Rice History Corner

This Schlueter photograph was hanging on the wall of a colleague’s office, unnoticed by me for a period of years:

You have to zoom in on it to see how remarkable it really is. (It’s big so it might take a minute.) The cars alone transfixed me for quite some time, then I saw the kids on bicycles at the Sallyport and only later noticed that the academic procession is going on off to the left. To the right, though, work goes on. They didn’t stop even for this grand event. That’s what you call focus.

You are, indeed, worth it:

I saw this during finals week this Spring.

Judging from the number of emails I got last night and this morning, the issue of the history of campus maps and signage is weighing on a lot of minds. I’ll do some more intentional investigation when I have the chance.

I apologize for yet another post about Founder’s Court. But I just can’t help it. I was interested in those hedges from yesterday so I began peering intently at the images in the Lovett Hall photo files to see what might turn up. Before I even got to the hedges I saw something I’d never noticed before. It’s hard to see without zooming in, but there’s a small white dot just to the right of the first car on the right:

When you get closer you can see that it’s a sign of some sort:

One would expect or at least hope that it was a campus map, but we haven’t had an especially good history in that regard. Neither is this a particularly helpful location for such a map. Still, I can’t think what else it might be. Anyone know?

The picture isn’t dated, by the way, but I expect that one of you car nuts might be able to help with that. (I love that station wagon second from left–I’ve always felt cheated by the rise of the mini-van.)

I was able to make out the sign in a second image, an aerial taken in what looks like the late ’80s, which give rise to the problem of when the thing disappeared. I got here in 1991 and I have no recollection of it, which is not at all dispositive:

Really, it’s there:

Thoughts?

After reading the comments on yesterday’s post I went back and took a second look at the pictures. I have now learned quite a bit about various military uniforms, which is one of those things that might actually turn out to be useful someday, so many thanks to Marty for the education.

I also noticed something else in this image–newly planted hedges around the sides and back of Founders Court:

I’d forgotten that they were ever there but on reflection I think they must have been taken out not all that long ago. I also remembered another photograph with those hedges in the background:

This photo is dated 1968, near the other end of Pitzer’s presidency. (It’s a bit unusual, by the way. There aren’t many pictures of people in this vicinity.) Those hedges grow pretty fast.

Bonus: 

Late post tonight–I was screwing around looking at pictures I took during the Centennial and I lost track of time.

Rustling through the photo files this afternoon looking for military related images, I hit the jackpot with these. They are all labeled “NROTC unit review, 1961/62 school year” but one of them is remarkable not for its subject but for the background.

Here’s the first. This image alone is also labeled “Navy Building” but it clearly wasn’t taken anywhere near the Navy Building:

It was taken in front of Lovett Hall:

That’s a pretty new President Pitzer standing by the microphone.

It’s this last image that took my breath away—it’s an extremely rare picture of the area we now call Founder’s Court very soon after the former parking lot was grassed over. I can’t recall ever seeing anything like this before:

Zoom in on it and look at the tiny little trees!

Bonus Second Surprise: It was noted on the backs of all these pictures that they had been donated to the Woodson by Col. Jack Knocke. Knocke served in the Marine Corps for over thirty years and saw combat in World War II, the Korean War and Viet Nam, winning a Distinguished Flying Cross, a Bronze Star and two Air Medals in the process. A bit of digging turns up the fact that he taught Naval Science at Rice from 1960 to 1963. One suspects he would have snorted at grade inflation.

Extra Bonus: 

An exceptionally alert reader pointed out to me the chairs in this Cohen House photo from last week:

I was so fixated on the palm tree that I didn’t even notice them. They are, she correctly points out, the ancestors of the current black metal tables and chairs that have migrated all over campus today. I came across some not long ago up on one of the balconies on Lovett Hall, a very nice spot indeed:

Bonus: Here are those Cohen House chairs being occupied, undated but I’d guess 1930s. Left to right are H.A. Wilson, Andre Bourgeois, Lovett and William Ward Watkin. I’d love to know who took the picture.

I can’t decide who has it the worst here, but the look on the face of the guy in the middle is just delicious:

Yesterday somewhere in the far reaches of the internet I came upon this remarkable piece of film. Several minutes long, it shows downtown Houston during and just after the great flood of December, 1935. It’s well worth your time. Also worth your time is the web site where it was originally posted, a fascinating and informative conglomeration of discussion forums called HAIF, which I think stands for “Houston Architecture Information Forum,” although it is much more than that. Trust me, it’s loaded with good stuff.

After I watched it I wondered whether there was any Thresher coverage, as an event of this magnitude must have surely had a serious impact on the university. Sure enough, it was on the front page of the issue that came out the following week:

There was also an interesting lament from the Thresher staff about the difficulty of getting the paper out at all that week:

Here’s the picture I had planned for today. They apparently were seriously committed to the palm tree look for Cohen House back in the day, as there was yet another one on the other side of the building, right in the middle of today’s dining area:

Moderately interesting, you say, but probably not enough to inspire real love. The love came later, when very unexpectedly I got a phone call from the very same guy who took and labeled this photo in the spring of 1940, Maxwell Reade, who I’ve talked about before. It’s remarkable how often things like this happen, so I’m hardly even surprised any more but they always bring me real pleasure.

Anyway, Dr. Reade had a couple of questions for me and I had one for him. There’s one image in his scrapbook that I’ve had stuck in my mind for a long time:

It’s almost the only picture in the scrapbook that isn’t labeled and  I found it interesting mostly because you can see so clearly where the trolley tracks had been torn up. What’s been rolling around in my mind all this time is that it had to have been taken from a window in Hermann Hospital and I couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing up there. So I asked. He had pneumonia. I’m really glad he got better.

In transit today, but here’s a small taste of Rice’s more tropical past—Cohen House, c 1930s:

Bring back the palm trees! We can all sip rum punches in the garden.