The subject of today’s post is a university that just a couple of years ago would have not meant the same thing to me as it does today. Austin Peay State University is located in Clarksville, TN, about 45 miles or so northwest of Nashville. The university is about eight miles from the Kentucky border and just a hop from Fort Campbell, a large US Army base which is home to the 101st Airborne Division. But what makes it unique for me is that I am now an alumnus of the university. I decided to go back to school to get a second master’s degree in management more than two decades after I received my Ph.D. from Texas Tech University. I graduated during the first weekend in May 2024, nearly thirty years after I received my first master’s from the University of Tennessee. When I put that into writing it really stands out as an exceptionally long time. Think of it. In the intervening years between receiving my first master’s and my second, a person could have been born, gone all the way through college (even on a longer than the normal four-year plan), completed a master’s degree and have been out of school and working for a few years in the same amount of time. Man, I am getting old. When I was an undergraduate at UT there were, from time to time, older students in some of my classes. It turned out that I became one of those old people as well. But this post is not about me.

Austin Peay was founded as a teacher’s college, hence its original name of Austin Peay Normal School. It carried that name from its founding in 1927 to 1943. From 1943 to 1967 it was named Austin Peay State College. The name changed to its current Austin Peay State University in 1966 and so it remains to this day. What is unique about Austin Peay is that the university occupies a campus that has been the site of many other unrelated schools and colleges. Readers of the blog may recall a post from a few years ago on Rhodes College in which I detail the history of the site. The first school located on what is now the Austin Peay campus was the Rural Academy which stood there from 1806 to 1810. This was followed by the Mt. Pleasant Academy (1811-1824) and the Clarksville Academy (1825 to 1848). The first college would occupy the site beginning in 1849. It would be reorganized in 1851 as the Montgomery County Masonic College. Another reorganization came in 1855, when it was named Stewart College. Stewart would close in 1854. As noted in my earlier post, Rhodes began life with the name Southwestern Presbyterian College on the site in 1875. The name would change to Rhodes only after it moved to Memphis in 1925. The state of Tennessee would acquire the former Southwestern campus in 1927 to provide a home for the newly established Austin Peay.

Today Austin Peay has a headcount of about 11,000 students and has about 550 faculty. The campus sits on 182 acres pretty much in the heart of Clarksville. The university is named after former Tennessee Governor Austin Peay. He was a force for higher education in the state at the time, doing much for the advancement of public colleges and universities across the state. Public colleges in the state saw significant increases in their budgets during his administration and a building boom was underway thanks to his support. It was during his time in office that the college that would eventually bear his name was created. Because of this association, the university eventually settled on its athletic moniker - the Governors. Many of the buildings are named for various governors of the state as well.

My first stop on this visit was the Kimbrough Building. Kimbrough is the home to the College of Business. It recently underwent a $9 million renovation. I wanted to make sure to get a number of photos of the building since I am now an alumnus of the College of Business. Although not always the case, the business building(s) on campus are generally well-kept structures and are frequently some of the most up-to-date. This is thanks in part to the fact that the alumni of business schools tend to have greater incomes than graduates of many other programs and thus when they donate their contributions tend be larger. The same is frequently true of schools of medicine, law, and engineering. The building was completed in 1982 and has some 32,000 square feet of space. The College of Business has seen its enrollment increase in recent years and it has generally outgrown the space. The university plans to someday build an addition that would connect to the portion of the building on the left in the first photo. The addition would essentially make the building into a "U" shape. It is named in honor of Ben S. Kimbrough, an alumnus (Class of 1951) and his wife  Margaret. He was a local businessman and community leader. His sone Ben Jr. and wife Beverly Kimbrough are also donors to the university having endowed the Ben and Beverly Kimbrough Scholarship.

The first four photos show various views of the building's exterior. The first two are of the side facing Henry Street, the third on the Marion Street side of the building. The sculpture in the fifth photo is called Light Modulator. The piece is the work of artist Mike Andrews and was completed in 1985 and donated to Austin Peay in 1986. Andrews works out of a studio in Cunningham, Tennessee, a small community about nine miles from the university. 

The set below is the ​Foy Fitness and Recreation Center. It has all the accoutrements of a modern fitness center including cardio and weight training spaces and equipment, a multicourt gym, studio spaces, a wellness center, classroom and administrative space, locker rooms and showers, and a cafe. The building was designed by the Lyle Cook Martin Architects firm of Clarksville, Tennessee. The firm also designed the Joe Morgan Student Center on campus (see below). Readers may recall that they designed the University Village Phase II residential complex at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Completed in 2007, the 76,450 square foot Foy Center cost $8,762,000 to construct (which is about $14.1 million in today's value). It is named in honor of John N. Foy and his wife Trish. Mr. Foy is an alumnus of Austin Peay (Class of 1964). After a 44-year career with the real estate giant CBL, he founded the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based investment firm Noon Management. He is also a graduate of the School of Law at the University of Tennessee.

​The first two photos show the front façade of the building which faces Marion Street. One of things I like about the university is that they are very active in branding. They make great use of their colors, red and black like my other alma mater Texas Tech, and their various logos. In this case, you see the stylized face of the APSU Governor, the athletic team mascot. The dedicatory plaques, seen in photos three and four, are by the main entrance. The fifth and sixth photos show the building from the side which faces Fortera Stadium (see below).

The set below provides two views of the front of the Winfield Dunn Center and close up's of the state seal of Tennessee and the APSU seal which are on opposite sides on the building's front façade. The building faces Marion Street and there is an intramural field and a sand volleyball court between it and the street. The Dunn Center was once the home of the Governors basketball program. The program has moved to the F&M Bank Arena, but I did not get a photo of it during this visit. Construction on Dunn began in February 1973, and it opened in 1975 with the name Winfield Dunn Health and Physical Education Building and Convocation Complex. The first game in the arena was played on December 1, 1975, and saw the Governors beat the Old Dominion Monarchs 78 to 73. The last men’s game played in Dunn occurred on February 22, 2023, and again saw the Governors win, this time beating North Florida 73 to 71. Overall, the team had 350 wins and 144 losses in the arena. The 132,000 square foot building is now home to the Governors volleyball team. It cost $5.3 million to build, which is about $37.7 million in today's dollars. It is the first building on my tour that is named for a Tennessee governor. Winfield Dunn was a Mississippian by birth who came to Tennessee for dental school. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of Mississippi (Class of 1950) and then went to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center for dental school (Class of 1955). The Dunn Dental Building at UTHSC is also named in his honor. He stayed in Memphis to practice and eventually went into politics. He was elected the 43rd governor of Tennessee in 1971. Buildings at Tennessee Tech and the University of Memphis are also named for him.

The set below is of a number of residence halls on campus. The first photo is of the Castle Heights building. The building, which is for first-year students, can accommodate up to 416 residents. Its name comes from the area in which it is located, which is in turn an homage to the former Castle Building (see below) on campus. It was completed in 2011, with a grand opening celebration being held on August 11th that year. The 140,000 square foot building was designed jointly by Lyle Cook Martin Architects and Clark and Associates Architects. 

The second photo shows two groups of residence halls. The building on the left is Governor's Terrace North. An identical building sits behind it and is called Governor's Terrace South. North is a coed facility for upper division students. It can house 116 people in double occupancy rooms. The building on the right is Eriksson Hall. It is a match for the two Governor's Terrace buildings. All three were completed in 2013 and have a combined 132,000 square feet of space. Cumulatively, they cost $31,338,813 (or about $43.7 million today) to build. Eriksson is for upper division women. Technically, it is called Martha Dickerson Eriksson Hall. Its namesake was an alumnae (Class of 1962) who spent more than thirty years as a public school teacher. Upon her passing, her husband made a substantial contribution to the university. In addition to this building, the College of Education is named in her honor as is a scholarship. I believe all three (Terrace North, South, and Eriksson) were designed by the Nashville, Tennessee firm Bauer Askew Architecture.

The buildings you see in the background between North and Eriksson are part of Hand Village. There are a total of eight buildings in the complex which can house 200 upper division residents in apartments. It is named after businessman and Austin Peay donor Charles Hand. 

The set below begins with a photo of two residence halls, Blount Hall in the foreground, and Sevier Hall. Although the façades look the same, Sevier is a much bigger building. I was not able to find out for certain, but I believe Sevier was expanded at some point. Sevier is L=shaped, and if you look at aerial photos online, you can see a line where it looks like an addition has been made. It makes sense that this was the case, as the buildings are otherwise very much alike.  

Blount is named for the first territorial governor of what would become Tennessee, William Blount. Blount, by the way, is pronounced by most Tennesseans as “blunt” as in a blunt instrument. I have met people from other regions of the U.S. with the same name and they all pronounced it “blau-nt” which has a Germanic sound to it. I once met a gentleman from Quebec City, Canada, and his French-Canadian pronunciation was a beautiful sounding “blue-ent”. William Blount was from North Carolina and at the time there was no Tennessee at all. He was a signer of the U.S. Constitution and was appointed to the governorship by President George Washington of what was called the “Federal Territory South of the River Ohio”, commonly referred to as the “Southwest Territory”. He was sworn in as governor on September 20, 1790, and the first territorial capital was located in Piney Flats in present day Sullivan County in east Tennessee. He would move the capital to James White Fort in an area he subsequently named Knoxville after U.S. Secretary of War Henry Knox. He had a storied life that is well beyond the scope of this blog. But after serving as territorial governor, he was a “shadow senator” for the territory (territories could not have official voting senators or members of congress) and an actual U.S. Senator for Tennessee when it became a state. He finished his political career as a state senator for Tennessee.  

Readers from Tennessee, and graduates of the University of Tennessee, may know that there is a Blount Hall on the campus in Knoxville. Of course, UT was once named Blount College, and there have been many things named for Governor Blount’s daughter there. The Hill, an iconic location at the center of campus at UT once carried the name “Barabara Hill” in her honor. There were not one but two buildings which carried the moniker “Barabara Blount Hall” there as well. There is also a county in east Tennessee named for Governor Blount as well as the city of Blountville, near Johnson City in the eastern portion of the state. Blount Hall can house up to 65 residents in traditional double occupancy rooms in its 22,675 square feet of space. It currently houses first year students. 

Sevier is for women only, and can house 188 people in traditional two-person rooms across its 47,085 square feet of space. It takes it name from John Sevier, the first governor of the state when it was formally established and carried the Tennessee name. He took office on March 30, 1796, and served three terms. Born in Virginia, Sevier had previously been a Congressman representing North Carolina for June 1790 until March 1791. He served in the Virginia Colonia Militia prior to the American Revolution, and the again in the Southwest Territorial Militia during the revolution. He would rise to the rank of Brigadier General. He died while conducting a survey of land in the Alabama Territory on September 24, 1815, at age seventy. He was initially buried near Fort Decatur in Alabama, but was he was reinterred in Knoxville in 1889. His importance to the state is reflected by numerous monuments and places and things being named in his honor. The city of Sevierville and Sevier County are both named for him. The Governor John Sevier Highway in Knox County, the John Sevier Middle School in Sullivan County, and the John Sevier Elementary School in Blount County are named in his honor as well. A statue of Sevier stands in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. 

A walkway which extends from near the Foy Fitness and Recreation Center from Marion Street to Harned Hall and the Food Hall building (see below) can be seen in the remaining five photos of this set. It is named the John Morgan Walk of History. He is the son of Joe Morgan, the university's fourth president. An alumnus of Austin Peay (Class of 1973), Morgan would go on to be the Chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) from 2010 until 2016. For many years, all of the states colleges and universities, including community colleges and technical colleges, were governed by this solitary board with the exception of the University of Tennessee System. The second, third, and fourth photos show the entryway to the Walk near Marion Street. The fifth photo is a fire department connection box along the walkway. I took the photo because of the image that is applied to it. What you see is the Castle Building, a fixture on the campus for many years. Indeed, the Castle Building pre-dates Austin Peay. Designed by Gallatin, Tennessee-based architect G.B. Vennoy, the Elizabethan style building stood on the campus for ninety-eight years. It was built at a time when the institution which occupied the campus was the Masonic College. It continued as part of Montgomery County Masonic College, Stewart College, Southwestern Presbyterian University (now Rhodes College), and finally, beginning in 1927, Austin Peay. It was both large and quite ornate. It cost the hefty sum of $32,000 to build (about $1.3 million today). The years were not easy on the building. By the 1940's, large cracks in the brick work could be seen on the outside of the building. It collapsed in 1948.

The last photo is of ​Marks Hall which stands at the end of the Walk. Marks is unusual in that it began life as a woodworking shop. During World War II, students who were part of the National Youth Administration built a woodshop that would eventually be transformed into the building you see today. When it opened, it was called the Marks Industrial Arts Building. It was modified and expanded for years beginning in 1948 and finally being completed in 1961. 

The set below begins with three photos of the Memorial Health Building, commonly referred to as the Red Barn. The building actually sits atop a grave. You read that correctly. At the conclusion of World War II, a flood of new students came to campus thanks to the G.I. Bill. Many were married and along with their families lived in old barracks converted for use as married student housing. The families took to cultivating a garden with the help of an old mule. The mule was also used to entertain their kids on the weekends. Kids would taking rides on the animal guided by one of the parents. The mule died in the late 1940's and the students buried him on campus near the old barracks. The site would become home to the university's new arena. So as not to disturb the grave, the building was built above it and left it untouched. The mule's grave is supposed to be near midcourt of the basketball court which is still inside. It opened in 1952, and the Memorial portion of its name denotes its dedication to those killed during the Second World War. It was expanded in 1954. Intercollegiate sports moved out with the completion of the Dunn Center. ​This is not the first grave site I have covered in a post. Readers may recall that Murray State University's first horse mascot, Violet Cactus, is buried inside Roy Stewart Stadium there. The first photo shows the building from across Marion Street near the Dunn Center. In the grass near the building on that side is a rock which was painted with the university logo during my visit. I don't know if its an imitation or not, but the University of Tennessee has its own iconic rock on campus which students have routinely painted for more than half a century.

The last photo is currently called the Food Hall. It opened as Catherine Evans Harvill Hall. Mrs. Harvill was the wife of Halbert Harvill, Austin Peay's second president (see below). I believe it was a cafeteria when it first opened. In the early 21st Century, it was renovated to be the university's bookstore. It was subsequently renovated and repurposed again as a food court building, re-opening in September 2024 as the Food Hall.

The set below begins with Harned Hall, a former dorm that has been converted to office space. The building’s full name is Myra McKay Harned Hall. I had thought the building was named for Perry L. Harned, a notable figure in public education in Tennessee. Harned was an educator who, among many other notable accomplishments, was Commissioner of Education for the State of Tennessee. In that capacity, he played a significant role in getting Austin Peay founded. It would make sense that the building would have his name as a result. However, that is not the case. Sources say that at the time, the tradition was to name buildings only in memoriam. Given his support of and role in getting Austin Peay started, many wanted to name a structure to recognize his support. But Harned was still alive, and thus naming something for him was not on the table. The decision was made to name it in honor of his late wife Myra who had passed away in 1926. The building opened in 1932 as a dorm for women. The first three photos show the front façade of the building. The second and third photos show the stylized "AP" the university uses as a logo in front of the building. I have often shown photos of various animals on the campuses I visit, from a cat at Rhodes College, to rabbits at Montana State and Wright State, and albino squirrels at Western Kentucky. It was natural, then, that I took the fourth photo of this set of a cat surveying the campus from in front of Harned.

