Rice History Corner

Every once in a while I just get stuck. In this case I’ve completely lost my bearings.

What am I looking at? Is the picture flipped? Am I??

Help!

Bonus: At least I know where this is.

The other day I was looking for something in our enormous  collection of materials from athletics and as is my habit once I found it I browsed through the rest of the box. I was startled to find two long pieces of cardboard kind of stuck together in one of the folders, then shocked when I separated them and saw what they were: a memorial resolution of the Texas House of Representatives in honor of Johnnie Frankie, who was Rice’s basketball coach when he passed away in 1963 at the age of 50:

My heart sank when I read this–I’d never heard his name before and wanted to know more. I set about trying to find a photograph of him but couldn’t come up with anything but fuzzy Campanile images so I was thrilled when this one turned up among George Miner’s things:

You can see the warmth and decency in his face, can’t you?

Behold, one of the rarest views of campus, the back of the Chemistry Building:

Note please that the Chemistry Lane from a couple weeks ago is still there, but heavily cut back.

And guess what?

There’s a second one:

Here are the issues:

1.) What year is it? Are both the same year? It has to be at least 1953 because the Bonner Lab is there.

2.) I freely admit that I know nothing about the young men and their uniforms. Nothing. Any help at all is greatly appreciated.

Bonus: Cryptic.

I don’t think I can come up with a comprehensive list of everything Kent Anderson ’62 contributed to Rice. I started, then gave up. As a student he was all over the place: the debate team, the German Club, the baseball team, the Rally Club, the Thresher staff. He was a Hanszen guy, back when they still styled themselves the “Hanszen Gentlemen.” In the fall of 1961, as a senior he advised a group of new freshmen in the college, including young Mr. Jim Crownover, who later chaired Rice’s Board of Trustees. What Jim says about him reflects my own experience: “Kent’s quiet demeanor, caring attitude and wonderful sense of humor gave real meaning to me at Rice and all the way through to our work together on the Rice Board of Trustees.”

Over his lifetime Kent served Rice with devotion. As a member of the board from 1986 he led several important committees, chaired the presidential search that brought Malcolm Gillis to Rice, raised money and generously gave it himself for everything from athletics to the Shepherd School to most recently Continuing Studies’ Anderson-Clarke Building. He did everything he was ever asked to do for Rice, and he did it quietly, calmly, and thoughtfully. Although he saw his fair share of campus controversy he invariably showed respect for other people and their opinions even when he didn’t share them.

And here’s a telling thing: although he was at the center of decision-making here for many years, it’s almost impossible to find a decent photograph of him at Rice. He left the podium to others and can usually be found in the background or off to the side as ground was broken or ribbons were cut. Aside from a single bland headshot they must have made him sit for when he joined the board I’ve only ever found one good picture of him. It’s a beauty, though–Kent beaming with Coach Graham and his friend and colleague on the board, Bucky Allshouse:

Kent Anderson, Rest in Peace.

From the Economic Summit files:

From Neil Brennan, circa 1940:

There’s actually something comforting about continuity in the face of constant change.

Twenty-five years ago this summer the leaders of the G7 met at Rice, an event we refer to on campus simply as “the economic summit.” Putting together an anniversary exhibit, we had boxes of photographs out this afternoon. By far the most interesting were the images of the grounds crews making preparations. Given my well known stance in favor of planters on campus I was especially taken with the flower pots that were brought in to beautify the rather stark academic quad. There were a lot of them:

Is that Mr. Franco supervising?

And they did in fact dramatically improve the view:

Interestingly, in the photos of the G7 group in front of Lovett Hall they’ve moved over to the cloisters, also quite an attractive look:

Off the top of my head I can think of a half dozen pots that might be survivors of this event. There are four in front of the library:

(Sorry for the broken water main photo–it was the first one I found with the pots and I don’t have all night to find a better one.)

There are another two over by the Mech Lab:

I like the pots. I think we could use more.

By the way, after staring at the chicken scratches on the back of the economic summit pictures for many minutes I decided that they all say “T Lavergne” so both credit and gratitude goes to Tommy.

This is what my day felt like today:

Don’t worry, we’ll lick ’em tomorrow.

Bonus: Things actually got better near the end of the day when I got back to the Woodson and we attempted to answer the question “How many archivists does it take to identify a football squad?” We had a bunch of old panoramic shots out for scanning and had a blast trying to figure out which big-eared, funny-faced kid was which. Here’s what we were working with:

It’s harder than you might think. It took three of us plus a student worker to make any real headway.

I’m not finished with Neil Brennan’s pictures yet. Here’s a set that doesn’t really feature much of the Rice campus but sure does give us a fabulous look around the close environs in the very early 1940s. Mr. Brennan liked to climb up on things, twist around, hang out windows etc. as he framed his images–these seem to have been taken from the top of the Warwick Hotel. (For purposes of comparison here’s a post from several years ago that includes roughly these same views about twenty-five years later. )

This last one is my favorite because in addition to the Museum of Fine Arts we also get a good look at the Plaza Hotel on Montrose where President Lovett lived. It’s on the left:

I don’t know why this happens.

This morning I picked up a packet of photographs of campus that were taken in the 1930s and this is what popped out:

Unless I’m badly mistaken those are the brand spanking new north stands in 1935, and by far the best image of them known to be in existence.

More later on who took them.

Bonus:

Some of you may have noticed that I had an unexcused absence yesterday. So, I had a late afternoon meeting followed by a dinner, which included what we’re going to call “more than one glass of wine.” I have enough trouble keeping my mouth shut when I’m sober so I decided that the best course might be to just go to bed. This was no doubt the wise choice, although surely the less entertaining one. I might choose differently next time.

Happily, yesterday’s meeting was up on the 10th floor of the BRC so I got some fabulous pictures of the campus. What held my attention was the vacant space where the track stadium stands stood until just recently:

I wrote about these stands before the demolition began but since then I’ve had reason to investigate their exact origin and have frankly spent a preposterous amount of time trying to figure that out. It turned out to be tricky.  I’ll start with a photo from 1926 where you can see a corner of the stands that were there before, which themselves replaced the earliest wooden bleachers:

Note the line of little oak saplings to the right of the bleachers. These are those big trees that are there today.

My assumption was that these were replaced when the big stadium addition was built in 1937, which I wrote about here. There are a series of photos taken by Maxwell Reade, a mathematics fellow in the late 1930s, from the south stands looking towards the north  that clearly show the stands that were just torn down. But . . . I realized that something was amiss. Here are a couple:

Fun fact: This game was the occasion of the longest fumble recovery for a touchdown in LSU history–100 yards.

The problem is that they were taken during the 1937 season, just before the new addition was built.

Hmmm.

So I did the only thing I know–just started looking anywhere I could think of that might possibly hold the answer. After quite a while the answer finally turned up. It’s tempting to say it was lucky but I’m not sure if it’s luck or not. In any event, here’s the answer, neatly tied up and explained in one newspaper article from April, 1935:

So here’s what happened. The old wooden stands on the north side were torn down and steel ones were built in the summer of 1935. (No wonder they needed to be replaced!) Attendance continued to climb and after the 1937 season ended the south stands were also torn down and replaced with a much larger structure and at the same time bleachers were added around the curve of the west side to meet the north stands:

Bonus: