I was looking at a file of old RMC stuff earlier this week in preparation for a meeting when I came across this fund-raising brochure for the building. Here’s the cover:

As you can see, there’s only a resemblance, and a rather loose one at that, to what was built. What was really startling, however, was something else altogether — they meant to put it on the opposite end of campus, where Allen Center and it’s parking lot are now:

And here’s the text:

As some of you might know, the building was meant to house some of the (rudimentary by today’s standards) student life functions that had been located in either Autry House  or the basement of Fondren. There was quite a bit of grumbling when it opened about how far away the new RMC was from both the dorms and from Autry House and I wonder why the powers-that-be changed their minds.

Just for fun, here are some RMC construction photos that I found among Joseph Davies’s slides. First, the uncharacteristically blurry groundbreaking:

There are also a couple that he took from the new Biology Building across the street, which seems to have still been under construction also:

Note: I’m taking the day off tomorrow for Good Friday. I’ll be back next week.