The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 54, July 1950 - April, 1951 Page: 3
544 p. : ill., ports., maps. (some col.) ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center
with God and man, crowded old Main Building could no longer
house or even store the growing library. In 1910 was erected the
"new" library, designed by a great American (but non-Texan)
architect, Cass Gilbert. Like the original faculty of the univer-
sity, it would have fitted as well into any other campus as into
the Forty Acres of Texas. It is one of the gems of American
architecture, but there is nothing about it that "reeks of the
soil." Signs of the zodiac adorn friezes and nowhere in it is the
Six Flags motif utilized. Those who planned it thought they
had provided for a century of expansion in all fields 'of human
knowledge; but, Texas being Texas, within two decades it was
outgrown. The books and manuscripts, now designated as the
Mirabeau B. Lamar Library, had to be moved to the monu-
mental tower of the new Main Building. The "new" library
overnight became the "old" library and was put to non-library
uses.
By happy inspiration, the regents of the University subse-
quently determined to devote the "old" library to Texas history.
There today are gathered from all the university's holdings the
printed and manuscript materials of value to students of Texas
history. There too are the headquarters of this Association which,
since 1897, has done much toward making this a University of
Texas as well as in Texas. First it was under Garrison's leader-
ship, then for nearly a third of a century directed by his most
distinguished student, then by that student's student, and now
by the student's student's student, all in impeccable apostolic
succession.
There may be those who regret that this new Center of Texas
History is not housed in a shining new indigenous structure
with portals surmounted by longhorns, its friezes concocted of
cactus and bluebonnet and its interior embellished with raw-
hide and buffalo skins. I am not one of them. The building
itself is architecturally beautiful and significant. It has integrity
and it represents certain "universals." In a way its exterior
symbolizes the universality that is History. Within its non-pro-
vincial walls have been placed the stuff of which Texas history
has been and is to be made-even as those who have so long and
so ably worked here have been fitting Texas history into the
universal pattern.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 54, July 1950 - April, 1951, periodical, 1951; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101133/m1/23/: accessed May 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.