The fifth photo is of a dormitory, Harvill Hall. It is a comparatively small building which houses about forty residents. Harvill is named in honor of Halbert Harvill, the second president of Austin Peay. He served in that capacity from 1946 until 1962. When he assumed office, Austin Peay was tiny, with only about 417 full-time equivalent (FTE) students. When he retired in 1962, the student body number about 2,118 FTE. As was the case for most universities in the U.S., the period of Harvill’s presidency was one of tremendous growth not only in students but also in the physical plant of the university. Some thirteen new buildings went up during his presidency. Harvill was a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University (then called the Middle Tennessee State Teacher’s College) in 1927. He joined Austin Peay in 1929 as a history professor. He would later become the registrar. His youngest brother, Richard A. Harvill was also a college president, serving in that capacity at the University of Arizona from 1951 to 1971. Arizona is an Association of American Universities (AAU) school, which is an organization of the elite research universities in the U.S. and Canada. The Richard A. Harvill Building on the Arizona campus is named in his honor. Which leaves me with two questions I had not thought of before: (1) I wonder how many siblings have been presidents of universities? and (2) how many collegiate buildings are named for siblings? Being the academician I am, I will have to look into that. Of course, the University of Arizona gained a great deal of media attention in the last year thanks to a budget misstep in which the university found itself in a deficit of over $100 million. 

The university placed a nice sitting area complete with a pergola just across from Harvill seen here in the sixth photo. I took a moment to sit there and I imagine it would be a good place to read, visit, or just hang out. 

The last two photos of this set are of the former cupola which once stood atop Clement Hall (see below). On January 22, 1999, an E3 tornado ripped through the Austin Peay campus. Trees were down all over campus, windows were broken, whole sections of the roofs of numerous buildings were ripped away, and the cupolas of both Clement and Browning were torn from their rooftops. As noted above, Harned Hall was in terrible shape. When the windows broke in the Music/Mass Communication Building, the fire suppression system went off and flooded the building. It was the largest single property loss in the Tennessee history at that time. It took years of effort to get the campus back to the shape it was in prior to the tornado. Clement's cupola was place in a spot near Harned, the Morgan University Center, and the Woodward Library as a memorial. It was placed as it was with no repairs, hence the tilt of the point on top. This marks the fourth campus covered in this blog which was hit by a tornado, with the University of Memphis, Lambuth, Union University, and the Mississippi University for Women being the other three.

The set below begins with twelve photos of the ​Morgan University Center, Austin Peay's student union. Morgan is named after APSU’s third president, Joe Morgan, who served in that role from 1963 to 1976. It was during his tenure that the institution’s name changed from Austin Peay State College to Austin Peay State University, which occurred in 1966. Students at the time appreciated Morgan’s forward thinking. He ended the previously required attendance at a midweek assembly and reduced/eliminated some antiquated policies requiring women to sign in and out of their dorms and prohibiting them from wearing shorts around campus. Prior to his time there were even curfews! Alumnae and former Dean of the Eriksson College of Education, Dr. Carlette Hardin, once reflected on the change stating things quickly moved from her having to wear dresses on campus to wearing hot pants. Quite the change indeed. The Morgan University Center was designed by Clarksville-based architects Lyle Cook Martin. It opened in 2002 at a cost of $12,200,000 (or about $21.2 million in 2024 value). Like most student unions, it has a cafeteria, fast food options, a ballroom, meeting space, offices, lounges, and recreation areas. It has about 100,000 square feet of space.

The photos give you various views of both the exterior and interior of the building. Some work was going on inside. It appeared as though they were renovating space for a fast food establishment. Austin Peay does a great job in branding itself, and I had to take a photo of the small dining services vehicle parked outside. 

The thirteenth photo is a monument to the many people involved in helping the university overcome the damage wrought by the tornado mentioned above. The sculpture you see in photos fourteen and fifteen is called The Sentinel and is the work of artist Olen Bryant. Bryant served on the faculty in the art department from 1963 to 1991. The piece is affectionately referred to as The Green Man by students and alumni alike. Bryant completed his undergraduate work at Murray State University (Class of 1950) and his master’s at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. He passed away on July 17, 2017, at the age of 90.

Below we have the Felix G. Woodward Library, better known as simply the Woodward Library. It very much looks the part of the late 1960’s design that it is. When Austin Peay first opened, it had no free-standing library. This was not, and is not, unusual for a brand-new institution. From the time the university opened until 1950, the library collection was housed in the Stewart Building on the third floor. Its first librarian was Sarah O. Morrow, who for a time was its sole employee. The collection moved to Browning Hall when it opened in 1950. I had mentioned in my post on the Montana State University that moving a library was no easy task. In Austin Peay’s case, a chain of students, faculty, and staff lined up and passed each journal, item, and book hand to hand from one location to the next. The collection had grown from about 1,000 to 20,000 volumes by that point, and the time and effort it took to move everything must have been something. I would have loved to have seen it, or better yet, been a part of it. 

Construction of the Woodward Library began in 1965. It officially opened on February 20, 1967. The cost of construction came in at about $1.5 million (or about $14.9 million in today’s value). Part of the funding for the library came from the Library Services and Construction Act of 1964. Unlike the move from Stewart to Browning which was completed by students and staff (see below), the university hired a moving firm to relocate the collection, which by this point numbered well over 100,000 volumes. These days you not only see students eating and drinking in the stacks of any public university library, but you are also more often than not able to find a coffee shop or fast-food establishment located in them as well. When the new library opened in 1967 this was unheard of. No food was allowed. Smoking, however, was a different matter. Smoking was completely acceptable back then and more than 44% of adults smoked in the late 1960's. Thus, there were smoking areas in the building. I am old enough to remember smoking in public everywhere and recall walking into restaurants and other places so filled with smoke that they appeared foggy. My how times have changed! In 1967, a student could light up a cigar or cigarette but would likely face scorn if they brought in a bottle of soda and tried to take a sip. Today, smoking would never be allowed, but you can bring in a veritable buffet of foods and a giant cup of coffee and no one will bat an eye. 

I have mentioned the various classification systems libraries use in earlier posts on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Tennessee at Martin. Most university libraries use the Library of Congress Classification System to assign call numbers to their materials whereas most public libraries use the Dewey Decimal Classification System. Austin Peay used the Dewey system until 1975. Well, that’s not quite correct. I should have said until a change which began in December 1975. It took the staff nine years to complete the changeover! That means a process that began under President Ford was not completed until Ronald Reagan was president! In those nine years, numerous whole classes of students came and went. You could have been a freshman in the Fall of 1975, graduated in 1980, and came back for a visit several years later and the work would not have been completed! I don’t know for certain, but I imagine the card catalog was entirely on paper when it was started, so it was a massive undertaking. The staff reclassified about 15,000 books during each of those years. Although the library was probably open on the weekends, I imagine most if not all of the work was done during the week. That means there were something in the neighborhood of 250 working days per year for them to do that. Keep in mind, the process didn't involve a simple change of a number on a book. The Library of Congress system and the Dewey system would have books placed in quite different places in the stacks. It would be a complete overhaul of the entire collection. Thus, the library staff retagged, relocated, and created new cards for the card catalog to the tune of about sixty books a day for nine years. All the while the library was open, and people were using and checking out materials. That puts the nine years into perspective. Felix G. Woodward was the Dean of Faculty at Austin Peay. He retired in 1968, shortly after the library opened. His wife Laura would pass away that December, and he passed away on July 12, 1971.

The first photo shows the façade of the building as you approach it from the Morgan University Center. As I have mentioned, Austin Peay does a great job of branding and as you can see in the second photo they have branded the library's door in the official colors of the university. The sculpture you see in the third photo is a piece by artist Howard Brown called Synthesis. Brown is an an Austin Peay alumnus (Class of 1984). In addition to being an artist, he is an ordained minister. He completed the work, which is made from Tennessee black marble, in 1984. The hole in the piece is meant to evoke the Austin Peay community and the events on campus which draw students to the university. The winged elements represents the heights to which alumni can go as a result of graduating from APSU. There had been a message on the base that detailed the meaning of the piece, but it has weathered off. Synthesis was meant to be an indoor piece, but its weight prevented it from being installed in that fashion. The last photo was taken of the building near Clement Hall (see below).

The set below begins with two views of the front façade of McCord Hall. ​McCord opened in 1949 as a science building. Coming in at 52,222 square feet, it was a large building for its day and had a variety of classrooms and wet labs. It is named after Jim Nance McCord, who was elected governor in 1944 and served in that role for two terms (at that time, governors of Tennessee served only a two-year term). Currently, there are buildings named for him at Tennessee State University, Tennessee Tech University, the University of Memphis, and the University of Tennessee Knoxville. A building at the University of Tennessee at Martin was named for him, but it has since been razed.

The next six photos provide a number of views of the front of Browning Hall. Browing opened in 1950 and was for a time a multi-purpose building. It housed the university’s administrative offices, the library, and a small space which acted as a student union. The administrative portions opened in February of that year, and the library portion (the east wing of the building) opened later that spring. As mentioned above, classes were cancelled for a day so that students, faculty, and staff could form a human chain to pass books from the library’s previous home in Stewart Hall to the building. The cupola on top contains a clock and chimes which were a gift of the Pettus Foundation. The cupola was ripped off during the January 1999 tornado, but the chimes and the clockworks were left in good condition. Browing was named after two-term Governor Gordon Browning. I wrote about him in my post about the University of Tennessee at Martin where there is another Browning Hall. A third Browning Hall named for him is at the University of Memphis. The building at Austin Peay, which was inspired by Independence Hall in Philadelphia, comes in at 34,071 square feet of space.

The sculpture you see in the fourth and fifth photos is called The Gateway, and it is the work of artist and former Austin Peay faculty member James Diehr. He created the piece in 1986. Some sources say the piece is made of tin, but this is inaccurate. It is made of Cor-ten steel, a type of weather steel. The second half of that word is pronounced "tin" and I imagine this is where the confusion developed. Readers may recall that the sculpture Drum Rhythm No. 11 at the University of Texas at San Antonio Downtown is also made of Cor-ten steel. If you enlarge the photo, you will see that the center of the piece is a human figure. The bottom pieces are books, and the top is a crucible. 

The ninth and tenth photos are of Clement Hall. The building is one of five collegiate structures in Tennessee to carry his name. The building opened in 1962. There is a large dormitory with a cafeteria in it named Clement Hall at the University of Tennessee, and there are Clement Halls at Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, the University of Memphis, and the University of Tennessee at Martin. All are named for Frank Clement, the 41st governor of Tennessee. I wrote about the one at UT Martin in my recent post and refer readers to that post for more information about Governor Clement.

The quad area you see in photos eleven, twelve, and thirteen has recently been given a name and is now known as the F. Evans Harvill Quadrangle. He is the son of Halbert Harvill (see Harvill Hall above) and a two-time Austin Peay alumnus (Classes of 1944 and 1947). Owing to his father's presidency, he spent much of his childhood on the campus. It is a lovely area, and despite being close the street rather quiet. Of course, I was there on a Sunday so it may be that during the week the sound of traffic could be more noticeable. 

The last photo is the entrance gate to the campus on the Harvill Quad. It is not robust in its ornateness, but I very much like it and it fits with the campus. Sometimes, being a bit understated is more than enough. There are photos online of the aftermath of the 1999 tornado, and this area is covered with fallen trees and a toppled street light. Yet, as best I can tell, no damage to the gate nor to the stylized APSU occurred.

Claxton Hall is next in our visit and the first photo in the next set. It is one of a number of buildings on campus that is not named for a governor of Tennessee but rather for an Austin Peay president. It gets its name in honor of Philander P. Claxton, the second president of Austin Peay, who held that role from 1930 to 1946. Claxton was a two-time alumnus of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville having earned both his bachelor’s degree (Class of 1882) and master’s (Class of 1887) there. He left the state to become the superintendent of schools for the state of North Carolina, a position he held from 1883 to 1893. He then taught at the then-named North Carolina State Normal and Industrial College (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro) until 1902. He then returned to UT Knoxville where he helped establish the Department of Education (currently the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences). He stayed at UT until 1911 when he was appointed the U.S. Commissioner of Education by President Woodrow Wilson. He kept that position until 1921 when he left to be provost of University of Alabama for two years. He then moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma to be a school superintendent for six years until he took the presidency at Austin Peay. The College of Education at the University of Tennessee is housed in part in the Philander P. Claxton Hall. I had many classes in that building during my time there. There is a large auditorium-style classroom on the first floor, and I had a variety of first- and second-year classes there.

The second photo is of Archwood, a historic mansion on campus. It was the home of local businessman Samuel Rexinger. It is believed that Nashville-based architect John L. Smith designed the home. Work began on the house in March 1878. It cost $6,000 to construct (about $188,000 today). It was sold to the Southwestern Presbyterian University (Rhodes College) at some point and in the early 20th Century it was used as a residence for some of their faculty. During World War II, it was acquired by the Army and divided into apartments for service members. After the war, it was purchased and returned to a single family home. It was acquired by the university in 1965 and renovated for use as the home of the president. The university stopped using for that purpose in 1980, but it has returned to that use and current APSU president Michael Licari and his wife Kirsten live in the home. It was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1977. The last photo is the building's historic marker. 

​The set below is of three science buildings on campus. The first four photos of the set are of the Sundquist Science Complex. The building is named for Don Sundquist, a six-term U.S. Congressman and the 47th Governor of Tennessee. It opened on September 17, 2001. Currently, the Department of Biology, Department of Chemistry, Department of Physics and Astronomy, and, for the time being, the Department of Allied Health Sciences call Sundquist home. Allied Health will move into an entirely new building in a matter of months (see below). The building has lecture halls, classrooms, offices, and a variety of lab space. The building is quite large, coming in at 221,213 square feet. Sundquist cost $38 million to construct, which is about $67.3 million in today’s value.

Photos five through seven give you three views of the Technology Building. The building opened with the name Hemlock Semiconductor Building, thanks to its creation being a partnership between Austin Peay, the state of Tennessee, and the Hemlock Semiconductor Company. Hemlock was opening a large facility in Clarksville and donated $2 million to aid in construction of the building after which the university offered an Associate’s degree in Chemical Engineering Technology to support local labor force development. The name changed to its current moniker in 2015. The 20,068-square-foot two-story building has a solar focus. As you can see, the main façade is graced with a clock tower with a sun dial. The building has numerous solar panels installed with a maximum generating capacity of 33.6 kilowatts. It was designed by the local Clarksville architectural firm Rufus Johnson Associates in association with Bauer Askew Architecture. It opened in 2010 and had a grand opening on September 16th that year. 

The last photo in this set is the Maynard Mathematics and Computer Science building. Groundbreaking for the building occurred on August 17, 2012. The 27,327 square foot building was also designed by Rufus Johnson Associates. It's named after alumnus James “Jimmy” Maynard (Class of 1956). For years, Mr. Maynard paid the way for students from Montgomery County, Tennessee to attend Austin Peay. He also donated to other university initiatives. The building It was dedicated in a ceremony on November 18, 2013.

The set below begins with the ​Trahern Building, which is sometimes (at least historically) referred to as the Margaret Fort Trahern Art and Drama Complex. She taught English at Austin Peay for many years prior to her passing in 1966 at the young age of only sixty-three. Her son followed in her footsteps, being a English professor at the University of Illinois and then the University of Tennessee. He made a contribution to the university for the construction of the building. It has just over 60,000 square feet of space. There is a longstanding belief that the building is haunted (see here and here).

