speakers bureau was created by the association and volunteer professors, deans, and UT administrators were dispatched around the state. To provide still more substance, the banquets included fundraising activities to support local scholarships to the University.

In the meantime, all of the activity and fun surrounding Texas Independence Day led directly to the formal establishment of local alumni clubs, what today are Texas Exes chapters. The banquets provided a venue for an annual meeting, where business was discussed and alumni officers elected.

Happy Texas Independence Day, y’all. And thanks, Bob.

Above: On March 2, 1980, the Texas Exes sponsored a parade of students and alumni from the Capitol to the Main Mall, there to observe Texas Independence Day at noon. 

The Old Main Cornerstone

Above: The cornerstone of the Old Main sits in the front loggia of the current Main Building. The stone was supposed to be placed on November 16, 1882, but a rainy cold front postponed the ceremony to the 17th. Austin stonemason Ben Muschamp, who’d carved the letters in the cornerstone, didn’t have time to create a new one with the corrected date. 

It was a wretched morning. A cold front the day before had brought with it a frigid gale and steady rain, which forced a postponement of the ceremonies. Conditions hadn’t improved much overnight. For the moment, the rain had stopped, but a brisk wind enforced the damp chill of the autumn air, and the cursed clouds threatened to douse the city again. It was hardly the kind of day anyone had imagined to celebrate the beginnings of a new university.

On Friday, November 17, 1882, in defiance of the raw elements, a crowd of several thousand turned out in Austin to watch the laying of the cornerstone for the University of Texas. Just before noon, a parade assembled at the head of Congress Avenue, in front of the Capitol grounds. The place was nearly vacant. The old capitol had burned nearly a year ago, and construction of a grand new building hadn’t yet begun.

Leading off the parade was the popular George Herzog Marching Band. With their crisp, red and gold uniforms and brass horns, the group splashed through the muddy streets playing “souls stirring and foot stomping music.” Behind them, a long procession of horse-drawn carriages carried the governor, the University regents, the Mayor of Austin, and other state and city dignitaries. Following on foot were many of the city’s civic groups, dressed in uniform or their finest attire. Members of the Knights of Honor were joined by the United Order of Workmen and the Knights of Pythias.  The polished wagons of the Austin Fire Department came next, along with the Germania Association and the Austin Greys.

At the west entrance to the campus along Guadalupe Street, the procession was met by Austin schoolchildren, who joined the group as it climbed the hill. The assemblage gathered near the top, where the foundation had been laid for the west wing of the University’s first building.

Above: The cornerstone ceremony for the old Main Building. The stone is held by a hand crane just right of top center. In front was supposed to be seating on long planks supported by wooden barrels, but most elected to stand and huddle together in the cold. Click on an image for a larger view.

A crude, wooden platform was hastily erected at the construction site, upon which were seats for the distinguished guests. For the audience, benches had been improvised with long planks supported by wooden barrels. Most of the spectators, though, in order to keep warm (and avoid splinters), elected to stand, and huddled together against the cold.

Dr. Ashbel Smith, the 75-year old chairman of the Board of Regents, spoke at length. “We have come together to do a great work,” boasted Smith. “The corner stone of the University of Texas . . . far surpasses in solemn importance and in weighty, widely diffusive and long reaching consequences, any corner stone of any building hitherto laid, or likely hereafter to be laid, in the broad territory of the future millions of Texas.” A feisty orator, Smith was neither modest nor short of words. His speech lasted well over an hour, and he predicted a wonderful future for the new university.

Following Dr. Smith’s address, a few “official” items were placed in a small lead box that would be sealed inside the cornerstone: copies of Texas newspapers, a list of the Board of Regents, and a proclamation written by Governor Oran Roberts. But there was room for more, and the public was invited to contribute.

