Old UT Photos

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[WorsterMan]

My Dad was a WW2 veteran on the GI Bill. He graduated from UT in 1949 with a biz degree. He was also a car guy back in those days. He would have easily identified that car and appreciated it!

 

[mchammer]

My Dad was a WW2 veteran on the GI Bill, that graduated from UT in 1949 with a biz degree. He was also a car guy back in those days. He would have easily identified that car and appreciated it!

Yes, but would he have identified the co-ed? If the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, I suspect he would have.

 

[WorsterMan]

Yes, but would he have identified the co-ed? If the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, I suspect he would have.

Yeah, I suspect he would have recognized her if she was a student... UT was still small enough in the late 40's, you knew a lot people.

 

[WorsterMan]

Speaking of old cars, here are a few in front of Gregory Gym. I don't recognize cars this old but suspect this photo was taken in the late 1920's or early 30's ...

These cars in front of the gym appear to be 1940's?

 

[Driver 8]

Speaking of old cars, here are a few in front of Gregory Gym. I don't recognize cars this old but suspect this photo was taken in the late 1920's or early 30's ...

These cars in front of the gym appear to be 1940's?

Interesting to think about the few times I was in that building (Gregory, and all the other buildings) while on campus and never gave much thought to how long they had been around, or how many other students from years past had been through there. It gives me such an appreciation for the opportunity to be at UT for a little while in my life and experience this great institution and all its gifts.

 

[SabreHorn]

Best car ever parked out front of Gregory was after the Nobis draft. IIRC, Nobis bought a new Riveria and parked it at the curb; Harris bought a Olds and parked it at the curb; John Elliott bought a new Chevy PU and parked it at the curb; Diron (properly pronounced "Die-roan" but dragged out in your best East Texas drawl) bought a used Cadillac convertible (not a collector's item) with over 50,000 miles on it, drove it up the sidewalk, parked it with the top down and left a sign "DO NOT TOUCH".

Great guy, funny guy, not doing well and could use your prayers

 

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[Sangre Naranjada]

Good. The Sponge was an atrocity and really, really needed to be torn down.

 

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[Dionysus]

1944: An aerial view of the UT campus from 80 years ago, looking east. The football and baseball stadiums are in the back, while the new Music Building (today’s Rainey Hall) is the first of the South Mall “Six Pack.”

@JimNicar

 

[Giovanni Jones]

Good. The Sponge was an atrocity and really, really needed to be torn down.

When my daughter was awarded her MA there in May 2022, I think hers was the last (or one of the very last) groups to use the Drum for commencement before the dismantling and demolition began. Not sure but what some of the contractors were setting up on site getting ready to get to work.

 

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[WorsterMan]

Maroon Madness
Posted on June 28, 2024

It was a great day for the second-ever football game between the University of Texas and Texas A&M. Partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the low 70s greeted fans who gathered at the University’s athletic field – unofficially dubbed “Athletic Park” by the newspapers – on Saturday afternoon, October 22, 1898. The teams hadn’t met in four years since their initial match in 1894, and a large crowd was expected. A few bleachers on the west side accommodated around 200 spectators, but most of the fans stood along the sidelines several persons deep. It would be another decade before UT students built their first stadium. (See The One Week Stadium)

University supporters arrived in suits, ties, and bowler hats for the men, and colorful Victorian dresses and fashionable hats for the women. As was the custom of the time, fans showed their team loyalty by wearing orange and white ribbons on their lapels, though enterprising male students wore longer ribbons so they could “snip and share” with any coeds who had none.

Above left: A UT football player in his orange and maroon uniform. This is actually a sketch found in the 1897 Cactus yearbook and (poorly) colored by the author. Look closely – there is no helmet. In the 1890s, most football players had long, bushy hair and believed it would be sufficient to protect the head.

About 75 members of A&M’s Corps of Cadets rode a chartered train from College Station, accompanied by a similar number of rooters. The cadets were armed with a variety of noise makers, from cow bells to dinner bells to tin horns, and everyone sported bright red and white ribbons, which were then the colors of the A&M College.

Kick-off was set for 3 o’clock, and it wasn’t long before the audience realized the game would be a lopsided one for a UT win. The reporter covering the game for the Austin Daily Statesman had an apparent fondness for simile. He wrote, “The ‘Varsity boys played like champions, and went through the visitors like a temperance resolution at a prohibition convention,” which was followed immediately by, “Touch-downs were as numerous as pretty new bonnets on a well-developed Easter morning.” The final score was 48–0.

The talk of the game, though, wasn’t the tally on the scoreboard, but the UT uniforms. While University fans dutifully showed up with their traditional orange and white, the team ran onto the field in orange and maroon.

The reaction, though, may not have been what you expected.

Read the rest of the article via the link below (too long to post here):

Jim Nicar – The UT History Corner

 

[LonghornEE72]

{huge snip}
Jim Nicar – The UT History Corner

That was freaking great!

 

[Horn6721]

Worst

How did you find that?

 

[WorsterMan]

Worst

How did you find that?

Jim Nicar website. Lots of really cool history, photos and stuff on UT.

Click on my link or Browser search Jim Nicar.

 

[Horn6721]

I clearly need to go there. Great stuff

 

[Dionysus]

A huge number of photos on this thread are from Jim Nicar’s Twitter/X account: x.com/JimNicar — many of which are also on his website, The UT History Corner (jimnicar.com).

Here’s another recent one from Jim.

The posed cover for the November 1947 Texas Ranger, a UT student magazine, getting ready for the Thanksgiving Day football game vs. A&M. Back then, men usually wore suits to games, often with armbands (bottom right) to show their team loyalty.

@JimNicar

Would you eat at the “Aggieland Cafe?”
For $1.25 turkey dinner I just might.

 

[mchammer]

A huge number of photos on this thread are from Jim Nicar’s Twitter/X account: x.com/JimNicar — many of which are also on his website, The UT History Corner (jimnicar.com).

Here’s another recent one from Jim.

The posed cover for the November 1947 Texas Ranger, a UT student magazine, getting ready for the Thanksgiving Day football game vs. A&M. Back then, men usually wore suits to games, often with armbands (bottom right) to show their team loyalty.

@JimNicar

Would you eat at the “Aggieland Cafe?”
For $1.25 turkey dinner I just might.

Looks like they played it safe and ordered pie.

 

[Dionysus]

Looks like they played it safe and ordered pie.

Maybe it was post-turkey dinner pie?

 

[WorsterMan]

100 Years of “Texas Fight!”​

Posted on October 30, 2023

The 1923 University of Texas football season could not have started better. Undefeated after the first six games, the team had shut out its opponents 202 – 0. “When Longhorn gridiron prospects are as good as they are,” stated The Daily Texan student newspaper, “the average male student doesn’t care much about the rest of the University anyway. From registration to Thanksgiving, most of us major in football, with a few bothersome minors thrown in by [degree] requirements.”
Guided by first-year coach Ed “Doc” Stewart (so nicknamed because he had a medical degree), the Longhorns posted a 33 – 0 rout over Tulane in a game held in Beaumont, Texas, and a 16 – 0 win over a strong Vanderbilt team at the Texas State Fair. Vanderbilt would go on to win the Southern Conference title, and its only other loss was to eventual national champion Michigan.
The Texas steamroller was slowed by a 7 – 7 tie against Baylor in Waco on November 10. Though it wasn’t a loss, it left Coach Stewart more than a little concerned about the physical condition and morale of his team. The Longhorns left Waco plagued with injuries, and Stewart was forced to cancel practice and allow his players to heal. Only two games remained on the schedule. Rival Oklahoma was coming to Austin the following week, and the Thanksgiving Day game against the A&M College of Texas, in College Station, loomed on the horizon.