The second photo is the Art and Design Building, which was completed in the summer of 2017. The 46,000 square foot building was designed by Walter Smith of Street Dixon Rick Architecture of Nashville. The firm has since been acquired by Orcutt|Winslow which has a page on the building you can see here. The building, which cost $21.3 million to construct (about $28.2 million today), has two galleries, classrooms, a lecture hall, offices, and support spaces.

The first three photos of the next set are of a new building under construction, the Health Professions Building. The building was designed by the Nashville, Tennessee-based Hasting Architecture in collaboration with the Ayers Saint Gross architecture firm and will have some 114,000 square feet of space. It will combine units now spread across several different buildings. It will have classrooms, wet labs, simulation labs, two patient-serving clinics, and administrative offices. It is slated for completion in 2025 and when it opens it will be the largest academic building on campus. It will house four academic units including the Departments of Health and Human Performance, Medical Laboratory Science, Psychological Science and Counseling, Radiologic Technology, and Social Work as well as the School of Nursing. Ayers Saint Gross is very active in collegiate architecture and campus planning. The firm was responsible for the renovation of the Hayden Library at Arizona State University, and the most recent campus master plans for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Tennessee. 

The fourth and fifth photos of this set are of the Music/Mass Communication Building. It has a variety of performance and rehearsal space, classrooms, and media rooms. It is also home to a 600-seat concert hall and an 80-seat recital hall. A mobile TV/radio van, seen in the last photo of this set, was parked outside the building. It is yet another example of the extent to branding has a place at the university. It would be hard to miss that driving down the road, or to confuse it for something other than an Austin Peay vehicle.

Next, we have Fortera Stadium, home of the Governors football team. You would not know it to look at it, but the stadium dates back to 1946. It opened that year with the name Clarksville Municipal Stadium, and it was not actually owned by the university. Rather, the city of Clarksville owned the place and rented it out at cost to the university for the football program. It remained property of the city until 1970, when its ownership was divided equally between the city, the county, and APSU. The university eventually bought it outright in 1990. It upgraded the place and renamed it Governors Stadium. The Fortera Credit Union paid for naming rights in 2016, and it has carried their name since. It will carry it for a long time, as the agreement was for a whopping twenty-five years. When it opened in 1946, it had seating for 5,500 and today that number is up to 7,000, at least in terms of permanent seating. Additional bleachers can be added and have been from time to time. Indeed, on October 6, 2018, an all-time attendance record was set at 12,201 in a game that saw the Governors defeat the Tennessee State Tigers 49 to 34.

I had mentioned in my post on Arizona State University that at one time they were known as the “Normals”. It was, and is, a very bad name in my opinion. Well, it was one of those moments where I put my foot in my mouth. Not only was I being unfair to Arizona State, I was also showing my ignorance of one of my own alma mater’s former name. Austin Peay’s athletic teams had a couple of different names before they settled on Governors. The Governors moniker did not take hold until around 1937, and before that they were know conversely as the Warriors and - wait for it - the Normalites. Yes, the Normalites. I have to say, that is far worse than Normals. I had to laugh at that one.

I will close with Austin Peay's version of the ever present college lamppost sign. The first photo shows the sign that is most common around campus, and I have to say that I really like this one. First, I am partial to the combination of red and black for the school colors. My doctoral alma mater Texas Tech also has red and black as its official colors. The university has worked the tri-star figure from the state's flag into its overall logo scheme at present and it makes a good addition to this lamppost sign. The three stars represent the three regions (East, Middle, and West) of the state. The second photo shows the signs common around athletics facilities. 

I know I am biased, as any alumnus would be, but I really like the Austin Peay campus. The buildings are mostly modern in style, and they thus lack any uniqueness which some schools have. But it is a lovely green campus and the layout makes it easy to get around and does so in varying and pleasant atmospheres. If you ever find yourself passing through the area, I would encourage you to stop and have a look. 

I was on the road headed for Indianapolis for the weekend and had made one stop in Martin, Tennessee to visit the University of Tennessee at Martin. If you know the route from the Memphis metro area to Indianapolis, you may know that although it is a bit further, most mapping software would have you drive into Arkansas, up to Missouri, across Illinois, and into Indiana. I decided my route, a more direct path through Kentucky and straight to Indiana for the sole purpose of visiting a number of new colleges and universities. After UTM, my next stop was the University of Evansville. 

​As is often the case, the University of Evansville began with a different name. It also began in a different location. Evansville began its life in 1854 in the small community of Moore’s Hill, Indiana. Moore’s Hill is roughly two hundred miles from Evansville. It is actually closer to Cincinnati, Ohio, than Evansville. It was there that John Collins Moore, the son of the town’s founder and namesake, sought to create a college. Moore had little in the way of formal education, but none the nonetheless saw the need and the benefits of having a college in the town. He donated funds and twelve acres of land to help create the college. Along with other prominent citizens and with the aid of three local men’s groups, including the Mason’s, Odd Fellows, and the Sons of Temperance, sufficient funds were raised and on February 10, 1854, the institution was formally established as the Moore’s Hill Male and Female Collegiate Institute. It would be two years until the first classes were offered, but the institution was on its way.

Classes were started on September 9, 1856, and were held in the college’s first building although it was not yet completed. That would not occur until December that year, but things went well despite the incomplete nature of the building. The building would be called Moore Hall (some sources say Moores Hall), and it would remain the sole building on campus for the better part of fifty years. It was a rather large brick building which could hold up to 350 students in a variety of classrooms. Instruction was at all levels, K-12 and college. The first student to graduate would be Jane S. Churchill who completed her studies in 1858. In 1900, Stevens Gymnasium was completed on campus and a former store was purchased in 1903 for use as a science building. Another former store was purchased and converted into a dorm for women sometime in the early 20th Century.  
 
Another major academic building on campus would be made possible in large part by a donation from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation. The cornerstone of that structure, which would be one of dozens of buildings on college campuses across the country called Carnegie Hall, would be laid in a ceremony on June 12, 1907. A grand, four-story structure, it was completed and dedicated the following year on June 18, 1908. The building cost about $48,000 to construct and outfit (which is about $1.6 million in 2024 value). It was designed by the Crapsey and Lamm architecture firm of Cincinnati, Ohio. The building would have steam heat and electric lighting (a point I note as it relates to the Olmsted Administration Building below). The building ended up going over budget, a fact that did not help the institution which had struggled with finances. Although the institution would eventually relocate, Carnegie Hall in Moores Hill still stands on the former campus. It was subsequently used as a public school and is now a museum. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. You can see it here. 

In the interim, the college had changed its name. It became Moores Hill College in 1887. Despite a growing curriculum and physical plant, the going was not easy, and the college struggled with financial issues. Moore Hall would catch fire and be consumed by the conflagration on November 4, 1915. With Moore Hall left in ruins, the college continued, but it was evident that change was needed to ensure its continued existence. The college had long struggled to maintain itself. Indeed, it had racked up a substantial debt to founder John Moore who continued to provide funding via loans from his business. This continued after his death with his estate continuing to support the institution. Salaries were drastically low compared to other institutions in the state, and at times the college reduced faculty and staff salaries by as much as a third because they simply could not afford to pay the remainder. By 1916, the debt was becoming overwhelming. The college had debts of at least $42,200 (or about $1.1 million in 2024 value) and only $220 (about $6,763 today) of cash on hand. There were a number of options which could be pursued to alleviate the problem, but many offered too little in the way of immediate or long-term promise. The most promising was a potential merger with DePauw University, another Methodist-affiliated college in Greencastle, Indiana. The idea was for Moores Hill to become a junior college feeder to DePauw, an idea which seemed well on its way to becoming reality in the year before the fire. Then president Harry A. King felt certain the merger would take place and left to take the presidency of Clark University in Atlanta.  

Meanwhile in Evansville, there had been talk of establishing a college. Local businessman and community leader George S. Clifford read about the fire in Moores Hill and seeing that the college was in need, consulted other local leaders and the Evansville Chamber of Commerce about relocating the school there. Receiving support for the idea, Clifford wrote to the board suggesting a move to Evansville. At the time, the merger with DePauw seemed imminent, and his offer was rebuked. Within a year, however, the merger was off. DePauw was not as sold on the idea as Moores Hill. The college was back at square one. King’s successor was Alfred F. Hughes, who joined the college in 1916. While getting settled in his office, Hughes found Clifford’s letter and brought it back to the attention of the board. Although a general consensus was reached that relocation to a bigger community would be a good idea, there was some discussion by leaders in the Methodist Church and the board about just where that should be. In addition to Evansville, Seymour, Indiana, which was closer to Moores Hill, was also in contention. Hughes and other representatives met with leaders in both communities. In Evansville, Clifford made the case by noting the city’s size and location. He provided a map which showed every college town in Indiana surrounded by a circle fifty miles in diameter. He included both Seymour and Moores Hill. Moores Hill’s circle intersected with ten other circles; Seymour intersected with several as well. But Evansville was more than 100 miles away from the nearest institution, including those out of state.  

Local citizens, led by Clifford then began a campaign to raise $500,000 to support the college in a move to Evansville with the condition that the Methodist Church match it. Before the fund raising had even begun, troubles mounted. First, although they were not interested in acquiring the college, leaders at DePauw were against the move. DePauw’s president George R. Gross felt it was improper for the church to fund what was essentially a defunct college when it and other Methodist-affiliated schools could use additional financial support from the church. Then on April 6, 1917, the U.S. entered World War I. Despite the hurdles, Clifford and the group in Evansville chose to move forward. Keep in mind that $500,000 is worth about $12.2 million today. But the support flowed in from all quarters. By May 3, 1917, the community had raised $514,000. The matching funds from the church would have to be raised by December. The campaign was not as robust on the church’s side, and in the end, it was only made possible when eight districts of the Methodist Church in Indiana signed a promissory note for nearly half of the funds. It was not ideal, but it was sufficient.  

The work was not over, for now the college would have to relocate, establish a campus, and first and foremost, get state approval for the move. The state obliged on February 17, 1919, with a charter to the effect that the new institution, to be called Evansville College, was a continuation of the Moores Hill thus easing the process. Interestingly, a provision of the new charter was that a major building on the campus be named in honor of John C. Moore since he was the founder in the original charter. This would happen, but not until 1958 when work would begin on a new Moore Hall (see below) on the Evansville campus. The college would open to students on September 16, 1919, but would do so without its own campus or buildings. Evansville would cobble together rented space in the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA), Evansville’s Central High School, and the basement of the Lockyear Business College in town. A space was even rented to provide dorm space for women. That fall, one hundred four students matriculated, with Norman D. Beach being the first to enroll.  

The troubles were not exactly over, and of course trials and tribulations continue for Evansville and all other colleges and universities, but the institution prevails. By the 1960’s, when enrollment was booming, the college’s offerings had become such that it changed its name to the University of Evansville. Today, more than 2,000 students are enrolled at the university which has an endowment of over $91 million. The university’s athletics teams, the Purple Aces, play in seventeen Division I sports. The university offers undergraduate studies in more than 85 majors, as well as a number of graduate degrees. 

When you arrive on campus, you are greeted by the sign in the first photo below. The area is known as Clifford Circle and the building beyond is the Olmsted Administration Building (more on both below). Behind the sign is a small area with a bench and the sign you see in the second photo. The site is dedicated to Michael E. Thorp, but I cannot find out anything about him or why the area is dedicated in his honor. I am not alone in my search. Blogger John G. West (no relation to me of which I am aware) visited Evansville in August 2009 and subsequently wrote that after some extensive searching he too was unable to find any information about Mr. Thorp. You can read his post here (read the one before this and you can see many photos of his visit sixteen years ago). If you know anything about Thorp, please leave a comment.

The first stop on my visit is the wonderful Olmsted Administration Building. I love collegiate gothic architecture, and this is a truly fine example of the genre. As you can tell from these photos, it was late in the day and quite overcast during my visit. That gives the building a bit of a foreboding vibe to it in this set, but it is a beautiful structure. A groundbreaking for the building was held on June 21, 1921, making it over one hundred three years old during my visit. The campus, which had been farmland prior to the college relocating there, still the remnants of rows of corn from the summer before. The work went quickly, and it was ready for students and staff the following year. The first classes were in the building on June 12, 1922. An unusual aspect of the building was the fact that it was constructed without electric lights! I’m not sure why this was the case. Many colleges and universities of that era (and even today in the 21st Century) have their own power plants. Perhaps electricity was not available in this area at the time and the university, having just relocated to Evansville, could not afford to create its own power plant. As noted above, the college had electric lights when it was located in Moores Hill prior to the move to Evansville. I was not able to find out why it was built sans electric lights nor when electricity was added to the building. If you know please leave a comment.  

As is often the case, when the structure opened it was simply called the Administration Building. It was designed by the Miller, Fullenwider & Dowling architecture firm of Chicago, Illinois. As a graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, it looks very much like Ayers Hall on The Hill there. This is not a coincidence nor is it a matter of two buildings being of similar collegiate gothic architecture. The firm designed Ayers prior to Olmsted and indeed used Ayres as the starting point for their Evansville design. The construction uses Indiana limestone blocks which are broken rather than sawed on their vertical ends (the sides of the blocks as you look straight at the building). This is considered to be the first instance where Indiana limestone was used with this style of cutting. Miller, Fullenwider & Dowling would design other academic buildings in this style including a law school building at Cornell University in New York and France Hall at Heidelberg College in Ohio. Firm principal Grant C. Miller did the work on Ayres, but I am not certain about the others including Olmsted. There is a great photo of Olmsted under construction on the Indiana University library website that you can see here.

The building would be known simply as the Administration Building until 1981 when it was renamed in honor of long serving administrator and alumnus Ralph Olmstead. Ralph Evans Olmsted was both a fixture and pillar at Evansville and probably spent more time in the halls and in the service of the university than any other person. He was born in the tiny village of Shipman, Illinois, on September 13, 1899, the son of Charles Alpheus and Iola (née Williams) Olmsted. The youngest of eight children, he would first appear on the Evansville campus in 1919 as a member of the first class on the new campus. In a sense, he never left. He was there as a student at the groundbreaking for the building that would eventually carry his name. He even participated in the event. He graduated in 1923 and after a stint off campus as a reporter and teacher, was hired by then Evansville President Harper Earl Harper in 1925 as an assistant. He would stay with university for the rest of career and tallied forty-two years in the building. He became Executive Secretary (the Business Manager) in 1928, later taught journalism, and finally was the university’s archivist. His book From Institute to University (1973), provides a wonderful history of the institution to 1971, is a great read and something anyone interested in the university should acquire. He married Jane Elizabeth (née Wright) on June 12, 1924. They had four children, of whom daughter Susan spent more than twenty years working at the university.
​
Olmsted is the keystone of a circular drive which surrounds a large green space. As noted above, it is called the Clifford Circle. It takes its name in honor of George Clifford and his wife Emily. The Clifford’s had been instrumental in bringing the college to Evansville and both would serve on the Board (Emily being the first woman to serve in such a capacity). Both would also receive honorary degrees for their service.