The crowd was ready, and the box was filled with an odd assortment of items. Business cards, police badges, a Bible, rosters and constitutions of local organizations, a piece of sheet music from a member of the George Herzog Band, locks of hair from several Austin debutantes, a cigar, and coins of all types were donated. Former Texas Governor Frank Lubbock contributed a lucky charm – a brass button – that he’d carried for over 40 years to ward off rheumatism, presumably to keep the University agile as it aged. Lastly, of all things, was a picture of Queen Victoria, clipped from a Harper’s magazine and mailed to the regents by “an unfortunate man in jail.” Once filled, the lead box was closed and set, and the hollow cornerstone lowered over it by a hand crane.

~~~~~~~~~~

Above: Some of the onlookers gather to watch the removal of the of the Old Main cornerstone in 1934, some sitting on the balconies of Battle Hall. In front, UT President Harry Benedict is fourth from right in the white hat. The camera on the tripod at front right took the image below. 

Above: The Old Main cornerstone is removed from its perch on the southeastern corner of the building, then taken to the president’s office to be opened.

Just over half a century later, on the sweltering summer afternoon of Saturday, July 21, 1934, UT President Harry Benedict, Board of Regents Chair Beauford Jester, and about 100 others gathered near the same spot to witness the cornerstone’s removal. Old Main was about to be razed to make room for the current Main Building and Tower.

Unlike the highly organized 1882 ceremony, the 1934 event was very informal. There were no planned speeches, though among the spectators was 64-year old Arthur Stiles, the only person present to have seen the cornerstone set in place. He recounted the colorful parade that braved a true Texas Norther and the “rotund bearded figures” who spoke glowing terms of the University’s future. As the cornerstone was removed from its resting place, a lone trumpeter at the top of the building’s central tower sounded “Taps,” which officially closed Old Main. The lead box was recovered from inside the stone and taken to the president’s office, where the contents were examined, recorded, and then replaced.

Above: The cornerstone as it appeared in Old Main. The carved letters were filled with paint to make them easier to read. One side listed members of the Board of Regents, the other displayed the names of the building’s architect and construction contractor.

Above: A crowd in the president’s office, then on the first floor of Sutton Hall, to see the contents of the Old Main cornerstone. The open lead box is on the right side of the desk. Click on an image for a larger view. 

When the present Main Building was dedicated on February 27, 1937, the box was placed inside the new cornerstone, complete with a lucky charm to fend off rheumatism.

Among the contents of the 1882 Old Main cornerstone:

  • The Austin Daily Statesman, Friday, November 17, 1882
  • The Galveston Daily News, Thursday, November 16, 1882
  • Dallas Daily Herald, Friday, November 10, 1882
  • Fort Worth Daily Gazette, Friday, November 10, 1882
  • The Daily Post (Houston), Thursday, November 16, 1882
  • “Governor’s Message” – Proclamation or Governor Oran Roberts,
  • to convene a special session of the Texas Legislature,
  • Executive Office, Austin, Texas, March 1, 1882
  • One picture card advertisement: George A. Brush, Austin, Texas, Dealer in Stoves, etc
  • One package of cigarette papers, belonging to N.P. Houx
  • A poem called “The Book of Life,” by Lee C. Hasby, Houston, Texas, November 14, 1882
  • “Constitutions of Grand and Subordinate Lodges of the Knights of Pythias of Texas,” adopted, Galveston, April, 1882.
  • Handwritten copy of the Roster of Mount Bonnell Lodge, No. 34, Knights of Pythias, April, 1882
  • “The Constitution and By-Laws of the Kindred Association of Texas,” 1882
  • A handwritten copy of the Board of Regents of The University of Texas, November, 1882
  • Printed Booklet: “Plan of Organization and Rules and Regulations for the Government of the Public Free Schools of the City of Austin for 1882-1883.”
  • A copy of “Form of State or Provincial Constitution Recommended for the Association of a State or Province,” and handwritten on the cover, “Return to James Down, Secretary and Treasurer, Austin Y.M.C.A.”
  • A handwritten letter to Alexander P. Wooldridge, Secretary to the Board of Regents. Dated November 16, 1882, the letter was from F.W. Hanks, then an inmate at the Travis County Jail. Enclosed in the letter was a picture of Queen Victoria, clipped from Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.
  • Muster Roll, Company “A” 2nd Regiment, Texas Volunteer Guards
  • Muster Roll of Terry’s Texas Rangers
  • Printed Booklet: “Reminiscences of Persons, Events, Records and Documents of Texian Times” by Mrs. W. A. C. Wilson, Austin, 1882
