University Tower history

Having waited decades, College Hill was at last put to use when UT was formally opened on September 15, 1883.

The group had chartered passenger cars bound for Georgetown, thirty miles north, where UT was to play its first-ever intercollegiate baseball game against Southwestern University. It was a gloomy Tuesday morning, April 21, 1885, when UT’s first baseball team, along with most of the student body, arrived at the downtown Austin train station at Third Street and Congress Avenue.

How did the Tower-Rice myth get its start? One possibility is connected to Doctor William Battle, who was hired in 1893 to teach Greek and Classical studies, and rose through the academic ranks to be a professor, dean, and for a short time, the acting president of the University.

Above: The UT campus at 21st Street and Guadalupe in 1899.

Above: Old Main floodlit on Thanksgiving Eve, 1923.

It gave them bright and cheerful nighttime garments, which transformed the American city. “There is a new Manhattan skyline – a new city of light and color rising above an old one,” reported the New York Times in 1925, which described downtown as “a huge city of illuminated castles in the air.”

Funding was granted in 1932, and the Library Annex completed the following year.

Above: A portion of Paul Cret’s 1933 campus master plan for the University of Texas.

Above: In the summer and fall of 1934, Old Main was demolished, and by the following January, steam shovels had arrived to dig out a foundation for the new Main Building’s facade.

The next week in College Station, Texas A&M beat the Longhorns 0-7, and the soon-to-be-forgotten 1937 season ended at 2-6-1.

The following 1939 season would be a winning one.

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

In 1950, he helped to organize the physical plant department and served as its inaugural director for two decades.

Above: Harley Clark (right) and the 1955 UT cheerleaders.

In 1958, as part of UT’s 75th anniversary celebration, Eckhardt oversaw the reconstruction of the Santa Rita oil pump on the south side of campus.

To celebrate, the Tower was orange for three nights, from January 1 – 3, 1964, with a “1” lit in the windows on each side.

In the spring of 1966, both the Main Building and Welch Hall were sandblasted clean before objections were raised about the damage sandblasting would do to the limestone ornamentation.

By 1976, the victory lights were shining for their achievements as well.

In 1995, UT President Bob Berdahl asked that commencement be reinvented with more pomp and excitement.