The set below begins with five views of the front façade of the building, which many on campus refer to simply as Olmstead. The fourteen photos that follow are of the interior on the first floor. The main entrance is covered in plaques honoring those who have served and donated to the university, many of whom have names that grace the other buildings on campus. Photos twenty through twenty-three of this set are of the front of the building again. I was taken but the details in the stonework, windows, and the lovely light. The last three photos are of Clifford Circle.

​The next set is of buildings which are connected to one another. First up is Hyde Hall. Eventually named for Evansville President Melvin Hyde, the building planned with the simple name “Classroom Building”. Owing to President Hyde’s successful twelve years in office, the decision was made to name the building in his honor. The building was one of fourteen structures completed on campus during the 1960’s as the Baby Boomers flooded campus. Much of this occurred during Hyde’s tenure which began in 1955 and ended in 1967. Enrollment increased from 1,091 FTE in 1955 to 2,859 in 1966. Hyde was the first layman to be president of Evansville. A native of South Dakota, he had previously been a dean at Dakota Wesleyan University and Mount Union College (now the University of Mount Union), and then as an assistant vice president at Drake University before coming to Evansville. He retired to Colorado in 1967 where he passed away in Estes Park in 1978. The building opened in 1967. The first photo shows the main façade of the building. A plaza area, as noted by the plaque in the second photo, was added in front of the building in 1983. You can see some of the seating in the plaza in the third photo, along with the large stylized "UE" used on many university documents, athletic team uniforms, and more. The fourth photo shows more of the plaza seating area with the Krannert Hall of Art and Music (see below) in the background. The last photo of this set shows where Hyde connects with the Shanklin Theater. It replaced an existing theater in the Olmsted Administration Building. Initially, the university considered updating the space in Olmsted, but something outside of that structure was considered a better plan. The decision was made to make it part of the planned Classroom Building (Hyde Hall) which would allow it to have its own space and footprint and yet offer economy over building a completely separate structure. It too was completed in 1967 and its opening on April 14, 1967 saw a production of Hamlet. It takes its name in honor of the Shanklin family owing to an endowed gift from Robert F. Shanklin. The Shanklin family is quite notable. Robert’s father, James Shanklin, was a colonel during the Civil War. His uncles owned the Evansville Courier newspaper. His uncle John Marshall Harlan and his cousin John Marshall Harlan II were both Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Harlan Kentucky, seat of Harlan County Kentucky, is named for his distant relatives. The last and most recent portion of the building, not visible here, is the May Studio Theatre. The addition is on the back side of the structure. Fundraising for a new lab theater began in 1992 and was dedicated in 1994. A black box-style theater (not unlike the one at Montana State University which is literally called the Black Box Theater), it is named for alumnae Alice George May (Class of 1934). Mrs. May and her husband were donors to many causes at Evansville.

The set below gives two views of what turns out to be the back of the Krannert Hall of Art and Music. I didn't realize it at the time, but the combined structure does not face Olmsted, but rather Rotherwood Avenue to the west. Its unfortunate that I missed that fact, as the more impressive side is the one we cannot see from this vantage point. The complex was completed in 1962 with a price tag of just under $2 million (just under $20.5 million in 2024 value). Herman C. Krannert was a highly successful businessman who founded and led a major producer of corrugated boxes called the Indland Container Company. He and wife Ellnora were philanthropists who gave to many causes and who were particularly supportive of higher education. They gave $400,000 (about $4 million today) to help fund the building and in recognition the building carries their name. A pipe burst in the building in 2019 and did considerable damage. The university used this as an opportunity and raised funds and fixed the damage and completely renovated the building which had a gala reopening on August 30, 2023.

Around the same time as their donation to Evansville, the pair donated $2.73 million (about $28.4 million today) to establish the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University. It was the first named school at Purdue. That school would be renamed the Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business in 2023 for Purdue's 12th president. I guess $28 million doesn't buy that much anymore since they changed the name. Later, they would fund the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at his alma mater, the University of Illinois. Their name also graces the campus of the University of Indianapolis' Krannert memorial Library. There is also addition to the Koch Center for Engineering and Science at Evansville which was supported by a large donation from the Krannert estate.

The set below is of Sampson Hall, home of the Crayton E. and  Ellen Mann Health Center, and the Schroeder Family School of Business  Administration Building. ​Sampson had originally opened as the university’s bookstore. It was completed in 1959 as part of the McCurdy Alumni Memorial Union (see below) and would remain as the bookstore until it moved to a former pharmacy off campus in the early 1990’s. It was then repurposed as the student health center. The name comes from serving psychology faculty member and former department chair Delbert Sampson. Sampson was instrumental in the growth of the department during the 1960’s and 1970’s. The building was renamed in his honor in 1995. It was during his time that the university opened a chapter of the Psi Chi Psychology Honor Society. He and wife Mary endowed a scholarship for members of the society. Crayton Mann was an Evansville alumnus (Class of 1941) who was a hospital administrator. He and wife Ellen left money to the university upon their passing. In addition to funding the clinic, which was named in their honor, they funded a scholarship for students with disabilities. 

A large portion of the structure is called the Schroeder Family School of Business  Administration Building. The older part  of the building was originally the campus union. Since it opened, the Olmsted Administration Building had a lounge which was meant for student use. Although not a full-fledged union, it sufficed. By the early 1940’s, it was evident that a student union was needed on campus. Then president Hale began fundraising for a new engineering building and a student union just as World War II broke out. Despite the war, donations flooded in, some from active-duty military members. But building during the war was impossible as construction was stymied as all supplies were devoted to the war effort and those things that directly supported the military. In 1946, a former Red Cross canteen which had been used to support troops as they moved about the country, was purchased an installed where Hyde Hall and the Shanklin Theater (see above) now stand. It was called the Temporary Union Building, or TUB. In 1947, local community leader Robert D. Mathias led a campaign to finalize funding for a new permanent union. By October, $1,265,000 had been raised (about $17.9 million today). A chunk of that was from the estate of William H. McCurdy. McCurdy had long been a supporter and benefactor of the university. The building was completed in 1951 and was named the McCurdy Alumni Memorial Union in honor of both Mr. McCurdy and for the alumni of the university who were killed in the war. It served the university as its union until the current Ridgeway University Center opened in 2008. Then the business school moved in.

An addition to the building was completed in 2007. Several generations of the Schroeder family have been associated with Evansville and it is through that association and the donations the family has given that the school of business carries their name. John H. (Henry) Schroeder was a member of and president of the Evansville Board when it was still called Evansville College. His son John C. Schroeder was also a member of the Board and board president. An interesting fact about both Henry and John Schroeder is that they were both graduates of Wabash College (Classes of 1942 and 1969 respectively) where they were both members of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. The interesting part is not that they both went to the same college or were members of the same fraternity, as this is often the case with fathers and sons. But the interesting part is the Phi Gam connection as George Clifford and William Ridgway were Phi Gamma Delta men as well, albeit at different colleges. Clifford is memorialized on campus in the naming of Clifford Circle (mentioned above) and the Clifford Library (see below). The Evansville student union is named the Ridgway University Center (see below). I will admit, I have not looked for nor noticed a connection like this before although it could very well be the case for any number of colleges about which I have written.​

The first three photos show the side of the building as you walk your way from Olmsted. The portion on the right in the first and third photos is Sampson Hall. The arched doorway in the second photo is part of Sampson as well. The part on the left in these photos is Schroeder. The fourth photo shows the original entrance to the building, which is still actively used but which is supplemented by an entranceway in the new addition as well. The Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library has a photo of this entrance online (see here). If you take a look, you will notice that the light fixtures by the entryway stairs are different. The earlier ones were taller and I rather like them better than the ones installed today. Inside you find the plaques seen in the fifth and sixth photos which are original to the structure honoring the students and alumni killed in World War II as well as Mr. McCurdy. There is also a large area recognizing the Schroeder family which can be seen in the seventh photo. The portrait was completed by Kentucky-based artist Jim Cantrell, who did his undergraduate work at the University of Nebraska (Class of 1958) and his master’s at the University of Northern Colorado (Class of 1965). The addition has a large atrium area, seen in the eighth photo, which was being prepped for an event of some sort during my visit. The last photo is the addition to the building. 

The next set of photos are all of the ​Koch Center for Engineering and Science. It is actually a combination building, consisting of three structures built decades apart from one another. The original portion of the building was began, I believe, in 1945. It was fully completed in 1947, with the entire structure being occupied that September. Parts of the building were already in use as early as 1946. I am uncertain of the total cost of the building at that point, but several sources ping the expense at around $700,000, which would place it at around $12.2 million in 2024 value. This would be the extent of the building for the next three decades. It was, for that time called the Engineering Building. What was first a large and enviable building became crowded and eventually overwhelmed by the mass influx of Baby Boomer students. An addition to the building was decided to be the best option. The addition would bring 30,000 square feet of new space for the sciences and engineering, bringing the total of the two buildings to about 90,000 square feet in total. A groundbreaking for the building was held in 1977 and it opened in (DATE). The building was made possible largely through donations in a dedicated fundraising campaign for the structure. The Krannert Charitable Trust donated $1 million to campaign in 1976, a figure that would be about $5.5 million in 2024 value. The space would be renamed in 1984 for Robert K. Koch and his family who had been generous donors to the university for some time and who donated $4.1 million to a development campaign in the early 1980’s. A final addition came less than thirty years later. In addition to enrollment growth, engineering and the sciences needed space to accommodate the multitude of new equipment in those areas. The addition brought additional space, a grand two-story atrium, and a large lecture hall. It was completed in 2002.

​The first photo in this set is the front entrance to the original 1940's section of the building. Matching the other buildings on campus at the time, it was designed in the collegiate gothic with the familiar stone. The second photo is looking northward with the original portion of the building in the foreground and the 1970's addition in the distance. The addition can be seen more clearly in the third and fourth photos. Although the color scheme matches the original, the style is completely modern. It might have looked just fine if it were not actually attached to the gothic original, but as is so often the case in such instances, it looks like a quick addition done to save money. The last photo of this set is the newest part of the building. Whereas the 1970's addition went the route of a modern structure that did not match the style of the original, takes the traditional approach. As such, it more closely resembles the original despite the fact that it did not open until 2002, more than half a century after the fact.

The photo below is of two residence halls. In the foreground is the Hale Residence Hall, the older of the two structures. It opened in 1966, one of the many buildings erected on campus in response to the demand placed on the university by the massive increase in students during the Baby Boomer period. It is a coed facility which can accommodate 180 residents. It is named in honor of the university's 18th president, Lincoln B. Hale. Hale was a three-time alumnus of Yale, including his undergraduate degree from the Yale Seminary. What's interesting about that is the fact that he was an ordained Presbyterian Minister, a somewhat unusual fact given that Evansville is a Methodist-affiliated institution. Hale arrived on campus in 1939 as dean and registrar. The local paper carried the news, and in reflection of a much simpler time, noted the address he and his wife had purchased. He became interim president in 1940 and then president in 1941. He stayed in the role until 1954. He was then immediately hired to head a U.S. government mission to Israel. He passed away unexpectedly at age 58 while giving a speech in New York City. He was speaking and without warning stumbled and fell, dying at the scene. He was a private in the Army in World War I, and thus his ashes are inurned in a columbarium at Arlington National Cemetery. His wife Sallie Elizabeth “Sadie” (née Watton) Hale would live for another forty-eight years, passing away at age ninety-five in 1994.

The building in the background is the ​Mary Kuehn Powell Residence Hall. It is one of three buildings on campus (that I am aware) which were designed by Jack H. Kinkel, one of the "sons" who is part of the Evansville-based architectural firm Jack R. Kinkel and Sons. Kinkel is an Evansville alumnus (Class of 1962). Evansville did not, and does not have an architecture program. Kinkel's undergraduate work was in business, but he went on to the University of Kentucky from which he graduated with a degree in architecture in 1964. He also did the design work of the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library and the Schroeder Residence Hall which are both detailed below. It too is coed and can accommodate ninety-six residents. It opened in 1993. Mrs. Powell was a long-serving trustee of the university. A native of Evansville, she graduated from Bosse High School and went on to earn an Associate's degree from Stephens College and a Bachelor's degree at Northwestern University. She met her husband there, he was a dishwasher for her chapter of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority. He would go on to the chairman of the trucking and logistics firm Yellow Freight System (now YRC Worldwide). She passed away on ​February 14, 2011.​

The first photo in the next set is the Clifford Memorial Library. Clifford was the first dedicated building for the library. The library was initially located in the Olmsted Administration Building. Readers of this blog and armchair higher education historians will know that housing the library in the admin building is a very common theme in the history of many colleges and universities. The space in the admin building was quickly outgrown. Indeed, prior to Clifford’s construction, the Olmsted Building’s attic had to be used to store items that were not regularly used or checked out. In the years after World War II, the GI-Bill induced enrollment boom strained the space to the breaking point. Having long outgrown its space on Olmsted’s second floor, the library and its collection spread across the building as well as into a large temporary structure erected as part of a campus-side effort to cope with the massive influx of students. Evansville’s then President Hale went in search of funding and found a significant portion in the form of a challenge grant in the amount of $200,000 from the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment. The Lilly Endowment, created by Josiah K. Lilly Sr. and sons Eli and Josiah of the famed pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company is one of the largest foundations in the U.S. and has donated to many colleges and universities and other causes for nearly 100 years. The grant came with the condition that the college had to raise the rest of the required amount, some $450,000, to necessary to complete the project. 

Hale would not stay on to see the library completed. The official groundbreaking ceremony took place on November 22, 1955, the very same day Hale’s successor, Melvin Hyde, would be sworn in as president. A time capsule was placed in the cornerstone the following year with microfilm and audio tapes (including one of Elvis Presley) and other items. Construction did not go perfectly as an error in the design work was found during construction. Libraries have to support far more weight that typical structures. The weight of books adds up quickly and when you have a collection that spaces multiple floors the framing must be substantial. The original plan failed to adequately address the issue of this enormous weight, but thankfully the issue was caught and corrected. I have written about the Herculean task of moving an academic library in the case of Montana State University and the University of Tennessee at Martin and the various means these and other schools have used to relocate thousands of books and other materials. In this case, the move was not too great in terms of distance as Clifford and Olmsted are in close proximity. In Evansville’s case, the director of the physical plant, a Mr. A.C. Biggs, devised a plan to connect the buildings via a cable car system. Along with a team of individuals, the system allowed the entire collection to be relocated in the new library in just two days. Although rearrangement and final tuning likely took place after, this was a remarkably fast relocation. 

The library is also named in honor of George and Emily Clifford. Their son James L. Clifford, a professor at Columbia University, was the speaker at the library’s dedication on March 19, 1957. His personal collection of books and papers are now held in the Evansville library. The new library was the first building on campus to be built with air conditioning and in addition to stacks, reading rooms, and study spaces, had an auditorium capable of seating 100 people. In all, Clifford has about 28,000 square feet of space.