  • Drawing of the “New Capitol of the State of Texas,” by S. B. Hill, 818 Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas
  • An envelope containing the names of the artisans and mechanics employed in the construction of the University’s Main Building, a drawing of the completed building, and a photograph of its architect, F. E. Ruffini.
  • Advertising pamphlet for “Bandy and Parker, Manufacturers and Dealers in Saddles and Harnesses,” East Pecan Street, Austin, Texas
  • A piece of an envelope with the return addresses printed: J. W. Graham, Druggist, 918 Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas”
  • The business card of “J.A. Southern, Austin, Texas, Hack No. 12” (a horse-drawn taxi)
  • Locks of hair from: Miss Stella Wooten, Miss Etta Wooten, Miss Maud Wooten, Miss Tommie Wooten, Miss Tully Folts, Miss Mary Goldwyn, Miss Will Elle Hardeman.
  • A copy of the music to “Allegheny,” by I. J. Heffley with the words “Herzog Band” written on top in pencil.
  • A one hundred dollar Confederate bill
  • A sergeant’s badge from the Austin Police Department
  • A copy of “The Holy Bible,” printed in New York, 1882
  • One U.S. Silver Dollar, 1881
  • One Peso, Republica de Chile, 1876
  • A round whistle
  • A cigar
  • Three pecans
  • One brass button (a lucky charm donated by Governor Frank Lubbock)
  • 8 street car tokens for the “Austin City Railroad Co.”
  • A 50 Centavos coin, Republica Mexicana, 1879
  • 2 U.S. quarters, dated 1853 and 1877
  • A U.S. nickel, dated 1876
  • A U.S. two-cents coin, dated 1865
  • 7 U.S. pennies, dated from 1857 – 1882
  • One dozen marbles

Sources: Photos of the cornerstone removal are found in the Alexander Architecture Archives of the University of Texas at Austin, Main Building and Library Extension files, Box D171.

The Misadventures of Bevo’s Head

For the burnt-orangest of Longhorn fans, the story of the first Bevo mascot is as familiar as the scent of fresh breakfast tacos on game day morning, and the sight of an orange tower that night.

In 1916, UT alumnus Stephen Pinckney, with some help from fellow alumni, purchased a West Texas longhorn steer and had him shipped to Austin on a train in time for the Thanksgiving Day football bout between the University and the A&M College of Texas. The steer, chosen because of his orange-shaded hide, was presented to the students at halftime (photo above) and then taken to a South Austin stockyard for care and safekeeping. Texas went on to win the game 21 – 7.

The steer was named “Bevo.” It was likely a play on the word “beeve,” which is both the plural of beef and a slang term for a cow or steer, followed by an “o,” though it was also the name of a non-alcoholic beer introduced by the Anheuser-Busch Company at the same time. (Think of it as “Beeve-o” or “Beef-o.”)

An on-campus debate ensued over what to do with the steer. Some wanted to brand Bevo with a “T” on one side and the winning “21 – 7” score on the reverse. Others thought that was animal cruelty and advocated for putting the steer out to pasture. The discussion was settled months later on February 12, 1917, when a group of Texas Aggies broke in to the stockyard and branded Bevo with the numbers “13 – 0,” the score of the 1915 football game A&M had won the previous year. With rumors swirling that the Aggies planned to return and kidnap the steer outright, Bevo was hurriedly moved to the Tom Iglehart Ranch west of Austin.

Six weeks later, in early April, the United States entered the First World War, and thoughts of mascots quickly took a back seat to the war effort until the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.

When peacetime again returned to the campus, University officials considered the Bevo situation, and declared the steer was simply too wild to attend football games. Besides, many UT students had lost interest in Bevo; he had, after all, only made a single public appearance two years previously, and those who remembered him thought the mascot had been “ruined” by the 13 – 0 brand still on his side. Besides, the students already had a huggable, pettable live mascot in the form of Pig Bellmont. As it was costing 60 cents a day to keep an unsuitable Bevo on a ranch, the athletics department decided to make the animal the barbecued main course of the January 1920 football banquet for the 1919 Longhorn team.

Both Pickney and Iglehart attended the event, along with a delegation from A&M. “The branding iron was buried and the resumption of athletic relations, after an unhappy period . . . duly celebrated,” announced the Longhorn magazine, a monthly published by UT students. “The half of the hide bearing the mystic figures 13 to 0 was presented to A and M with appropriate ceremonies.” Bevo’s head and horns were mounted by a taxidermist in New Braunfels, and it and the other half of the hide were to be kept on the Forty Acres.

So, whatever happened to Bevo’s head?

