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Home My WebLink AboutA&M Campus Housing 073103TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT Of ENTOMOLOGY COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS 77943~2475 AC 409-~5~2516 October 22, 1996 Mr. Paul McKay Bryan Bryan, Professor D.G. Woodcock Architecture A&M Station, Gentlemen: I've worked list -of the at the Ag I was in the on A&M and made a was about the material [ with a 1935 Page and Mrs. had come to B.Do Houston Houston. In Marburger. Also in houses at the to the and room New been so remained · campus still over in 1938. into th , In any by Dr. Francis on Houston: 210 '20s at 210 of A&M oi houses in 1938 Cheap a five have and had few on the gravy train was Texas Agricultural Experiment Texas Agricultural Extension Service Mr. Paul McKay Professor D.G. Woodcock Dr. Paul Van Riper October 22~ 1986 Page 2 In 19#0-19#1 the diaspora was frantically underway, and perhaps in late 19t~0 the first of the campus houses were purchased and moved; by the middle of 1941 they had begun carting them off seriously. Time was running out in 1941. World War II would shut down building completely. The J.K. Walkers remove was on July t~ 1940 and we were one of the first families to leave the campus, the last item for the movers to consider that day ... father was never be more than five minutes away from news bulletins. In many ways the collapse of Europe that summer brought a far darker hour than Pearl Harbor. There seemed no hope at all as I remember now. We didn't take the New father had built a home in with us that July ~ -- instead North Oakwood. Page 366: Spence - Bolton House -- This house was not located at the Rudder Tower site. It was on Tnrockmorton. The Rudder Tower is located on Lubbock Street (Joe Routt) and covers parts of the space once occupied by Guion Hall and the J.K. Walker residence. Students. About 1926 Ike Ashburn and family had resided at this home on 220 Lamar; but his wife suddenly his position as secre- tary for Former He returned to A&M once more in the 1930s. It is possible that between the departure of Ashburn and the arrival of the McQuillens, in the late '20s, students could have lived at the home. But they were not there in the '30s. Those are several items that I wanted to comment on. I would add a few words about "Quality Row". While in A&M's more formative years the seat of power may have rested in the homes near the Drill Field, by 1920 there [sa much greater concentration of the stuff on Throckmorton Street. Why, there is not an assistant professor to be seen there. Throckmorton is some distance from the Drill Field. It may not be entirely evident from my map and street listings, but there was an ordered segregation in campus housing, segregation even more pronounced than that suggested by the absence of assistant professors on Throckmorton. All those folks on Ireland and 5utphur Springs were carpenters and painters and Mr. Paul McKay Professor D.G. Woodcock Dr. Paul Van Riper October 22, 1986 Page 3 plumbers. Only in rare instances were their likes seen on other streets. Such were the times and our ghetto. The phone book I used to establish the locations of residences here arrived at the C.H. Winkler home on Throckmorton in the Fall of '34, joining previous year's directories and recording snippets of various data and information as the years passed. In time, it was put away and forgotten; a few years ago one of the Winkler grandchildren discovered it at the bottom of a trunk, resting there with all of the pressed flowers of yesterday. It is indeed a period piece and a testimonial of that common place: "a simpler time ". But, it was simpler: if there were no yellow pages, who cared? Everybody in the community knew who sold what. You don't need yellow pages in 1935. And fires and crime ...? You simply pick up the receiver of the phone on the hall