The remaining photos in this set are of a second library, the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library, which is the principal library on the Evansville campus today. The post-war boom in enrollment was soon followed by another which was both larger and longer lasting. The Baby Boom generation began enrolling in college in the early 1960’s. Having more enrolled students equaled more demand for library materials and space. Clifford’s collection had roughly 40,000 books when it opened in 1957. By 1965, it had reached more than 66,000 and by 1970 it had passed 100,000 books. The number of periodicals and other materials likewise increased. The increases would not only continue but would amplify during the 1970’s. Clifford was quickly being outgrown. The increase in holdings was a reflection of the enrollment and the library’s space was far too small to provide seating for the number of students on campus. The building could simply not provide the necessary space for study and research for the population of students now matriculating at the college. An addition, completed at a cost of $290,00 (about $1.46 million in today’s value) did little to slake the need for space. It was evident that a major addition was needed.
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A fundraising campaign began in 1983 with the goal of acquiring $5 million (nearly $16 million today) for construction of a 56,000 square foot addition designed by Jack H. Kinkel of the Evansville-based architectural firm Jack R. Kinkel and Sons. Among his many works are two dorms on the Evansville campus (see below), recreation center at the University of Southern Indiana, and a number of structures at Oakland City University, in the eponymously named city which is about thirty miles north of Evansville. A groundbreaking ceremony for Bower-Suhrheinrich was held on October 20, 1984. The addition was completed in 1986. American author and Indiana native Kurt Vonnegut spoke at the dedication on October 16, 1986. Although connected to the Clifford Library, the addition received its own name in recognition of a $1 million gift from Dallas Bower-Suhrheinrich. Her late husband William Suhrheinrich had been Vice Chairman and Treasurer of the university’s Board. It underwent a significant renovation which was completed in 2013. This saw a major makeover of the first floor. The design work for the renovation was completed by the architectural firm Hafer which has offices in Evansville and across the region.

The second photo is a view of the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library as you walk toward it from the Olmsted building and the Clifford Memorial Library. The building on the left in that photo is the William L. Ridgway University Center (see below). The third photo shows the main entrance more clearly, and the fourth through seventh photos show other angles of the building as you walk around the structure toward the rear. The last two photos show the interior on the first floor including a dedicatory plaque just inside doorway.

The set below is of Memorial Plaza. It harkens back to a terrible tragedy for the university and the community. The 1977-1978 Purple Aces basketball season was meant to be something special. The university had decided to pursue greater attendance and competition and had sought and received permission to become an NCAA Division I school for basketball that year. Bobby Watson was hired as the new coach and the season began with much hope. The team lost its first two games of the season, first to Western Kentucky University at home and then to DePaul University on the road in Illinois. They came home to win the third game of the season against the University of Pittsburgh but lost the fourth to an Indiana State University squad featuring future Boston Celtics legend Larry Byrd. The team was scheduled to play Middle Tennessee State University on December 14, 1977, in Murfreesboro but fate would intervene. Shortly after takeoff on Tuesday, December 13, 1977, the DC-3 charter flight operated by Air Indiana as flight 216, crashed. Watson and all but one member of the team was killed in the crash (David Furr, a freshman on the team had stayed behind thanks to an ankle injury. The crash was caused by human error. The pilot had failed to remove the gust locks on the right side of the aircraft. This caused the center of gravity to shift and thanks to the plane being overloaded the combination resulted in a nose-up orientation that could not be overcome. In addition to the team, the plane carried three student managers, the Athletics Department business manager, controlled, and information director. Two donors and a sportscaster were also killed in the accident. The assistant coaches were not on board as they were on recruiting trips. Four people initially survived the crash, but three died on the scene after rescuers arrived and one died within hours after being located. Furr would also die tragically two weeks later in a car crash that also took the life of his younger brother. 

​The university had been planning to construct a plaza on campus, and the decision was made to make the site a memorial to those killed in the crash. Groundbreaking on the site occurred on March 30, 1978, but construction was not begun until after the relatives of all of the Evansville victims had been consulted. The two stone slabs you see lead to a cobblestone basin. The circular object is a fountain and when it is on provides a shape not unlike a basketball which some refer to as the “Weeping Basketball”. 

The next set has three views of Graves Hall, which sits next door to the Ridgway Student Union (see below). Graves is named after the university’s twentieth president, Wallace B. Graves. Graves was in the office for an astounding nineteen years from 1967 to 1986. He came to Evansville from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He was only forty-three when he took the reins of the presidency. Graves was a Texas native, having grown up in Fort Worth. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1943 and joined the army during World War II. He was a POW but escaped after five months. He went on to complete a master’s at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and a doctorate at the University of Texas. UT Austin, as it happens, is one of the most prolific institutions in terms of producing college presidents and has been for years. Graves took over at the height of the Vietnam war, but for the most part the Evansville campus was generally quiet and free of the more prolific protests and riots of that era. The university continued to grow in many ways as the Baby Boomers continued their progression through school and were subsequently replaced by their children, Generation X (or Gen X). I happen to be of that latter generation and have always thought the moniker was foolish. The Gen Z name that followed was even more ridiculous. We were, after all, called Generation X because ethnographers were uncertain as to what we would eventually be known for. The “X” was not a name; it was a placeholder. But I digress. The building holds nursing and health sciences and has had recent updates including some simulations labs. If I am not mistaken, there was once a dorm that sat next to Graves, called Hughes Hall. It was named after the first president, Alfred Hughes. It opened in 1958 and soldiered on before being shuttered in 2017. It was torn down in 2022 to make way for a new recreation center to replace the Carson Center (see below). I was not able to find out much in the way of details about Graves Hall, so if you know anything about it please leave a note in the comments. 

The set below is of the William L. Ridgway University Center. It’s a great looking structure that has an impressive appearance despite not being as large as many of the student unions I have covered in this blog. The building was designed by Mackey Mitchell Architects and the Hafer architectural firm, the same firm which did the plan for the renovation of the first floor of the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library. As you can see, it is a lovely two-story building which has 95,000 square feet of space. Mackey Mitchell is a St. Louis, Missouri-based firm which specializes in collegiate architecture. The firm was also involved in the design work for the Charger Student Union at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the South 40 Housing and Dining building and the Olin Business School Building at Washington University St. Louis, the Downing Student Union at Western Kentucky University, as well as residence halls and other structures around the country. Ground was broken for the union in July 2007 and was completed in August the following year. It cost roughly $23.9 million (or about $36.2 million in 2024 value) to construct. It is named in honor of long-serving university trustee William Ridgway. The university has a campus on a former grand estate in the U.K. called Harlaxton. Although the university had been using the location for some time, it came to be owned by Evansville courtesy of Ridgway. He purchased Harlaxton in 1978 for $180,000 (about $866k today) and donated it to the university in 1987.

The first photo is the length of the building from the walkway beside the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library. There is a large courtyard in front of the building which you can see in the second photo. As you can see, one of the features is the university's Interfaith Peace Bell. I love when things like this are kept and put on display, so kudos to the university for that. Plus, the pedestal is incredible! It is, of course, a replica of the Olmsted Administration Building's tower. As such, it's a double treat. The third and fourth photos give two views of the building's main façade. The area behind where I was standing when I took the fourth photo is the planned home for a new student recreation center. The last three photos show some of the interior on the first floor including the lovely water feature and a plaque to Mr. Ridgway. The building has the standard array of food options, the campus bookstore, study areas, and support offices. 

The set below begins with three views of the Neu Chapel. When I was first reading about the university and ran across a note about the Neu Chapel, I assumed the “Neu” was the German word “new”, meaning this was a newer chapel on campus which had replaced an earlier one. This was not exactly the case. It is the German word for new, but its use in the case has to do with a person who was named New. Adam J. Neu was born in German Township, Indiana. His father died when he was only six, and he was raised in a single parent household by his mother in a small home in Evansville. He joined the Army in 1915 where he learned the art of baking, spending much of his time in the service as a baker stationed in the Philippines. He left the army in 1920 and returned to the states continuing his work as a baker for two years before starting his own business. He initially made bread but then expanded into cakes which his wife Georgia would hand decorate. The bakery did very well and eventually he took on a franchise of the Sunbeam Bread company and employed 150 people. He and Georgia were very active in the community and supported many causes in the city and region. He became a member of the Evansville Board in 1952. In 1964, the couple gave a donation of $350,000 (about $3.5 million in today’s value) for the construction of the chapel.  

The chapel was completed in December 1965 and held its first service on January 6, 1966. It was officially dedicated on March 15th that year by Methodist Bishop Richard C. Raines. The building is clad in Indiana Limestone and has a slate roof with shingles from Vermont. It houses a Holtkamp organ and can seat 450 people. In addition to regular church services, the chapel is a favorite spot for weddings. 

The last two photos in this set are of two dorms which sit adjacent to Neu Chapel and across the street from the Carson Center (see below). The fourth photo shows the front of New Residence Hall, a name I imagine is a placeholder until such time as a more formal name is chosen. A groundbreaking for the building was held on May 18, 2021, and it was finished in time to open to residents in 2022. It can house 293 people and has a “U” shape with the courtyard you see here in the middle. It has some 83,000 square feet of space. It cost $18 million to build. The building is located on the site of two former dorms, Bretano Hall and Morton Hall. The last photo shows the back of the dorm and in the distance, you can see the older Moore Residence Hall. Moore was built courtesy of a $500,000 gift from the Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church, an amount equal to about $5.4 million today. It opened in 1960 and can accommodate 240 residents. An addition was completed in 1963. It was initially a women’s residence hall, but it has since become coed. In the area where Moore now stands was once the site of temporary residences to accommodate the post-World War II student boom. Consisting of former military barracks, these were officially called the Campus Court Apartments and housed married students. By the 1950’s students began calling them Tin City thanks to their metal siding. They were not fully removed until 1961. You can read more about them here. ​The name is honor of the university’s founder John Collins Moore, thus fulfilling the requirements of the charter to have a building with the Moore name on campus.

The set below begins with a bit of a distant photo of the Carson Center, the student recreation center on campus. Completed in 1962, Carson has multiple gyms, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, workout and weightlifting facilities, classrooms, and offices. I believe the facility is named after William A. Carson, local businessman and long serving university trustee.

​Attached to the Carson and seen in the second photo is the Fifth Third Bank Basketball Practice Facility. Evansville participates in Division I athletics and its most notable program is the men’s basketball team. Back in 2011, the team began playing in the Ford Center, a 290,000 square foot facility located about two miles from campus which seats 10,000 people. I wanted to swing by there, but time was not on my side. I have heard that it is a really nice facility. Despite that, and the fact that it is not too far from campus, both the men’s and the women’s basketball teams practice in the Fifth Third Bank Facility. It’s actually a little bit newer than the Ford Center. It opened in 2012 and provides 25,000 square feet of space. The initial cost, some $3.6 million (about $5 million in 2024 value) was made possible through donations to the athletic department. Although it’s not old by any means, it was none the less updated in 2019.

The building you see in the distance in the second photo is the Schroeder Residence Hall. It's a coed dorm with men and women on alternate floors. It can accommodate 150 residents. Some sources say the building opened in 1994 and others 1995. It is named for John H. Schroeder who was a member of the Evansville board. Like the Powell Residence Hall and the Bower-Suhrheinrich Library, it was designed by local architect Jack H. Kinkel of the architectural firm Jack R. Kinkel and Sons.

My time on the Evansville campus was brief, but I really enjoyed it. It is a smaller institution and the campus is structured in a way that makes getting around quite easy. Yet it has a spacious and green feel to it at the same time. As fate would have it, this past summer my family and I were on an extended road trip and on the way back to our home in the Memphis metro area we made a stop at a used bookstore in Nashville we frequent whenever we are there. I found a book there which, along with information found in other sources and on the internet, provided a good history of the university which aided in the writing of this post. If you are interested in learning more about the place, I recommend reading We Face the Future Unafraid: A Narrative History of the University of Evansville by George Klinger (University of Evansville Press, 2003). It is a good book and an easy read. I was able to get a like-new edition for $0.75! I told my wife at the time that I had I a backlog of books I wanted to read and didn't know if I would ever set foot on the campus but I could not pass up getting it for less than a dollar. Less than four months later, I was walking around campus.

The final set of photos show three examples of Evansville's lamppost sign. The first is the most common, and has the stylized UE on a field of purple. The second and third photos show a second style that also adorns campus with a photo on top and a slogan and the UE on the bottom. I have always remarked that these signs are now ubiquitous and virtually every campus I visit has them. As I walked around Evansville I began to wonder. Are these going to be a standard for an extended period of time? Or are they so common as to have lost their appeal? I imagine they will stick around, but since everyone has them they have lost a little of their uniqueness. Time will tell.

Today's post is the University of Tennessee at Martin, one of the five institutions in the University of Tennessee System. I had never been to the campus and was looking forward to seeing what was on offer there. It was a nice day with temperatures in the low 60's. As my visit progressed, clouds rolled in and blocked the sun, and although that made the photos I took less appealing, it was a wonderful day to walk around campus. 
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What would become UT Martin was founded as a Baptist Church affiliated school in 1900. Local Baptists John Newton Hall and Joseph Burnley Moody sought to create a school for religious training and general education in Martin. Martin was already home to one such institution. McFerrin College, a Methodist-affiliated institution which had been created in the community ten years earlier. Baptist minister Isaac Newton Penick joined the effort. A local man named Ada Gardner Brooks donated the land on which the institution would sit which at the time was outside the city proper. The institution would open with the name Hall-Moody Institute, honoring the two men who started the efforts to create it. Today, there remains a building on campus with the Hall-Moody name (see below). When it opened, it offered training from the first grade through the first year of college. This was not at all uncommon in that era, and both private and public institutions frequently had some level of K-12 training on their campus. By 1917, the institution had primarily become a teacher training school and hence changed its name to the Hall-Moody Normal School. In 1922, to recognize the broader range of college classes being offered, it changed its name again to the Hall-Moody Junior College. All was not smooth sailing, however. Martin was and is in a rural area of the state. Enrollment challenges were common, and by the 1920’s the institution was on thin ice. Its finances were such that it ultimately faced two options: merger with or acquisition by another institution or closure. Hall-Moody’s administration and the community leaders of Martin and Weakley County in which the school is located naturally preferred the former and went looking for partners. They approached the University of Tennessee which was having something of a renaissance. Then Governor Austin Peay, a supporter of education across the state, had greatly increased UT’s budget and new buildings were cropping up on campus in Knoxville at an impressive rate. But UT’s President, H.A. Morgan was not interested. Despite some political pressure to acquire the school, Morgan was against the idea and would not budge. Morgan understood the vagaries of public support for higher education and likely knew that the increased support from Nashville thanks to Austin Peay would likely be transient. The idea of acquiring a junior college in the far flung reaches of Weakley County and the knowledge that state funding could be reduced at a moment’s notice probably soured his interest. Feeling that the possibility of being acquired by UT was minimal, the Baptist Church, still the leading the financial backer of the institution, sought to merge with Union University in Jackson. As I have previously posted, Union is a private Baptist-affiliated institution that lives on today.

Politicians and community leaders in that area of the state worried that merger with Union could only delay the inevitable closure of the Martin campus. They pushed for UT to take on the college, but Morgan maintained his resistance and Governor Peay indicated that it was up to the folks in Knoxville. Morgan stated that he would not move forward with the acquisition unless the city of Martin and Weakley County each raise $100,000 to purchase Hall-Moody, the totality of its property and physical plant, and additional land for future growth. He no doubt thought that the amount, equivalent to about $1.8 million each, was too exorbitant and would kill any attempt to get UT to acquire the institution. It was 1927 and as these events unfolded, President Morgan and then Director of the UT Agriculture and Extension Service Cloide Everett “C.E.” Brehm were in Nashville for the general session of the state legislature. According to the book Too Foster Knowledge, a wonderful history of the University of Tennessee (Montgomery, Folmsbee, and Greene, 1984, The University of Tennessee Press), Morgan had to leave the city to attend to matters in Atlanta. Brehm, who would go on to UT’s 15th President, remained in Nashville as the university’s representative. To everyone’s surprise except to the intrepid community leaders of Martin and Weakley County, the money was raised as the local governments issued bonds to get the funding. When Morgan returned to Nashville, he asked Brehm what transpired in his absence to which he replied “Well, we now have a junior college” (Montgomery, Folmsbee, and Greene, 1984; p. 312). Thus, the University of Tennessee Junior College was born. The first classes under the new management would be held in the Fall of 1927 when 117 students enrolled, a number far less than had been hoped. 