~~~~~~~~~~

Above: The Victorian-Gothic Old Main Building.

A visitor to the University of Texas campus in the 1920s would have discovered a jumble of buildings whose disparate styles sent a mixed message for what was supposed to be a “university of the first class.” At the top of the hill stood the Victorian Gothic old Main Building, stately and elegant, its pointed windows and rooftops softened by the deep-green ivy that draped its walls. Nearby, the library and education building (today’s Battle and Sutton Halls), along with the Biological Laboratories and Garrison Hall, boasted Mediterranean facades with red-tile roofs, a style the Board of Regents thought was both appropriate for the bright Texas sun and honored the Spanish heritage of the state. Decorations on these buildings ranged from ancient classical symbols to contemporary images, and brought an air of sophistication to the Forty Acres.

And then there were the shacks.

Starting in 1911, with the University expanding faster than its funding allowed, and without monies for conventional classroom buildings, UT President Sidney Mezes had cheap, temporary facilities constructed. They were made from pinewood, without proper foundations, and outfitted with potbelly stoves for heat. Mezes ordered the “shacks” – as they were informally known – to be left unpainted in the hope that their appearance would be so embarrassing, the state would quickly replace the shacks with adequate buildings. It didn’t work.

Entire academic departments were housed in the shacks, which were summarily labeled with letters of the alphabet. Professor Spurgeon Bell, the founder and first dean of UT’s business school, taught his initial accounting classes in “G” Hall (photo at left). On chilly winter days, in order to warm the classrooms before students arrived, Bell’s daily routine began by stoking the coals in the stove left by the custodian the night before, and then hauling in firewood from a stack behind the building. The visible contrast of unpainted shacks standing next to the library or Old Main was striking, and was certainly not the impression UT administrators hoped to convey for an aspiring first class university.

In 1918, during the First World War, a row of additional shacks was built along the eastern edge of the Forty Acres next to Speedway Street. They were first used as barracks for the Student Army Training Corps as part of the University’s war effort (see “To Serve the Nation”), but were re-purposed as classrooms and offices after the war.

The shack at the south end of the row, perched on the corner of 21st and Speedway (where the business school is headquartered today), was “Z” Hall, home to UT’s Department of Men’s Athletics.

Above: A row of pinewood shacks on the east side of campus, where Waggener Hall and the business school are today. Speedway Street runs behind the buildings. Closest, at bottom right, is part of “Z” Hall, used by the athletics department.

The front door was on the west side, and upon entering, a visitor first encountered a long corridor filled with displays of banners and trophies, as well as footballs, baseballs, basketballs, and track relay batons from important contests. Here, too, were rows of team photos and framed portraits of those who had earned varsity letters (“T” Men), with a special section for athletes who’d lettered in three or more sports.

Above left: One of the trophy displays in “Z” Hall. 

Past the coaches’ offices, whose walls were crowded with still more team photos, action shots, and Texas pennants, a suite of rooms in the rear of the building was reserved for Athletic Director Theo Bellmont. Along with space for an executive assistant and Bellmont’s own office, an adjoining conference room was used for Athletic Council meetings. Here, mounted on one of the conference room walls, was the head and hide of the first Bevo.

By the mid-1920s, Bevo was largely forgotten by the University community. Few, if any, of the students were on campus when the steer made his 1916 debut or knew of his integral contribution to the football banquet a few years later. Bevo, though, wasn’t simply gathering dust. In “Z” Hall, a place overflowing with awards and mementos, the steer’s four-foot two-inch horns were put to good use. From each horn, a prized football was hung. One was the ball used at the 1923 Texas vs. A&M game, still splattered with mud from Kyle Field in College Station, when the Longhorns won 6 – 0 to cap an 8 – 0 – 1 season. The other football was saved from the A&M game of the following year, on Thanksgiving Day 1924, when the new Texas Memorial Stadium was formally dedicated. The Longhorns earned a 7 – 0 victory over the rival Aggies.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Texas spirit, which by many had been acclaimed a thing of the past,” announced the Cactus yearbook, “was officially revived this year by an exceedingly capable yell leader.”

