There’s really no end to the things you could say about Gate Number 3. In a single afternoon in the Woodson I found more information and images than I can coherently discuss so here are just a few of the highlights, sort of The Greatest Hits of Gate 3.

First, the early Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson drawing for the original gate (there’s some stuff here that didn’t happen–I’ll get to that later):

Next, the contract for the construction of all three of the original gates:

It was photographed a lot. My favorite is this, which Arthur Bryant used for the cover of his scrapbook from the early 1920s:

Another nice one is this rather strange shot of John and Craig Cullinan, sons of Texaco founder Joseph Cullinan, parked in front of the gate for some unknown reason. This is very early–those scraggly sticks lined up at left are the hedges:

And happily, this western side of the gate will remain:

Bonus: Other way around.

Tomorrow: a surprise!

Also, I was interested that I got so much reaction to the picture of me on top of the gate. I really do find myself in many unusual places and I’ve been toying with the idea of strapping on one of those GoPro point-of-view cameras so I can take you through all the daily excitement and razzle-dazzle of life as a university historian. It might be too much, though. We’ll see.