The sailing remained rough. The Great Depression began two years later, and enrollment issues were severe across the country let alone in Martin. At times, it seemed unlikely that the college could continue. But the people in Martin soldiered on and thanks to GI Bill and post-war enrollment, the economic boom of the 1950’s, and the mass influx of students in the Baby Boomer Generation finally brought stability and sustainable growth the institution. The institution’s first leader under the UT banner was C. Porter Claxton, who oversaw operations in Martin for seven years from 1927 to 1934. At the time, he carried the title “Executive Officer”. He was followed by Paul Meek. Meek would remain at the helm from 1934 until 1967. During this time, his title changed Executive Officer to Dean and finally Chancellor. He took the second title in 1961 and the Chancellor moniker in 1967 when the University of Tennessee System was born. In 1951, the institution’s name was changed to the University of Tennessee Martin Branch. In 1967, it received its current name of the University of Tennessee at Martin. The library on the Martin campus is named in honor of Meek (see below). Today, UT Marin enrolls nearly 7,000 students on a campus that has some 250 acres of land. Its gently rolling campus has numerous green spaces and the feel of a traditional college. Martin has five constituent colleges and five satellite centers across the western portion of the state. 

The first stop on my tour of the campus was the virtually brand new Latimer-Smith Engineering and Science Building. The four-story structure comes in at 121,696 square feet and includes all manner of classrooms, labs, a café, and offices. It was designed by the Jackson, Tennessee based TLM architecture firm in collaboration with the SmithGroup firm from Detroit. TLM also designed the Blaylock Inspiration Oracle on campus (see below). The building takes its name from William "Bill" H. and Carol Latimer who donated $6.5 million of the total $65 million price tag for the building. The gift was the largest in the university's history. The Latimer's have a long association with UTM. Bill's uncle Will attended the university beginning in 1930 and played on the football team. Bill attended UTM, but transferred to the main UT campus in Knoxville to complete his studies. His sons William and Douglas both graduated from UTM (Classes of 1982 and 1984 respectively). The Smith name also comes compliments of the Latimer’s who wished to honor Robert “Bobby” M. Smith, the 10th Chancellor of UTM. A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the building on September 18, 2020, and it was officially dedicated on October 27, 2022. The set below starts with four views of the north side of the building from the quad side of the building. The fifth photo is the rear of the building on the south. The last side is a photo looking across the quad westwardly from in front of the building. The photos I took of the quad, also referred to as the arboretum, do not do it justice. It is a very beautiful area and it quite large. The cloudy day photos detract from the actual picturesque nature of the place. 

The set below begins with two photos of the Business Administration Building. It began its life as a dormitory. Like most colleges and universities around the nation, UT Martin had a significant increase in enrollment after World War II. Unprecedented numbers of veterans enrolled in college thanks to the GI Bill, and a building boom on campuses followed. Martin had such growth and one of the buildings that came out of it was this one. Construction began in 1950 on what was meant to be men’s residence hall. The original plans called for a much larger structure. It was meant to have two large wings, but in the end the scope was reduced and only one wing, much smaller than originally planned, came to be. Still, the main portion remained which contained a student recreation center along with the smaller wing on the north side of the structure. It opened in 1951 having cost $405,000 to build (that is about $5.3 million in today’s value). For a time, it was simply called the Men’s Residence Hall. It was renamed Browning Hall on December 5, 1966, in honor of former Governor Gordon Browning. By the 1960’s, Martin’s enrollment had diversified and there were more women on campus. Thus, between 1967 and 1973 the building was alternately used as a dorm for either men or women as needed. It was subsequently renovated to be a classroom and faculty office space in 1975. In 1977, business administration moved in, and the building would be renamed the Business Administration Building in 1990.

Next are two photos of Gooch Hall, a classic example of early 1970’s academic architecture. Construction on the building began in 1972 and was completed in 1974. When it opened, it was called the Home Economics, Education, and Nursing Building, and frequently referred to as the HEN Building. It was renamed in a ceremony on September 9, 1976, to honor Cecil M. and Boyce A. Gooch who were benefactors of the university. Cecil had passed away in 1969, but Boyce was alive and well at the time. You may recall from my earlier post that the couple were also significant donors to Rhodes College and there is a Gooch Hall on that campus as well. Indeed, when Boyce passed away Rhodes received their then largest donation in history, $2 million, from their estate. UTM’s Gooch Hall comes in at 118,288 square feet and was constructed at a cost of $3,258,899 (or about $24.6 million in today’s value). The third photo is a view of the quad from that area. 

Gooch is located where a former dorm, Freeman Hall, once stood. Freeman was built in 1921 and soldiered on until razed in the fall of 1973. The 1974 edition of the UTM’s yearbook had a funny comment on Freeman when it was razed. The editors of the yearbook jokingly noted that “1,383 rats and 6,859 cockroaches were forced into the rain and snow where they starved or died of exposure” (p.44) when the building was torn down. This tongue in cheek comment reflects an all too frequent truth – dorms are often left in bad shape. I had the experience at the University of Tennessee Knoxville where one of the dorms had such a roach problem that a friend of mine found a pack of Rolaids in his medicine cabinet in Reese Hall all chewed up after a few nights by roaches infesting his room. He and his friends would wake up in the morning to find roaches sharing the bed with them. My freshman year came with the realization that the Carrick Hall suite I shared with my roommates would not have heat for weeks after it the weather turned cold, that roaches and ants felt we were trespassing in their home, and that the university did not care about these or the myriad of other significant issues that were common in the building. I was lucky though, as Carrick, only twenty-two years old at the time, was younger than many of the dorms on campus and thus in far better shape. I don’t know why college administrators let dorms get in the state that they do, nor do I understand how they get away with it. It has gotten better as students and their families demand better accommodations, but I still hear stories from students at colleges and universities across the country, both public and private, about the poor conditions of dorms.

The first photo in the next set is the Sociology Building which sits beside the Latimer-Smith Building on the quad. Construction on the building began in 1927 and it was completed in 1929. It only cost about $33,000, or about $609,000 in today's value, to construct. When it opened, it housed the Physical and Industrial Sciences department and was called the Science Building. The sciences moved out in 1961 and the building was used for a variety of purposes until 1971 when the sociology department moved in and has been there ever since. I am not sure if the building's name changed in '71 or sometime thereafter. If you happen to know please leave a comment. 

The second photo below is the Holland McCombs Center and Archives Building. Although it looks rather like a house, it was a purpose-built structure for Home Economics. Indeed, construction of the building began in 1927, making it the first building constructed under the University of Tennessee banner. It opened in 1929 at a total expense of $43,000. Home Economics stayed in the structure until Gooch Hall opened in 1974. Over time it deteriorated into a rather bad condition but thanks to a donation by Mr. McCombs it was renovated in (the 1980’s). McCombs was a native of Martin, TN and his grandparents lived on the Woodley Farm on which the campus now sits. McCombs was a journalist who lived a colorful life. You can read more about him in an interesting article from D Magazine in 1977 here. ​McCombs donated $100,000 for a renovation of the building which was subsequently renamed in his honor upon completion of the work on March 28, 1987.

The set below begins with three views of the front (quad side) of the Andy Holt Humanities Building. Construction of the building began in 1967 and i was completed by the fall of 1968. It cost $1,375,284 to complete the 65,072 square feet building (which is about $13 million in today’s dollars). It has a large number of faculty offices, 31 classrooms, and a large lecture hall. The building is named for a Tennessee icon, Andrew D. Holt, the 16th president of the university. His accomplishments are far too numerous for this post, but I will give a brief run down of the highlights. It was during his time as president that UT Martin began offering graduate programs. UT Martin is not the only campus in the University of Tennessee System that honors Dr. Holt.  There are buildings and a street named for him on two additional system campuses. On the flagship campus in Knoxville, a main thoroughfare through campus is Andy Holt Avenue and the administrative offices are housed in Andy Holt Tower. An apartment residence hall once stood on Andy Holt Avenue which was colloquially referred to as Andy Holt though that was never an official name. At the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, there is a Holt Hall which is the current home biology, geology, and environmental sciences. The building received its name on November 12, 1971.

The fourth and fifth photos are of the Hall-Moody Administration Building, which is apparently undergoing a renovation. Despite its name, it does not date to the founding institution and was not on campus until decades after its acquisition by the University of Tennessee. There had been a building on campus which carried the Administration Building name and which served in that role during Hall-Moody days and the first few decades of the Tennessee era. It had long outlived its purpose so in the 1950’s a new building would be erected for the purpose. Construction on the current building was completed in 1959 at a total cost of $573,000, or $6,258,667 today. From the beginning, it housed the administrative offices as well as a number of classrooms and support units. It opened as the Administration Building; the Hall-Moody portion of the name would not come until February 2, 1968. The former Admin Building continued being used on campus for a number of years. It was vacant and scheduled for demolition when it burned down on Thanksgiving day 1970.

The last photo in this set is Crisp Hall. Crisp is not the original name of the building. Construction of the building began in 1929 and when it opened in 1930, it was called the Industrial Arts Building, reflecting the space's primary occupant. It was gutted by a significant fire in 1941 which only left the exterior walls intact. The structure was rebuilt thanks in part to the efforts of then Governor Prentice Cooper who supported getting state funds for the reconstruction. It kept its original name until 1969 when it was renamed Cooper Hall in his honor (Cooper died on May 18, 1969). The name changed again on September 28, 1996 to its current Crisp Hall designation. The name comes from Harry L. Crisp, a businessman who has donated to the university.

The first two photos below are of the ​C.E. Brehm Hall. Construction on what would become known as the Brehm Hall began in 1950. It was a solution to several problems and its name reflected that fact. It opened as the Agriculture-Biology-Library Building, or ABL Building. The library would eventually move to its current location in 1967 as its collection expanded beyond the space's capacity (see below). Some documents still refer to it as the C.E. Brehm Agriculture and Biology Building. I am not sure if that is the official name or not, as variants appear on numerous official UT Martin documents. As noted above, it is named for UT's 15th President Cloide Everett Brehm. It received this name on October 23, 1970. It has been expanded and remodeled several times since it opened. There is a Brehm Hall at the University of Tennessee’s flagship campus in Knoxville as well. You can just make out a green house in these photos which is called the Biology Greenhouse. It was added in 1970.

The third photo is the Fine Arts Building. Construction on building began in 1968. The building opened in 1970 and was formally dedicated on May 28th that year. As originally configured, it had 54,702 square feet of space and included classrooms, studios, rehearsal space, and a 500-seat theater. It cost $1,938,225 to build (which is about $17.6 million in 2024 value). It was expanded and renovated in 2013. The fourth photo is the quad in this general area.

The last two photos in this set are of the quad-side front of the Joseph E. Johnson Engineering-Physical Science (EPS) Building. ​The building was completed in 1961 at a cost of $673k, which is about $7.2 million in today’s value. The sciences and engineering were rapidly growing during this period as the Baby Boomers flooded campus. The growth would continue so much that within seven years a significant addition had to be added to keep up with enrollment and the space needed to instruct all of those students. The building’s name honors UT’s 19th president, who served in that role from 1991 until 1999. The building was named in his honor on June 17, 1999.

Next, we have the Paul Meek Library. Construction on the library commenced in 1966. As noted above, the library had been housed in Brehm Hall, then known as the Agriculture-Biology-Library Building. When it opened in the spring of 1968 it had 60,000 square feet of space and could accommodate 200,000 books and other materials. Construction costs came in at $1,259,190 (or about $12.3 million in today’s value). What you see here looks nothing like the building did when it opened. That is because it was reconstructed starting in 1993. I use the word reconstructed instead of remodeled because of the scope of the work. The building had reached its capacity and was in bad shape. The university wanted to replace it with an entirely new building, but the state would not provide funds for one. Instead, the collection was moved to Clement Hall and the building was gutted right down to the foundation. Literally all that remained was the foundation pad and the support columns. Additional foundations were constructed, and the structure was rebuilt. When it was finished in the summer of 1995, the library came in at 120,000 square feet. Although the price tag for the work came in at $9,850,000 (about $21.5 million today), I suppose it was cheaper than demolishing everything and starting from scratch. 

Paul Meek was the Chancellor of UT Martin from 1934 to 1967. It was during his very long tenure at the helm that UTM went from a tiny junior college struggling to get students to a comprehensive college offering master's degrees. What a change he saw in those three decades! 

In my post on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I commented on their Health Sciences Library using the National Library of Medicine Schedule. Most university libraries use the Library of Congress Classification System whereas most public libraries use the Dewey Decimal Classification which most people call the Dewey Decimal System. The Meek Library used the Dewey system until a conversion to the Library of Congress Classification in 1974. I imagine few of the librarians at Meek know that last fact off the top of their head’s which is a real indication of just how much of an academic nerd I am.

The first three photos are various views of the outside of the building, primary taken of the side that faces the Boling University Center (see below). The fourth photo is the back side of the building. When you enter the library, you first come into a vestibule with a small sitting area. In that space is the dedication plaque you see in the fifth photo. Directly in front of the main entryway into the library is the sculpture you see in the fifth photo. It is called Grosbeak Madonna and it is the work of artist Ralph N. Hurst. Hurst completed the piece on May 2, 1979 and gave it to the university. He was UTM's Artist in Residence during the period from 1990 to 1993. His wife, Dr. Jean N. English, was a professor and Chair of the Department of English during the same period. So Dr. English chaired the English department. 

Just inside the main entrance into the library is the portrait of Chancellor Meek you see in the sixth photo and the dedication plaques you see in the seventh photo. The eighth, ninth, and tenth photos are of the area just inside the main entrance. The eleventh photo was taken further inside the library and is of a plaque recognizing a library endowment. 

Just outside the library near the Crisp Building is the statue you see in the twelfth photo. As the plaque in the thirteenth photo indicates, the piece is call Friends, and is a tribute to the people at UTM who have mentored students at the university. It also honors Phil Watkins, Student Government Association advisor and vice chancellor for student affairs from 1964 to 2000. I was unable to find out the name of the artist who created the piece. 

The next set is something rather unique, the Baylock Inspiration Oracle. The building has an open seating area meant for contemplation as well as a fountain and courtyard. The name is honor of Paul Baylock, a UTM alumnus (Class of 1968) who went on to become both a noted physician and attorney in Portland, Oregon. It is a newer structure on campus. Groundbreaking for the building occurred on October 9, 2021 and it was formally dedicated on October 20, 2023. As noted above, it was designed by the TLM architecture firm. In the last photo, the building on the left is the Boling University Center (see below) and the one on the right is the Paul Meek Library.