In the fall of 1928, Lynwood Boyett (photo at left) was full of new ideas. Elected head yell leader in the campus-wide elections, Boyett worked hard to improve the measure of Longhorn spirit around the Forty Acres and at football games. He tapped in to the energy of the freshmen class and created a special “Rooter Section” in the stadium just for the greenhorns. So that the section would be unmistakable, Boyett asked the frosh to wear uniforms of long-sleeve orange shirts and bright white suspenders, with the traditional freshman class green caps. The University Co-op agreed to sell the rooter uniform at cost, and by the first game of the season, hundreds of first-year students had registered for the rooter section and purchased their uniforms. Along with leading the rest of the stadium in the Rattle-de-Thrat and Lollapaloose  yells, Boyett had the freshmen perform “card stunts,” better-known today as a flash card section.

Above: The freshmen rooter section performs a “card stunt.”

Boyett also hoped to add some pizazz to the football rallies, which were then held at the campus Open Air Theater, an amphitheater just north of the old Law School. (Today, it’s the hill just north of the Graduate School of Business building that leads up to Garrison Hall.) He bolstered the line-up with more speakers and performers, and worked to increase attendance not only of the students, but of local alumni and Austin citizens.

Before he was elected head yell leader, Boyett had served two years as an assistant yell leader. He’d dropped by “Z” Hall to see the Athletic Director Bellmont many times, attended meetings in the Athletic Council conference room, and learned the history of the steer hanging on the wall. As head yell leader, Boyett wanted Bevo to be a part of the football rallies by mounting him on the wall at the back of the stage. Having the original longhorn mascot on the backdrop, where everyone could see him, would certainly add to the atmosphere of the event, and it would elevate Bevo out of obscurity to a more “mainstream” University tradition. Boyett approached Bellmont about the idea.

Bellmont was hesitant at first.  Moving the steer head could damage it, or, away from the protective confines of Bellmont’s office, something worse might happen. He eventually agreed to allow it for the rally set for Friday, October 19th at 7:15 p.m., the night before Texas opened Southwest Conference play against the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Above right: Yell leaders address the crowd at the football rally before the UT vs. Arkansas game.

The rally was a great, standing-room-only success. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) news reel crew recorded it and Saturday’s game, and highlights of both were later shown in movie houses nationwide. (Unfortunately, the film hasn’t survived.) Texas defeated Arkansas 20 – 7. Two weeks later, Boyett again received permission to borrow Bevo for the “Smash S.M.U.” rally slated for Friday, November 2nd.

It was the largest rally of the fall and featured baseball coach Billy Disch, who made his first speaking appearance of the season. “If you will just do your share tomorrow,” Disch told the cheering students, “the team will go forward to victory. The very atmosphere seems to spell it. You are going to help put the boys over the top!” A quartette from the UT Glee Club performed, Longhorn team captain Rufus King gave a pep talk, and the assembly practiced their yells for Saturday’s game against Southern Methodist. All the while, Bevo looked out to the crowd from his mount on the stage backdrop.

Above: The Glee Club quartet performs at the “Smash SMU” football rally, with Bevo mounted on the stage backdrop.

When the rally was finished and the lights turned off, Boyett and a student helper – identified only as “Freshman Harkrider” – were to carry Bevo to the law school library in the Law Building, just a few steps behind the stage. The athletics offices were already closed and locked, and the library staff volunteered to keep the steer safe until the next morning, when he could be returned to his usual haunt in the conference room.  The Daily Texan, though, needed a quick interview to complete a story on the rally before the newspaper’s deadline. Instead, Boyett and Harkrider, with Bevo in tow, headed north to the Texan’s offices, finished the interview in a few minutes, and then left for the Law Building shortly after 9 p.m..

Half way to their destination, Boyett and Harkrider were ambushed in the dark by five men. Bevo was wrestled away. The abductors made their escape in a car that Boyett could tell “had a rumble seat” and went the wrong way on the single-lane campus drive.  It exited the Forty Acres near the present day Littlefield Fountain and sped off into the night.

Boyett and Harkrider ran back to the Texan to report what had just happened, phoned the Austin police, and then went downtown to inquire at the hotels. No one had seen Bevo. It was a clean getaway. To add to the misery, the Longhorns lost to S.M.U. 2 – 6 on Saturday.

