Every day I read all the comics, no matter how awful. One of the reliable highlights of the morning comic page for me is the Daily Jumble. I never tire of the laughably easy scrambled words, which start me off for the day with a sense of competence that sometimes lasts until nearly noon.
Today I have for your enjoyment a series of photographs taken of the Rice band sometime in the mid to late 1920s. I found them in an envelope in a folder labeled “Band–Early.” At first I was captivated by some other images of the 1920s era Rice stadium which I will post later. Then I noticed that this group all seem to have been taken on the same day–and what a strange day it was. They were all jumbled up but I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to put them in the right sequence and this is my best guess. If you think I have it wrong, tell me what you think is the right order. Please show your work.
- Disembarking, apparently in the middle of nowhere. (Isn’t this a gorgeous image?)
2. Line up and off we go.
3. So where are we? Is this Texas A&M?
4. I ask because those look like cadets in the foreground.
5. Definitely not Rice Stadium.
6. This is Houston. I’m pretty sure the Brazos Hotel was right across the street from the Southern Pacific railroad station.
7. The Hotel Macatee was about a block away from the station. Are they walking home??
8. It sure looks like it.
As always, your thoughts are most welcome.
It seems possible these photos come from a trip to College Station. You can see in #5, there are men wearing all white. Those could be Aggie Yell Leaders. The photo below shows Kyle Field in roughly the same era, and you can see similarities in the stadium appearance, plus Aggie Yell Leaders wore all white even then. (Note in the Rice photo an apparent ruckus on the sideline. Looks like the CTs are mobbing someone or something.)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cushinglibrary/3220349435/in/album-72157612865656229/
I might be wrong about the location of the Aggie photo. Could it be old Rice Stadium?
I was wrong. Judging by other photos, that Aggie T photo was taken at Memorial Stadium in Austin.
Any idea when? When Memorial Stadium was built in 1924, it already looks larger than the one pictured above, according to a dedication day picture on this web page (https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/xvd01), which shows ramp entrances halfway up the stands, which themselves also look larger than the grandstand shown above.
1 & 2 could be the train tracks right by Kyle Field. 3 they are walking on the sidewalk on the north side of the A&M drill field.4. In front of the YMCA building at A&M which is still standing 5. could be temporary bleachers at Kyle before permanent stands were built west in 1927 and east in 1929. Maybe east since looks like a couple of yell leaders on the sideline. They might be marching down the street in Houston to get to the trolley to get back to Rice.
Nice radio towers in the background of #4. Radio towers last for a long, long time, because they are expensive to replace. The WSM Blaw-Knox tower was put up in 1932. One of those looks like a self-supporting tower (no guy lines). I wonder if the FCC tower database is
Love the photos of the band getting off the train.
The first radio broadcast of a football game was in 1921 with Texas at A&M. It was broadcast using Morse with the action decoded in Austin. See WTAW in wiki.
Great pictures, thank you! The last photo appears to show the band walking AWAY from Rice, perhaps heading *to* the train station? The Sakowitz Bros store building is still there, at the corner of Main and Preston, as is the bank building across the street and the Rice Hotel in the background. The photo appears to have been taken from about the corner of Main and Congress, looking southwest down Main Street. If so, that would have the band heading northeast on Main, away from campus and towards the station. I love a good puzzle.
Ah, yes, I see! So this should actually be 1. Many thanks!
Great shots!
The A&M games were between the 11th and 18th of November, throughout the Twenties, and even that far back the away games were in even-numbered years, just as they were “in my time”.
If this is the ’28 game, the Drum Major might be Harvin C. Moore, the architect who designed the RMC.
Fabulous photos…….whatever the puzzles.
Dr. Kean, do you also read Slylock Fox? It’s geared for kids but I use it as a reminder that I’m entering my second childhood.
In his article on the Rice Band in the Fall 2010 issue of the Rice Historical Society’s Cornerstone (http://ricehistoricalsociety.org/images/cornerstones/wrc04752.pdf), Lee Pecht seems to describe these uniforms: “… by 1926 the band was known as one of the best dressed in the state with capes over lighter shires and pants and tall furred hats.”
“shirts”, not “shires”.