Next, we have the Boling University Center, UT Martin’s student union. It replaced an older wooden building called the Student Activities Building. That building was constructed by the Federal Works Agency and when completed in 1947 was first used as a classroom and office building. Upon completion of the Agriculture-Biology-Library (ABL) Building (now Brehm Hall), it was remodeled to be a student union and home to the ROTC program and opened in that capacity in 1950. That building stood next to the current Cooper Hall. The space proved too small and not well suited for that purpose in the long run, and thanks to the need for additional space created by the infusion of the Baby Boom generation a new union was needed. Construction on the new building commenced in in 1965 and it was completed in the Fall, 1966 semester. It originally came in at 59,600 square feet and cost $1.6 million (or $16 million today) to build. Everything but the ROTC offices and classrooms moved into the new building which opened with its name being simply the University Center, or UC. ROTC would stay in that older building until the current ROTC facility opened in 1987. The old Student Activities Building would then be razed via a controlled fire. The UC would be enlarged in 1972 and again in 1983 by which time it had some 87,734 square feet of space. It would receive its current name in 1993 in honor of Dr. Edward J. Boling who was President of the University of Tennessee System from 1970 to 1988, and his wife Carolyn P. Boling. Another addition came in 1997. The Thompson-Boling arena at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville is also named in his honor. 

The first photo is the back of the building and shows one part of the original structure (the bit furthest away in the photo). The part with the stripes is, I believe, the newest part of the building. The second photo is of that newer section on the side that faces the Meek Library and one of the banners on that side of the building. The third photo is of the front on the Meek Library side and again shows the newer part of the building (foreground) and the older portion (background), as well as another banner. The fourth photo is a view of the façade of the building facing Meek, a portion of which can be seen on the right in that photo. As I have noted in many posts, branding is everywhere on college campuses these days, in this case on a doormat by one of Boling's entrances in the fifth photo. Branding can also be seen in the interior of the building as evidenced by the sixth photo. The seventh photo is the building's dedicatory plaque and the eighth is a room with stadium-style seating inside Boling. The last photo is the opposite side of the exterior.

The set below begins with two views of the front of Clement Hall. Clement replaced a men’s dorm that once stood on the site. That dorm was unique in many ways. An all-wood structure, it never had an official name but was known by the moniker “the Wooden Box” and its residents as “Knights of the Wooden Box”. It was actually a surplus purchase after World War II. The university was in need of housing for returning veterans and purchased building materials from Camp Tyson in Paris, TN. Camp Tyson, as it happens, was the only US barrage balloon training center during the war. Even if you are not familiar with the phrase “barrage balloon” you’ve likely seen them. If you picture any World War II movie that has scenes of London during the Blitz, barrage balloons are those silver balloons tethered to the ground. Anyway, the Wooden Box was installed during 1946-1947 and stayed in place until the construction on what would become Clement began in 1956. It opened as a women’s dorm in 1957 with accommodations for 236 students. It has long ceased its duties as a residence hall and now houses the local Public TV station and a variety of other offices. The cost of construction came in at $692,000, or about $8 million in today’s dollars. An addition to the building came in 1963 adding space for 210 additional residents. The addition cost nearly as much as the original portion of the building at $688,000 (or some $7.1 million in today’s value). It opened with the name Women's Residence Hall which it would keep until 1966 when it was renamed for Governor Frank G. Clement. My father once recounted a story to me about a chance encounter he had with Governor Clement sometime in the 1960’s in Nashville. As I recall the story, he bumped into the governor in the lobby of a hotel in downtown sometime during Clement’s time as governor. Not being a resident of the state, dad did not immediately recognize him. For some reason I have forgotten, they had the occasion to speak to one another. They chatted for a bit and went their separate ways. I remember dad saying the governor was very nice, but also “gassed”, a common phrase of the 60’s referring to someone who has had a bit too much to drink. On a side note, my father, a very social person, would strike up a conversation with just about anyone. In so doing, he made friends far and wide. He could count numerous governors, senators, and members of congress among his friends (truly, he did not associate with them for influence or favor). When I was a boy, he introduced me to a very powerful U.S. Senator. Afterwards, I mentioned the man had the softest hands I had ever shaken, to which dad replied, “that’s because he has never done an ounce of real work in his life!”. And like his chance encounter with Governor Clement, he met more politicians in passing than I could ever remember. Anyway, the interior of the building has undergone a recent renovation, or so it would appear. The third photo in this set is the rather modern looking chandelier hanging in the main entryway. The fourth photo is the back of the building. There are Clement Halls at Tennessee State, Tennessee Tech, the University of Memphis, and UT Knoxville. 

Finally, this set concludes with a photo of the Cooper Residence Hall. Construction on what would become Cooper began in 1967 and the building was completed before the end of the fall semester of 1968. The building was initially called the Atrium Dormitory, a nod to the building’s courtyard. It was (and still is) a dorm for women. Construction costs came in at $1,422,946, which is equivalent to about $13.4 million in today’s money. As noted above, the building takes its name from Governor Prentice Cooper. When the existing Cooper Hall was renamed to honor Harry Crisp, Atrium was renamed for the governor. The name became official in a ceremony on December 7, 1995. 

The set below is of a number of residence halls on campus. The first photo is a view of the courtyard of the University Village complex. Completed in 2005, University Village is a set of apartment style dorms. Next door is University Village Phase II, seen in the second and third photos. They too are apartment style dorms and they were completed in 2008. Phase II consists of three buildings which can accommodate up to 402 residents. The buildings were co-designed by the Clarksville, Tennessee-based architecture firm Lyle Cook Martin Architects (I am not sure what other firm was involved). Phase II cost about $24 million (or about $38.5 million today) to construct. These buildings stand on the site of previous dorms, Austin Peay Hall and McCord Hall. Peay and McCord were two of four "double Y" dorms; the remaining two are covered in this post. The dorms are called double Y's due to their shape - from above they look like two capital letter Y's connected at the base like this: ">--<".  Peay was the first of these dorms to be constructed, being completed in 1966. It and McCord were razed to make way for these newer buildings.

Next are two views of the Ellington Residence Hall. Ellington was the third of the “Y” shaped dorms to be completed. Construction began in 1966, and it was opened in 1967. The building, which was called the E-F Dormitory when it opened, cost $1,747,669 (about $17 million in 2024 value) to construct. It was renamed Ellington in honor of former Tennessee Governor Buford Ellington on April 17, 1969. There was an Ellington Hall at UT Knoxville, and there remains an Ellington Hall at both the University of Memphis and Middle Tennessee State University. Finally, we have a two views of the Browning Residence Hall. The first (photo six) was taken looking across the courtyard which separates it from Ellington and the second (the seventh photo in this set) was taken from the opposite side. I may be mistaken, but I believe an enclosed swimming pool once stood where the courtyard area is now. If you know, please leave a comment. Construction on Browning would begin in 1969. It was the fourth and final residence hall built during the 1960’s to accommodate the Baby Boomers and the last of the dorms to have the “Y” shape. Built at a cost of $2,090,529 (which is roughly $18 million in today’s money) the building can accommodate up to 468 residents. It opened in 1970 and was called the G-H Dormitory. It would be renamed Browning Hall in 1990, taking its name from former Tennessee Governor Gordon Browning. Interestingly, Browning is one of seven Tennessee governors to serve non-consecutive terms. A native of rural northwest Tennessee, Browning went to college at Valparaiso University in Indiana, graduating in 1913 with a degree in teaching. He returned to Tennessee but taught only briefly, opting instead to go to law school at the Cumberland School of Law (at the time, the law school was a unit of Cumberland University in Lebanon, TN; it would later be sold in 1962 to Samford University [then named Howard College] in Birmingham, AL). He would graduate from Cumberland in 1915. He would practice law until the outbreak of World War I. In 1917, he joined the Tennessee National Guard as an artillery officer. His unit would be called to action in Europe, and he went on to serve with distinction earning several commendations and rising to the rank of Captain. In addition to this Browning Hall, buildings at Austin Peay State University and the University of Memphis are named after him. 

The first two photos below are of the university's Student Recreation Center. The building has a four-court gym, racquetball courts, workout areas, an indoor track, and other features. It has 100,643 square feet of space and was completed in 2010. Like University Village Phase II, the recreation center is the work of Clarksville, Tennessee-based Lyle Cook Martin Architects​.

The last photo in this set is the Elam Center. Elam is the university’s arena and home to Martin's basketball teams. The teams at UTM are known as the Skyhawks. Construction began in 1962, and the project was completed quickly by the summer of 1963. Construction of an addition began in 1973 and was completed in 1975. The addition must have been significant. The original portion of the building came with a $643,000 price tag (about $6.7 million today). The addition began just a decade later, cost $6,336,181! That’s about $45 million in today’s value and many times the cost of the original part of the building. It is also the site of concerts and commencements. It can accommodate up to 4,300 spectators. The street on the left in this photo is Pat Head Summitt Drive. Legendary basketball coach Pat Head Summitt was a two-time alumnae of UTM, having earned her bachelor’s degree (Class of 1974) and master’s there (Class of 1975). There is also a Pat Head Summitt Street on the campus of the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

The first two photos below provide views of the front of the Student Life Center. It opened in 1930 as a gym. I was not able to find out much of anything about the building unfortunately. The third photo of this set shows the end zone to the Hardy M. Graham Stadium and the Bob Carroll Football Building. The building is home to the UTM football program. It is named in honor of former player, football coach, Athletics Director, and Associate Vice Chancellor and Director of Alumni Affairs Bob Carroll. The building has 17,000 square feet of space and was opened on October 12, 2002.

Finally, the set closes with a view of the ​Hardy M. Graham Stadium. The stadium was completed in 1964, and the Skyhawks played their first game in the new facility on September 26th that year. The game was against Middle Tennessee State and it finished in a tie. The score? Zero to zero! Young readers take note: there was no official way to break ties until relatively recently. They were always a bit frustrating, and I can only imagine how disappointing it must have been to conclude your first game in your new stadium with a scoreless tie. The Skyhawks would lose their next two home games, first to Murray State University (32 to 14) on October 14, and then to Delta State University (17 to 0) on October 24th.  Finally, on November 7, 1964 they beat Troy 12 to9 for their first victory in the stadium. It has been updated over the years and today 7,500 fans can watch the Skyhawks play on artificial turf. Hardy Graham has been a significant donor to UT Martin over the years.

It was neat getting the opportunity to visit another campus of the UT System. I have to say, that I was impressed with the campus and the people there were extremely friendly. The campus is pretty, generally well maintained, and clean. It may not have been the prettiest of days, but it was the perfect temperature to explore campus. I will close with two versions of UT Martin's lamppost sign. The first photo below shows what I would call the academic version and the second the athletics version. 

This morning I had a call from a friend with whom I once worked at Virginia Commonwealth University. We both started at VCU at the same time, and although she left many years before I did we still stay in touch. She called to ask about a paper I had written a few years back and after chatting about that our conversation took a turn to the informal side of life. Among questions about family and careers, she mentioned that she had read this blog. She remarked that I have an eye for minutia. Her thoughts came in response to my posts on the changes in Jones Stadium at Texas Tech. Although those changes were dramatic and hard to miss, she thought that few people would notice that handrails seen in my posts on Arizona State and the University of Denver had changed since I had initially visited. That may be so, but in a visit to the University of Tennessee in 2001 I immediately noticed that stair rails in one particular location had been painted a different color than they had been since at least 1988. Perhaps its just me. I will admit that I do pay attention to the details of things.

I could not help but think again about all of the changes that have happened at Texas Tech since my time as a student there. It should come as no surprise that the institution has changed a great deal since I matriculated in 1996. Most colleges and universities have. But Tech's changes have been remarkable. The institution, which was slightly smaller than my alma mater Tennessee when I went there, is now the larger institution. In the fall of 1996, UT had a headcount of 25,086, whereas Texas Tech's headcount was 24,717. That difference of 369 people is not all that big of a deal. What is a big deal is that UT's current enrollment is 38,728 students compared to Tech's 40,969. Both institutions have grown enrollment, but the gap is now 2,241 and Tech is the larger university. Their respective university systems have also grown. In 1996, the UT System had four universities; today they have five. The Texas Tech System had three universities back in the day, but today they have five as well. This fall, the Tennessee System had a total enrollment 62,148 students, whereas the Texas Tech System had 64,022. In both cases, that kind of enrollment growth means that a number of new buildings have cropped up at both schools. The growth, along with the intervening years also means that existing buildings at both places have been razed and others renovated. 

Sometimes that means things like handrails being changed, and sometimes the differences are more substantial. One substantive change that comes to is the modification of the front façade of West Hall on the Texas Tech campus. West underwent a renovation after I graduated. The first time I saw it afterwards, I knew something about the exterior was quite different, but assumed it was simply the addition of an accessible ramp at the front door. It was actually more than that. The entire center section of the façade was totally reworked. To show just what this change looks like, compare the photos in the first set below. The first photo was taken during my first visit to campus on June 3, 1996. The next two were taken last month. The theme is similar, but they are not alike.

The change came during a renovation of the building which was completed in August 2001. I am not sure why the change was made. I assume there was something wrong with the structure of the building and removing the façade was required. Perhaps too much was broken to allow for reinstallation. I also don't know why the façade was not simply recreated. When West was constructed, a nearly identical dorm was built on the other side of the Broadway quad, Doak Hall. Doak has undergone renovations over the course of its life as well, but it has kept its original centerpiece. Again, it looks very much (perhaps identical to) the way West once looked. I have placed a (not so great) photo of its façade below. 

So what happened to the original features of West Hall? I am pleased to say that the university had the foresight to keep many of those elements. As you can see in the following set, they are placed in an exhibit just to the east of the main entrance to the building. 

West Hall is named in honor of James Marion West, a tycoon of the lumber, gas, and cattle businesses. It was the first dorm on campus for men and it stands more or less directly across from Doak which was the first residence hall for women on campus. Both have long ceased being dorms. They were funded by grants and loans from the Public Works Administration arm of the federal government during the Great Depression. Both were designed architect W.W. Watkin. It opened with the name Men's Dormitory #1. It was subsequently renamed in honor of West. A native of Mississippi, West moved with his parents to east Texas as a boy. From very modest roots, he would become the equivalent of a billionaire in today's dollars. He served on the Tech Board and was its president in 1940 and 1941. The rural community of Westville, Texas is also named for him.

In addition to noticing changes, I am also keen on noticing trends. For example, there are dozens of West Halls at colleges and universities across the U.S. Most of them seem to be dormitories, as was the case with the West Hall I covered in my post on Arizona State. Most of them are also named for their relative position on campus, which was also the case with the West Hall at ASU. I can only think of three other West Halls that are named for someone. There is a residence hall at the University of North Dakota which is named for John C. West, the university's sixth president. The West Hall at Valdosta State University in Georgia is named for William Stanley West. He was a state senator who helped establish the university and later became a U.S. Senator . The last would be Joe West Hall, a dorm at San Jose State University. I do not know anything about the building's namesake. I only know the building thanks to the number of student deaths that have occurred in the building. Suicides are unfortunate reality in higher ed, and residence halls are a common location for these tragedies, but Joe West seems to have had more than its fair share. The building was slated for demolition as the university updates its residence facilities on campus, but it is still standing and in-use as of this writing. 

Today's post is a return to the community college sector. I first stepped on to the Itawamba Community College campus in the fall of 2023. One of my sons plays in his high school band, and a regional competition with bands from several states was held there. The reason, aside from being in a location with general ease of access to high school bands from Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee, is that like its counterpart Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Itawamba has a very large campus complete with intercollegiate athletics facilities. I had wanted to explore the campus some at the time, but timing and the competition did not leave me with enough time to do so. Thankfully, I was able to return to the campus a bit unexpectedly and had the chance to take some photos for this post. Although it was not for my son's band, there was in fact another high school band competition taking place there during this visit.