For the next two weeks, rumors swirled about the location of Bevo. A witness in Waco claimed to have seen an overcrowded car heading north to Dallas the Sunday after the game. Someone in the rumble seat had an orange Texas blanket covering “something suspicious.” An S.M.U. fraternity was allegedly openly boasting it had the kidnapped Bevo. The abductors were rumored to have been five freshmen – possibly fraternity pledges – who were ordered to drive to Austin and steal the steer. The S.M.U. student newspaper, The Daily Campus, printed a pair of articles: one claimed that engineering students were behind the Bevo heist, the second reported the steer had been seen at S.M.U.’s football rally before its game against A&M. All the while, Dallas area alumni were quietly making inquiries and reported what they learned back to the athletics department.

On Friday, November 16th, as the football team and yell leaders arrived in Fort Worth for Saturday’s game against Texas Christian University, word reached Boyett that Bevo was being held in a rooming house near the S.M.U. campus. A quick excursion to Dallas proved to be fruitful, as a rescue party composed of the yell leaders and a few local alumni safely recovered the steer without incident.

Bevo was triumphantly shown at a pre-game gathering of Longhorn fans on Saturday, and Texas won out over T.C.U. 6 – 0. After his brief “tour” of North Texas, Bevo at last returned to the serenity of the Athletic Council conference room, permanently retired from football rallies.

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Above: An almost-completed Gregory Gymnasium in 1930.

At 11 a.m. on Friday, April 11, 1930, the Longhorn Band met in front of the old Main Building, then proceeded to march down what today is the South Mall, turned left on to 21st Street, and continued to the corner of Speedway. Several thousand students, faculty, and staff followed along, as UT President Harry Benedict had declared classes cancelled for the rest of the day. The occasion was the official dedication and open house of Gregory Gymnasium.

The gym was the first of phase of the “Union Project,” an ambitious and unprecedented $600,000 fundraising campaign by the Texas Exes to build Gregory and Anna Hiss Gyms, the Texas Union, and Hogg Auditorium. The project was launched in 1928, but the stock market crash the following year and ensuing Great Depression made the going difficult. Some alumni were only able to contribute a single dollar, as that was all they could afford, while others wrote that they’d skipped meals in order to save enough for pledge payments.

Gregory Gym was intended to be both an athletic facility and auditorium, and it initially served UT and the citizens of Austin. In its first decade, jazz greats including Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller performed for all-University dances (photo at left), but so, too, did the Austin symphony and opera. The gym was home to the men’s swimming and diving, and basketball teams, and was headquarters for UT’s intercollegiate athletics, recreational sports, and physical education. The coaches and staff in “Z” Hall were happy to vacate the old shack and move across the street.

In the main foyer, glass cases were filled with trophies and photos, and Bevo, removed from his confines in the conference room, was reverently hung above the center doorway, where everyone could look up and see him as they passed through the foyer and entered the gym. There he remained for over a decade.

“Again calamity and shame have befallen on Bevo I,” announced the Texan on Wednesday, November 24, 1943, just a day before the Thanksgiving football game with Texas A&M. The University community discovered at the stadium and near the Tower “there was evidence that someone had been quite busy with generous amounts of whitewash.” The anonymous painter had left messages on how badly Texas would lose to the Aggies in College Station on Thursday.

Worse, though, was the outright destruction found in Gregory Gym. The horns of Bevo’s mounted head had been physically torn off, leaving only ragged edges. Whitewash can be cleaned; this was permanent damage to something irreplaceable.

“We do not know who is responsible for either prank; they left no clues,” wrote Texan associate editor Marifrances Wilson (photo at left). “Those who played these tricks were moved by a theory which is now out-of-date on this campus. They thought that by doing these things they could make the University of Texas students mad – fighting mad. They thought that they could dig up out of the dirt some of the old worn-out traditions – the same old UT – A&M hatred, reprisal vandalism, fights at the game, and so forth.”

At the time, the people of Texas, along with the rest of the nation, were thoroughly enmeshed in the effort to win the Second World War; a cross-state rivalry took a back seat. The football game was to be broadcast on short-wave radio to U.S. Armed Forces everywhere. “There isn’t time this year to hold old grudges,” Wilson continued, “it just isn’t worthwhile when we remember that all over the world, on fields other than Kyle, Aggies and Longhorns are fighting together.”

Texas won the game 27 – 13, and what was left of Bevo’s head was removed and rumored to have been placed in the storage area underneath the front stairs of Gregory Gym. Both the head, and the hide, have long since disappeared.