It was a parking lot from the beginning, but people didn’t always park the same way. In 1921 it was totally random, helter-skelter:
Later on things got regimented. This photograph is clearly significantly later but it isn’t dated. I bet I have readers who can figure it out:
Bonus:
You were looking at me, weren’t you? Off the top of my head, I’ll say no later than ’38; further use of reference materials may be required.
I say that and then I see the ’39 Ford (maybe Deluxe) front and center…
Is the Bonus photo looks like it’s from Cohen House tower, looking at the Allen Center … with Sid Rich barely visible in the distant left-background.
That’s right. How did you know that?
Maybe having lived in Baker College (including the tower at the east end of its old section/Room 512), I recognized Allen Center immediately. I knew the photo couldn’t have been taken from the Baker College Side due to the peaked roof and second-story patio visible outside in the lower foreground. It also had to be an old building, due to the window and its hardware, so that leaves only Cohen House. The photographer is nearly even with the top floor of Allen Center, so it had to have been from the tower. Looking at the Google Maps satellite view of the campus matched the peak roof and the patio, when viewed from the Cohen House tower. It looks like there’s a single window on SW-facing wall of the top floor. Seeing Sid Richardson College’s familiar white balcony facing (its top floor balcony is visible in the left-background) was consistent with this choice.
You’re a complete maniac. You know that, right?
I’m the photographer, by the way. I climb all over campus to bring you these.
I’m curious about the random parking in the Founder’s Court lot in 1921. Was this a common way of parking in those days–parking space lines hadn’t been invented yet?–or was this something special about that space?
Yes, I find that _very_ strange. Today, faced with a blank parking lot, people have been conditioned to park in rows even without stripes. I wonder if parking lots were so unusual that people hadn’t yet figured out what to do?
I was going to say about 1938 too. Wish my Dad was still with us, he’d identify the make and model of everyone of them.
In regard to the first photo, I am again impressed with the buffalOwl trails.
Those should always have been used to show where walkways should be built.
Similar trails were good enough to show where many of the nation’s roads should be.
Also, there used to be the campus question of how many columns Lovette Hall contained. Who ever heard the answer to that?
In 1921, thanks to the implementation of Prohibition, Rice students had to find other outlets for their recreational “hijinks.” Here we see the results of the first ever Blindfolded Parking Contest. Miss Daisy Hamilton surprised her male rivals by getting her flivver to within eight inches of Prexy Lovett’s door!