The Place:
In 1952, Wesley Elgin Travis donated $300,000 and a bust of his father, Ezra Johnson "Jot" Travis, to the university for construction of the Jot Travis Student Union. The money was matched by the Nevada Legislature to make a total donation of $600,000 for construction of the building, which opened in 1958. For many years, Jot Travis Student Union housed student government offices, numerous activities and meetings, the ASUN Bookstore, Pine Student Lounge and food and dining services. With the opening of the Joe Crowley Student Union, Jot Travis still offers food and beverage service in the form of "The Overlook," a $4 million facility that opened in 2004. In fall 2008, the building became home to the Davidson Academy of Nevada, a free public day school for the profoundly gifted. ~source
Prior to 1958, the primary student body headquarters on the University of Nevada campus was an aging brick and stucco building abandoned by the Nevada Historical Society. The small structure, given to Nevada students in 1931, stood at Ninth and Virginia streets.
In 1952, Wesley Travis’ gift to the University for an adequate student facility was matched by a $300,000 appropriation by the Nevada Legislature. Travis was a native of Hamilton, Nev., in White Pine County. Several smaller building drives contributed to funding for the facility’s construction during most of the remainder of the decade. The one-story building with a basement, projecting above the north side of Manzanita Lake, opened to students May 18, 1958.
The Jot Travis Student Union was designed by the Reno architectural firm of Ferris & Erskine. It originally housed the campus bookstore, student leadership offices, a snack bar, and recreation and meeting rooms. In 1960, dining commons were added to the building’s south end. Health services offices for students were added in 1963.
In the 1980s, the bookstore was expanded and a new Pine Student Lounge and Associated Students of the University of Nevada Auditorium opened in the student union. The projects increased the size of the union about 15,000 square feet.
A computer laboratory was added on the union’s top floor in 1995. The building was also made accessible to the disabled and several new meeting rooms were added. In 2001, the Wolf Perk coffeehouse was opened on the second floor. Three years later, Nevada students supported the building of a new student union next to the soon-to-be-opened Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center. The Jot Travis Building closed as a student union Nov. 2, 2007. ~source
The Person:
On Aug. 25, 2008, the second floor of the Jot Travis Building on the University of Nevada, Reno campus will reopen as the new home for The Davidson Academy of Nevada. The Academy, the nation’s only free, public school for profoundly gifted young students, is beginning its third academic year this month. As many as 200 Academy students can be accommodated on the upper floor at Jot Travis.
“Jot” Travis is the nickname for Ezra Johnson Travis, one of the Far West’s first stagecoach company managers during the late 19th century. Travis, whose forebears were said to be members of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia and veterans of the American Revolution, was general manager of the Gilmer and Salisbury stagecoach line and later president of the Utah, Nevada and California Stage Company. The Gilmer and Salisbury line was reported to be “one of the most powerful corporations in the West by 1880,” according to the Missoulian newspaper.
He directed a fleet of horse-drawn stage transportation covering 8,000-plus miles daily. The lines carried passengers, U.S. mail and post office funding as well as express freight for Wells Fargo. Travis’ stagecoach companies fed the primary railroad lines west of Chicago.
Jot Travis’ son, Wesley, chairman of the board for Greyhound Bus Lines, bequeathed a gift of $300,000 to the university for a student facility. His will stipulated that the new building be named in honor of his father. ~source