stand, and when the operator says, "number please ", you ask for the 1 C fire station or police. People notoriously record things on phone books. Mrs. Winkler left us with the following mysterious formula on the back of the directory: 1 pt. gas 1 T salt 1 T salt peter 1 g camphor Mix and let stand 24 hrs. She left not the slightest hint of what it was used for. Sincerely, J. Knox Walker Professor of Entomology J KW:eaa ♦r 1935 Unnamed Street 77 78 Office Ireland Street 75[ 70 71 72 73 74 Ross NORTH DRILL FIELD 14 A&M Consolidated Highway 6 (Wcltbom) Lubbock (Joe Rout0 20 33 34 FIELD 25 26 27 Houston Street 8 2 Grade School 9 3 10 4 11 5 12 6 13 Throckm )rton Street (To College Park) List of Streets and Residences Texas A&M Campus, 1935 Walker The following is a code of houses and their location at the College. As a child I thought the campus was a place all employees lived; after putting this together I realize now that, by and large, it was the higher voltage sorts that were enjoying the dirt cheap housing. One had to be in charge of something to avail himself of this perquisite. One exception stands out: Wood Street is occupied in 1935 by staff people who, with a single exception, are teachers only. ^ At other locations also, several other non-administrative types had houses. The USA military, ROTC, teachers, are all on Henderson, with the exception of Col. Emery, Head of Military Science. Emery has made it to Throckmorton. As I have indicated the craftsmen at the College, people Ireland, Sulphur Springs and Ross. Only Albert Haneman has penetrated to the academic west of the campus; Mr. Haneman, head of the carpentry shop, resides on Bell Street. He lives right next to a engineering department head. In 1935 domestics are commonplace on the campus, occupying, in many instances, servant quarters: small homes at the rear of residences. A number of these folks worked for years, and often were part of the family of the staff residing in the campus housing. There is likely little record left of this body of domestics at the College. Commercial laundries have not been fully accepted in 1935, and commonly the laundry process is prosecuted in the backyard where the weel~s accumulatior¢ of dirty clothes are stewed in great black pots heated by kindling fires. Blueing is an ~tem on everyone,s shopping list. Sulphur Springs Road, presumably, derived its name from the lofty wooden tower that road in ~935. A gothic, brooding affair of clapboard, the tower houses the pump that serves the College with its water: it is terrible stuff, laced with hydrogen sulphide; efforts by the power plant to remove the hydrogen sulphide by aerating the water in a kind of out-of-door swimming pool are imperfect, and visitors to the often bring their own drinking water (in fairness I should note that people who grew up with the water were oblivious to its sulfurous character), water is located near the depot, and a few on the campus visit it twice a week for drinking water. Large cisterns that trap rainwater from roofs are found at several homes. The rail spur on the map had carried the coal to the power plant. But by 1935 the plant should have been switching to natural gas. Some years after the coal era, a steam locomotive, an archaic looking thing then in the 1930s, was dutifully housed in a great elongate garage near the power plant. Campus kids, with impunity~ celebrated this machine after its retirement; pulling levers and switches, they thundered down the tracks on some never2never run. I believe the engine was surrendered to that ubiquitous agency, the War Effort, as scrap iron, after '42. THROCKMORTON 1. Col. A.R. Emery, Head Military Sciences 2. O.M. Ball, Head Biology 3. C. Puryear, Dean (retired) #. O.W. Silvey, Head Physics 5. ~V.H. Holzman, Comptroller 6. C.H. ~/inkler, Head Summer Programs 7. G.S. Fraps, State Chemist 8. F.C. Bolton, Dean, College of Engineering and College 9. A.B. Conner~ Director, Texas Agriculture Experiment Station 10. F.L. Thomas~ Head, Division of Entomology, TAES 1 I. H.H. ~Viltiams, Director~ Texas AgriCulture Extension Serivce 12. E.O. Siecke, Head, Texas Forest Service 13. S.~. Bilsing, Head, Entomology Houses 2 and 6 were a kind of ersatz brownstone, probably plaster. Neither could be moved. LUBBOCK (Joe Routt) 14. 3.K. Walker, Branch Colleges 15. Homer Norton, Football Coach 16. T.D. Brooks, Dean, Arts and Sciences 17. Miss Bess Edwards, Assistant State Extension Agent 18. C.N. Shepardson, Head, Dairy Husbandry 19. 5.G. gaily, Secretary for Board of Directors 20. M.K. Thornton 21. E.L. Williams, Head, Industrial Education HOUSTON 22. D.H. Reid, Head, Poultry Husbandry 23. W.L. Hughes, Head, Education 24. S.R. Gammon, Head, History 23. F.G. Anderson, Commandant 26. T.W. Leland, Head, Accounting & Statistics 27. R.E. Karper, Vice Director, Texas ute Experiment Station 28. W. Porter, Head, Mathematics 29. G. Summey, Head, English 30. W.L. Penberthy 3I. B.D. Marburger, Superintendant, s and College Utilities 32. C.C. Hedges, Head, Chemistry-and Chemical Engineering 33. 3.3. Richey, Head, Civil Engineering 34. Luther 3ones 33. Curtis Vinson, Head, Publicity CLARK 36. H.R. McQuillen 37. J.M. Jones, Head, Range Animal Research for TAES 38. E.B. Reynolds, Head, Agronomy 39. S.A. McMillan 40. R.D. Lowery Dan Russel, Head, Rural Sociology D.W. Williams, Heady Animal Husbandry J. Taubenhaus, Head, Plant Pathology & Physiology LAMAR E.E. McQuillen, Secretary, Former Students Mark Francis, Dean, Veterinary Medicine F.E. Gieseske, College of Architect and Director oi Engineering Experiment Station 47. F.V/. Hensel~ Head, Landscape Arts :I.G. Bagley~ Head, Textile Engineering 49. C.B. Campbell, Head, Modern Language 50. R.G. Reeves JONES 51. T.O. ~/alton, President 52. J.E. Marsh, College Physician R.P. Marstellar E.3. Kyle, Dean, Agriculture BELL 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. A. Mitchell, Head, DraWing E.W. Steel, Head; Municipal and A. Haneman W.A. Foodservices Jack Shelton' Viee Directori TeXas AgricUltural Extensi°n Service WOOD 60. 3.A. Orr, Munson Apartments S.S. Morgan, Munson Apartmenzs C.O. Spriggs~ Munson Apartments 61. E.D. Humbert, Head, Genetics 62. D.B. Corer 63. J.W. Mitchell HENDERSON 6~4. 65. 66. 67. 68. Capt. G.B. Troland Capt. Raymond Orr Thomas Mayo, Librarian Lt. M.H, Marcus Lt. Martin Moses ROSS 69. W.E. Lewis IRELAND 70. F.B. Brown 71. W.M. Smith 72. G.P. Ayers 73. L.D, smith A. ThompSon 75. P.B. M°nosmith 76. Iqerman Krauser UNNAMED STREET IN NORTHWEST CORNER OF CAMPUS; FACES SULPHUR SPRINGS ROAD 77. 78. C.W. Cra~,~rd, Head, Mechanical Engineering R.T. Stewart UNNAMED STREET NEXT TO HIGHWAY 6 (Wellborn) 79. E.3. Howell, Registrar 80. N.J. Dunn, Band Director 81. L.P. Gabbard, Farm and Ranch , Ag. Expt. Station 82. E.R. Alexander, Head, Agriculture Education 83. R. Treichler SULPHUR SPRINGS ROAD 1935 phone book lists all occupants on this street and it is not clear who is residing in houses on A&M land and who live in private homes. As I remember, A&M homes were located between Bell and Ireland (south of Sulphur Springs), and between Ireland and a point where Street is today. Again, these were on the south side oi Sulphur Springs in 1935. The following are residents on A&M land on Sulphur Springs: S.E. Asbury H.R. Covington 3.C. Hotard 3.H. Stockton ~t/. D. Lloyd C.Lo Gray Layton Gregg It is likely that there were a few others on the A&M part of Sulphur Springs. APARTMENTS Three apartments are located on the campus. Munson apartment is located on Wood Street. Near the joining of Wood and Henderson there is an apartment for military Science teachers; not far from this location sits the Bachelor Apart- ment. In 1935 the following live in the latter. V.K. Sugareff C.E. Sandstedt Well, thats about it. This piece accounts were in 1935. accuracy where they