I found this interesting image today in the Harper Leiper Collection (MSS 0287, 12795) at the HMRC. It’s not a great picture–in fact it’s quite blurry, unusual for a Harper Leiper photo–but it makes up for that by being a shot I’ve never seen before in this time period, so there’s that:
It looks like this corner of campus was still a bit of a mess. Look at how torn up the area where the field house had been still is.
It made me recollect another picture that makes a nice companion, this one taken from those wooden stands at roughly the same time, circa early 1960s. You can see that semi-circle of shrubs in both images. I may be mistaken but I think that’s Bobby May getting stretched out by a teammate:
Bonus: This doesn’t really have anything to do with Rice but I liked it. It’s also from the Harper Leiper materials– freeway construction, dated January 1, 1962.
Extra Bonus: It’s Christmas at the Julia Ideson Building.
That’s the “BE SOMEONE” railroad bridge over I-45.
(It did get repainted to BE SUS recently, but it will be back)
In the ’60s, we used to run track at that old stadium. It was there that I discovered I would never be a distance runner. Jerry Sadler, of my class, ran five miles in the same time that I ran one.
Yeah, the Tidelands and the Adams Petroleum Tower are both there, both completed in 1958.
Looks like Fred Hansen doing the stretching.
Correct about the Tidelands Motor Inn. It was built in 1958 and torn down in the late 1990s. It had several Rice connections beyond occupying the same corner where the BRC now stands. Many Rice parents and families (including mine) stayed there for O-Week drop off, visits and May pickups. Rice’s famous (see 1954 Cotton Bowl Classic vs. Alabama) 1954 consensus All-American running back, Dickey Moegle (later Maegle) worked as the Manager of the Tidelands after his NFL days. I can remember him working there in the 1960s. The Tidelands later was used by Rice for grad student housing in the 1980s.
I know several students who “lost their virginity” there.
Yep, that’s the BE SOMEONE railroad bridge. The photo also shows how much neighborhood was chewed up by the interstate.