ICC gets its name from Itawamba County, one of the principal counties the colleges serve. The name comes from the Native American Chickasaw Chief known to European Americans by his English name of Levi Colbert and to the Chicksaw by the name Itte-wamba Mingo. The name means Bench Chief in English. Itte-wamba Mingo was born in 1759 in present day Muscle Shoals, Alabama to Scots American father James Logan Colbert and Choctaw mother Minta Hoye. He was one of seven children. Thanks to a bilingual, bicultural upbringing both Itte-wamba Mingo/Levi and his brother George (also known as Tootemastubbe in the Native tongue) became interpreters for in the negotiations of the Treaty of Pontotoc Creek (part of the larger process began with the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which saw Native Americans forced to move west of the Mississippi, with much of the original terms of the various treaties ignored by the Federal government). 

In addition to having the college and the county named after him in Mississippi, Colbert County Alabama, home to Muscle Shoals, is named in honor of Levi/Itte-wamba and his brother George/ Tootemastubbe as is town of Colbert's Spring, Alabama. Honoring Itte-wamba Mingo with the name of two counties, a town, and a community college is fitting, although hardly sufficient given the maltreatment of the Chickasaw and other Native American nations forced west. The treatment of Chickasaw was terrible, even more so since they had allied themselves with the U.S. during the War of 1812 and other conflicts.

ICC was founded in 1948 with the name Itawamba Junior College. Public community colleges in Mississippi officially date back to 1928. But as with many things, their roots go back further. As was the case with Northwest Mississippi Community College, ICC really began its life as an agricultural high school. If you are unfamiliar with the agricultural high school, an easy analogy is a vo-tech focusing on things farming and home economics. The state passed the County Agricultural High School Law in 1908. The schools established under the law were boarding schools. Each school was required to have twenty acres of land to support agricultural education. Between 1908 and 1919, fifty agricultural high schools opened across Mississippi. This was a remarkable achievement, as prior to their establishment there were only a handful of high schools in the state and more or less all of them were located in the state’s few cities and they only had a four-month academic year. The establishment of the ag schools was a hit, and this was the start of many improvements within the public schools in the state. 

Mississippi continued formalizing public schools and the roles of the ag high schools began to change. In 1924, the Mississippi legislature approved the teaching of college-level courses at the ag schools with most courses being in the area of teacher preparation. These courses were a hit and served to fill a gap in the state’s growing higher education system. Indeed, the programs were so successful that in 1928 Mississippi passed the Public Junior College Law. The law sought to advance the college-level mission of the agricultural high schools and the reaction was immediately positive. When the law went into effect, ten of the high schools were launching college courses. From these seeds, the current community college system in Mississippi would grow.

Over time, the mission of the schools saw them go from offering high school courses, to a mix of high school and college, to college-level courses only. The names of the institutions operating during this period varied according to these evolving standards, going from “agricultural high school” to “agricultural high school and junior college” to “junior college”. Eventually, “junior college" fell away for the modern “community college” moniker. Adoption of the various names varied by each institution based on their particular needs and offerings.

Itawamba did not make the transition from agricultural high school to junior college too quickly. Although Itawamba and what would become today’s Northeast Mississippi Community College were approved to move to junior college status in 1941 this would not happen until 1948 thanks to World War II. Things were actually moving along quite nicely to make the transition from high school to junior college before the outbreak of the war. Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds were available to support the change, and to do their part the people of Itawamba County went to the polls on the warm Tuesday that was September 21, 1941, and approved a bond of $55,000 (about $1.18 million in 2024 value) to construct new buildings for the transition. Of course, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor less than ninety days later and the new college, like so many things, had to wait until after the war. It was not the first challenge in the institution’s history, nor would it be the last.

When it comes to establishing something as large or larger than a community college, any success is due to a group of people. Despite this fact, in many cases a person or a small group of individuals are sometimes noted as being the champion or main facilitator of the institution. In terms of making the transition from an agricultural high school to a junior college one such champion was George W. Owens. Owens was an alumnus of the agricultural high school (I believe he was from the Class of 1927). He would go on to serve several terms in the Mississippi House of Representatives and later, after a failed re-election bid, would serve in the paid position of Assistant Clerk of the House. His advocacy for and support of Itawamba began when he was still a student. In 1926, a wooden structure serving as the boys’ dorm burned down. Although the national economy in 1926 was doing quite well, funds were not readily available in rural Mississippi to immediately rebuild. It was up to locals in the area to help the institution rebuild. One of the twenty people who personally signed a promissory note to get the necessary funds was Owens, who was a senior that year. Now that is loyalty and dedication!

There is currently a scholarship at Itawamba called the George W. Owens and Mae H. Owens Endowed Scholarship. I was unable to find it if Mr. Owens and his wife established the scholarship, or if it was established by others to honor them. Despite the important role Owens played in Itawamba’s history, there is nothing on campus that I could find that honors him. One might imagine a building or street would carry his name, but this not the case.

Today, ICC has almost 5,000 students in terms of enrollment, and an FTE of about 3,160 students across multiple campuses, and the Itawamba Indians compete in ten intercollegiate sports, five each for women and men.. The college’s catchment area includes five counties: Chickasaw, Itawamba, Lee, Monroe, and Pontotoc. 

Below are two views of the David Cole Student Services Building. Cole was selected as ICC's fourth president in 1993 and served in that role until his retirement in 2013. Twenty years is a very long time to president of college! He had previously served as Superintendent of the South Panola School District in Batesville, Mississippi. The building opened during his tenure in the position and was initially called the Student Services Building. Opening in 1998, the building sits on the site of the original Itawamba Agricultural High School building's location. Coming in at 63,000 square feet, it contains a dining area, administrative offices, student meeting rooms, and a variety of other spaces. It was the second building constructed during Cole's presidency. The building was named in his honor in 2013.

The first photo below is the Walk of Memories. It is a pathway that separates the site of the original Agricultural High School and the first community college buildings. People can buy inscribed bricks along the  walkway. The second photo, which was the best of some poorly framed ones I took with the sun in my eyes, is​Magnolia Hall. Magnolia is one the dorms on the ICC campus and one of two that is on the south side of the campus. You cannot tell it from this photo, but it is a rather large L-shaped structure. It is a very new building. Groundbreaking for the residence hall was held on October 30, 2020. It was completed in 2022, and was formally opened on July 14th that year. The three-story building comes in at 71,921 square feet and can accommodate about 250 residents. It cost $19,012,938 to complete. The building was the work of architect Michael Taylor of the Pryor Morrow architecture firm. There is another dorm behind it, Sheffield Hall, which is the largest on campus. Sheffield, by the way, is named for ICC's first president, Philip A. Sheffield, who served in that role from 1948 until 1960. I didn't realize it was there during my visit or I would have taken a photo. Sheffield can accommodate nearly 300 residents. There is also an endowed scholarship at ICC named for President Sheffield.

The first photo below is a central walkway between a number of buildings in the original heart of the campus. The building on the right in that photo is the Cole Student Services Building. One the left is a series of buildings that are connected via covered walkways and courtyards. The first building on the left in that photo is the E-learning Building. The distance learning unit at ICC is called elearning. The second photo shows the covered walkway connection between E-learning (which is just out of view) and the Language Building. The walkway leading to this area has the marker you see in the third photo, commemorating the Agricultural High School Class of 1927. The fourth photo shows the Language Building (on the left) and the Community Relations Building on the right. It's neat how all of the buildings in this group have offices and classrooms that open directly to the outside without a central hallway. The fifth photo is the backside of the Community Relations Building as seen from its courtyard area. The sixth photo is the Administration Building again, this time on the other side where the building is connected to the Community Relations Building. It is a little difficult to tell it from this photo, but there is a small fountain in the circular area where the stone sits. The seventh photo is the courtyard area by the Administration Building. The last photo was taken by the Administration Building looking back in the direction where the first photo in this set was taken.

Unfortunately, despite some considerable time sleuthing online, I was not able to find out anything about these structures.

Across from the Administration Building and next to the Cole Student Services Building is the ICC Library, the subject of the next set. The library was closed that day, or I would have went in and browsed around some. 

The two photos of the next set are of the Student Activities Building. I didn't realize it as I toured campus, but this is actually the oldest currently standing building on campus. It opened in 1961 and comes in at about 13,000 square feet of space. It has been updated a number of times over the years, but it reopened this past August after a significant renovation that came with a $4.1 million price tag. It will be supplemented by a new 9,000 square foot conference and food building currently under construction with an anticipated opening date of sometime in the spring of 2026. 

The next set of photos are all of residence halls. First up is Monroe Hall. I would have guessed from its appearance that they building opened in the mid-1970's. It just has that kind of vibe architecturally. In fact, it opened in 1968. Monroe recently underwent a renovation which upgraded the interior. The rooms in Monroe were originally designed with double occupancy rooms, but now after the renovation are meant for single students. Architect Michael Taylor of the Pryor Morrow firm did the design work for the renovation. The work was completed in July 2024. The name reflects Monroe County, which is part of the ICC catchment area and which supports the college. The county, and hence the dorm, is named after President James Monroe, the fifth president of the U.S. The second photo is the ​Monroe Hall Annex, which sits adjacent to its namesake to the north. I was not able to fully discern if it was renovated along with Monroe, but I have the impression from what I did find online that it was not. Despite the fact that it an "annex", it seems as big or bigger than Monroe Hall itself. I was not able to find out anything about the building. 

The third photo is Lee Hall. It looks very similar to Monroe with the exception that it is one story taller. Its name is derived from Lee County, Mississippi, and another of the counties that fall within the ICC catchment area. The county is named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The fourth photo is ​Pontotoc Hall, a men's residence hall. Pontotoc Hall receives its name from the eponymous county which is part of the ICC catchment area. Pontotoc is a Chickasaw word meaning “place of the hanging grapes”. I was not able to find out much of anything about the building, but it was apparently open in 1969 as I found a comment on a social media post from the college to that effect. Pontotoc is another county within the ICC catchment area. 

The fourth photo is ​Chickasaw Hall. I believe it also underwent a recent renovation, but the information I found online about it was sketchy so I cannot say for certain. I could find no real information about the building. The last photo is Itawamba Hall. I am not certain when it was built, but it was recent enough that the architecture firm McCarty Architects still has a page dedicated to it on their website (see here). Itawamba houses up to 200 women in its 42,500 square feet of space. I could find no other information about the building online.
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The first photo below is the Boggs Humanities Building. It takes its name in honor of Wythel E. Boggs (commonly called "W.E."), a long serving faculty member and administrator at Itawamba. Indeed, his career at Itawamba spanned some forty years from 1961 until 2001. Boggs was interim president of the college during the 2000-2001 year. His wife Gwen was also an instructor at ICC, teaching courses in the Department of Social Sciences. The building was named in their honor in 2005. 

The second photo is the ​John S. Crubaugh Technical Education Building. Crubaugh joined the ranks at ICC in 1948 when he was hired to be Dean of Students. During his time at Itawamba he was principal of the Agricultural High School, coached the women's basketball team, and the baseball team. He became the second president of ICC in 1960 when then president Sheffield passed away while in office. He held that role until 1972. Unfortunately, I was not able to find out anything about the building.

The last two photos are of the W.O. Benjamin Fine Arts Center. The building opened in 1978 and was renovated in 2021/2022. The building has exhibit space and a large auditorium and comes in at about 24,000 square feet. The building is named in honor of former ICC President Winston Odean Benjamin. I was not able to find out anything more about the building.

There is a lovely large green space on campus and it is home to the Crane Pavilion, which can be seen in the first photo of the following set. I know the pavilion opened sometime during the 1990's, but I was not able to find out exactly when. Beyond the pavilion is a small belltower which you can see in the second photo. I assume it was constructed at the same time, but I found no information about it online. 

Just to the west of the Crane pavilion is Academic Hall, which can be seen in the third photo. I could not find out anything at all about the building unfortunately. The last two photos show the front of the Natural Sciences Building. It opened in 1996. Beyond that, I was not able to learn anything about the building.

The first photo in the set below is the Carrie Ball Williamson Recreation Center. Opening in 2006, the Williamson Center is a multiuse facility. In addition to having traditional weight training and cardiovascular exercise equipment spaces, it also contains classrooms and a gym. The $2.6 million (about $4.1 million today) facility was designed by Tupelo-based McCarty Company Design Group. McCarty has designed numerous collegiate structures including buildings at Mississippi State University, Northeast Mississippi Community College, the University of Southern Mississippi, and the University of Mississippi. As you can see the Williamson is physically connected to the Bud and Buster ​Davis Event Center by a walkway on each building's second floor.

The second and third photos are of the Bud and Buster ​Davis Event Center. Named for iconic ICC basketball coaches Windle “Buster” Davis and Kindle “Bud” Davis, the Davis Event Center is a relatively new structure. Opening in 2007, it is the home of the ICC basketball programs (men’s and women’s). It has a total seating capacity of 3,500 including 2,800 with chair-back seating. The ICC commencements are held in Davis, and it is used for other events like concerts. The building cost roughly $15.6 million (roughly $23.8 million in 2024 dollars) to construct. It was also designed by the Tupelo-based firm the McCarty Company Design Group. As fate would have it, ICC won the first game played in the facility when the Lady Indians beat the Holmes Community College Lady Bulldogs on January 11, 2007. The building was not open during my visit, and I took the third photo of the interior through the door (hence the rather dark tone of the picture). The last photo of this set is the back of the building along with the rear of the Williamson Recreation Center. The individuals you see in this photo are students from the various high schools on campus getting ready for the band competition.

The next set is of the ICC football stadium. The stadium takes its name in honor of Aaron Colus “Butch” Lambert. Lambert was an alumnus of the institution when it was still the Itawamba Agricultural High School (Class of 1941). He joined the Navy during World War II and when he was discharged he went to the University of Mississippi where he played football. An injury in 1946 ended his playing career early. Then Ole Miss head coach Johnny Vaught kept Lambert as a student manager. After completing his work at Ole Miss, Lambert started the football program at ICC, then known as Itawamba Junior College, in 1949. He served as athletic director at the college for three years. He remained active in collegiate sports for decades thereafter but not in a coaching capacity. He was an official for the SEC, refereeing both football and basketball for the conference. He was an SEC football Line Judge from 1953 to 1982 and an SEC basketball referee from 953 to 1973. He was the SEC's Chief Line Judge in 1980 and 1981. He officiated twelve bowl games including two which determined national champions - the 1975 and 1982 Orange Bowl games. He was a state legislator and state tax commissioner. Lambert was also president of the National Junior College Athletic Association. He passed away on January 26, 1995 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease). The stadium opened in 1994.

Next are two views of the ICC softball stadium. The stands, press box, and locker room facility in the middle are  new, having opened in September of this year. The new space was added to an existing softball field. As you can tell, the dugouts are older. The press box has 1,500 square feet of space, and there is a 4,500 square feet locker room facility underneath which also serves the tennis team. It can seat 380 people and has deck areas on either side of the press box. 

I will close with a photo of the ICC lamppost sign. The Itawamba campus is nice and it has some cool features to it. The ICC campus in Tupelo has seen a good deal amount of construction as well, and if I am ever in the vicinity, I will swing by to take a tour and post about it.