Alumni House

The Office of Alumni Relations and the Texas State Alumni Association are housed in a former boarding house, which has been restored and relocated to the corner of LBJ and University drives.

The Alumni House is one of the oldest buildings on the Texas State campus. German craftsman Charles Sinz built the Victorian-style home in 1896 for Beverly Hutchison and her family. In the 1920s, R.E. Lola Miller, then-owner of the house, rented rooms to students.

In 1966, the San Marcos Urban Renewal Agency recommended that the Texas State Alumni Association use the building. Two years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson, an alumnus who had lived in the boarding house for two semesters, formally dedicated the Alumni House. Today, the home features a display of Johnson memorabilia and furnishings, including the desk and chair he used to sign the Higher Education Act of 1965.

The house has received the President's Ranch Medallion and the Texas Historical Medallion. It also received a Texas Historic Landmark designation in 1968 and was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Restoration of the interior of the house began in 1981 by Dr. Mary L. Spence, granddaughter of Beverly Hutchison, the original owner. The wood floors were refinished, and plantation shutters, oriental rugs and period-style wallpaper were added.

The exterior of the Alumni House was restored and painted in 2004. Upon its completion, the house was awarded the Heritage Association of San Marcos' Landmarks Award.

Aquarena Center

www.aquarena.txstate.edu
921 Aquarena Springs Drive
512.245.7570

Fighting Stallions statue

The Fighting Stallions statue is located on the west end of the Quad, in the plaza between Derrick Hall and Evans Liberal Arts Building. The 17-foot high sculpture was a 1952 gift of noted sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and husband Archer Huntington of South Carolina.

Flowers Hall Mural

The 40-foot mural on the west wall of Flowers Hall depicts the intellectual pursuits of humanity and is the work of the late artist, muralist and sculptor James Buchanan “Buck” Winn. The mural, designed in 1958, is made of 138 engraved concrete blocks and “Blenke Glass,” a Winn invention.

Old Fish Hatchery Ponds

The bodies of water surrounding the Theater Center and J.C. Kellam Building are the remnants of a U.S. Federal Fish Hatchery, founded in 1893. The 43-acre hatchery was the nation’s oldest when it was deeded to Texas State in 1965. It is now used by students in the aquatic biology program.

Old Main

This red-roofed, castle-like landmark was the university's first building, and until 1908, it was the only campus structure. Designed by architect E. Northcraft, Old Main was built in a style known as Victorian Gothic.

Begun in 1902, the construction of Old Main proved complicated and expensive because the site lay directly over a cavern, which took load after load of concrete to fill. The building opened in time for the first classes in fall 1903. As other buildings were added, Old Main served as Texas State’s administration building.

Old Main has undergone many renovations. Originally, most of the second floor was a large auditorium/chapel, with an ornately carved and filigreed cathedral ceiling. With a stage at one end and a balcony at the other, general assemblies, plays, and presentations were held here.

The auditorium was subdivided into smaller rooms in the 1972 renovation, and in 1988, a floor was added at the balcony level. However, the remnants of the ornate ceiling are still visible on the third floor. An extensive restoration in 1993-94 returned the famous roof to its original style and color.

Old Main now houses the College of Fine Arts and Communication Advising Center, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the student radio station.

Sewell Park

On a hot summer day in 1916, Dr. S.M. “Froggy” Sewell, a mathematics professor, went wading into the brush- and weed-choked San Marcos River. No place was deeper than three feet, and he decided that the college needed a park.

In 1917, the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries leased the college four acres of land along the river. College workers, armed with mud scrapers and mules, cleaned the river bottom, built up the banks and smoothed the slopes. It was called Riverside Park until 1946, when it was renamed in honor of Sewell.

The present-day plaza and basketball court was once an island, but the eastern fork of the river consistently clogged and was eventually filled in. The s-shaped bend in the river was shored up by concrete walls in the 1920s. In 1984, a $1 million renovation gave the present six-acre park its current look.

Sewell Park is located next to Strahan Coliseum and is open to students, faculty and staff.