Above: The old Men’s Gym at Speedway and 24th Streets, where the Peter O’Donnell Building stands today, was packed for a football rally.
As part of the lead-up to the OU game, a raucous Thursday night football rally was held in the men’s gymnasium. Freshmen sat on the gym floor, the other male students filled the bleachers, and the women’s student section, closest to the stage, though still discouraged from yelling as it was deemed “unladylike,” made it the largest rally crowd of season. Despite the lack of football practice, Stewart was in no mood to lower expectations. Instead, he challenged the students. “I didn’t think you had it in you,” the coach told the crowd. “The spirit that you have . . . shows that Texas fight is not dead.”
“The team fights only as hard as the rooters fight,” Stewart continued, “and they go out on the field Saturday and on the Aggie gridiron with just the fight that you rooters put into them. It is up to each of you individually . . . supporting with all your might the men that represent you on the field. The men have not practiced this week due to injuries and it is up to the rooters to help the Longhorns.”
The coach urged the students to adopt the motto, “For Texas, I Will,” for the rest of the season. Thoroughly inspired, the students responded with some of their favorite UT yells, shouted so loud that “the sides of the building shook with the volume.” Against the rules, even the women contributed to the decibels.

Stewart’s new motto was quick to spread across campus. Friday morning, the Texan announced, “Coach Sweeps Crowd Off its Feet by Virile Exhortation,” and included “For Texas, I Will” on either side of its masthead. Large painted signs – “For Texas, I Will” and “Longhorn Fight” – appeared on the walls in the University Cafeteria, and “Texas Fight” was printed in supportive ads by local businesses in the Austin newspaper.
The Longhorn roster numbered 16 athletes: 11 starters who played both offense and defense, and five substitutes. By kick-off at 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, most of the team was still battered and bruised. Three starters, including team captain David Tynes, were out for the game. The student fans, though, were in full voice, and despite the odds, Texas defeated the Sooners 26-14.
The Thanksgiving Day game against A&M was almost two weeks away. While the teams had played each other since 1894, the contests were held either in Austin or Houston. Games at Kyle Field in College Station didn’t begin until 1915, when the Aggies constructed large enough stands to handle the crowds Thus far, the Longhorns had never won on Kyle Field, and A&M was favored again.
The Longhorn football team, Longhorn Band, and Longhorn fans wasted no time preparing to do battle with their state rivals.
Fortunately, the University would have a surprise arrow in its quiver: a song.
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[WorsterMan]

Page 2 of above:



Above: The Aggie football team and campus of the A&M College of Texas in the 1900s. – Texas A&M University archives.

Among the many traditions in College Station, the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets had their own yells and songs, one of them informally known as “Aggie Taps.” The tune first appeared around 1900, and was simply the words “Farmers fight” repeated to the tune of the bugle call “Taps”:



It wasn’t long before University of Texas students spoofed the song with one of their own, usually sung when the football game wasn’t going well for the Aggies. Created in 1903, it was a call to “hit the showers” and retire:



For the next two decades, “Aggie Taps” continued to be sung (separate from the “Farmers Fight!” yell still heard today) and gradually gained importance on campus. By the 1920s, it had evolved into an unofficial alma mater, sung at the end of student banquets and former student gatherings. In 1923, the Corps of Cadets elected to stand and sing “Aggie Taps” as their football team ran onto the field.



Above: The 1910 University of Texas band, part way through the fall term. The football schedule and results are painted on the bass drum. Walter Hunnicutt, the student director, is seated front row right, with a trumpet at his side and holding a baton.

The song also attracted the attention of Walter Hunnicutt. A 1914 UT law school alumnus, Hunnicutt – called “Hunni” by his many friends – served as the student director of the Longhorn Band from 1910 – 1914. After graduation, he returned to his hometown of Marlin, Texas (about 30 miles southeast of Waco), where he briefly joined the law office of fellow Texas Ex, and future U.S. Senator, Tom Connally. After only a year, Hunnicutt was elected Marlin’s city attorney, then enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War I. Returning to Marlin after the war, he was elected a Falls County judge in 1922.

Hearing the Corps of Cadets sing “Aggie Taps” in a unified voice made quite an impression on Hunnicutt, and he later described it as “one of the most effective and awe-inspiring songs used by any student body.” Texas A&M’s other songs, though, weren’t so appreciated, especially “The Aggie Battle Hymn,” which included lyrics such as “Well it’s goodbye to Texas University,” and “Saw ‘Varsity’s horns off.” Hunnicutt wanted a song the Longhorn Band could use to “strike back,” and in the fall of 1923 set out to compose a UT version of “Taps.”

For the parts of the song that followed the bugle call, Hunnicutt substituted the words “Texas fight” for “Farmers fight,” but also added to the melody so that it was an original tune. The initial lyrics were:





Above: Walter Hunnicutt’s original score of “Texas Taps.”

The last line – “to hell with all the rest” – didn’t sit well with the University administration, which considered it vulgar and inappropriate. Burnett Pharr, the Longhorn Band director, took a look at the song, smoothed over the lyrics that seemed a bit clunky, and replaced the last line with: “so it’s goodbye to all the rest.” Hunnicutt agreed to changes, and the song became:



Hunnicutt and Pharr asked Jim King, the band director at Marlin High School, to orchestrate the song for the Longhorn Band. It was to be ready in time for a Thanksgiving Day debut.

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On the Forty Acres, the excitement over the A&M game was everywhere, and if the possibility of an undefeated (and one tie) season wasn’t enough, the campus was buzzing with talk about building a new stadium.

Just after the First World War, improvements to the nation’s roads, combined with the popularity of Henry Ford’s Model T automobiles, meant that more Americans were able to travel and willing to drive to sporting events, such a college football games. By the 1920s, attendance at games increased significantly, and it launched a national stadium building boom.

In 1922, new stadiums opened at Vanderbilt and Ohio State Universities, along with the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, and the following year, the Universities of California, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Illinois joined them. By the end of the decade there would be more than 20 new football stadiums – including Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, and Duke – and the facilities were often dedicated as a memorial to those who had fought and perished in recent world war.

In Austin, the University’s Clark Field, constructed almost entirely by students (see The One Week Stadium), was aging and needed more that its 20,000 seats. Though riding the train was still popular, more Longhorn fans were driving in from the Hill Country towns of Burnet, Marble Falls, and Fredericksburg, and making weekend trips from San Antonio and Dallas, which made the limited seating a serious problem. For UT to build a new stadium, a win over the favored Aggies was rumored to “put the idea over” on the Board of Regents, which was set to consider the issue at its December meeting.

On Thanksgiving Day, November 29, 1923, thousands of boisterous Longhorn fans made their way to College Station, many wearing armbands that read: “Win or Lose, Stadium for Texas by Thanksgiving 1924, For Texas I Will.” At the start of the game, just after the Corps of Cadets had sung their “Aggie Taps,” the Longhorn Band sprung Hunnicutt’s surprise, “Texas Taps,” which was an immediate hit with the University crowd.

In the course of the game, the song was played several more times, and as the Texas fans learned the words, the air was filled with the sounds of “and it’s goodbye to A&M.” The Longhorns eked out a 6 – 0 win, their first on Kyle Field. The following month, the Board of Regents approved a new stadium. One year later, Texas Memorial Stadium was officially dedicated in Austin on Thanksgiving Day, 1924.



Above: The Texas A&M Corps of Cadets form a large “T” on the field at the 1924 Thanksgiving Day dedication of Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin. – Portal to Texas History

“Aggie Taps” survived a few more years. While it was popular with the Corps, it had less support with the residents of Bryan and College Station, as well as the College administration. The lyrics didn’t really measure up for the song to be an alma mater. Instead, “The Spirit of Aggieland” was introduced in 1925 to fill the role, and “Aggie Taps” was discontinued soon afterward.

“Texas Taps” has been played for a century, and was officially renamed “Texas Fight!” in the 1970s.

 

[Dionysus]

1940: Looking down on part of the UT campus with the football stadium and Clark Field no. 2 for baseball, where the Bass Concert Hall is today. The rectangular Gregory Gym is just left of the stadium, and the future East Mall to its north — then still a neighborhood.

source: @JimNicar