Located in the rural town of Prairie View, Texas, Prairie View A&M University -- or PVAMU, for short -- is a historically black university (HBCU) founded in 1876.
The university officially opened in 1878 as the “Alta Vista Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth”, when the Alta Vista Plantation -- a cotton plantation located on the campus’ current grounds -- was deeded to the state. It was for many years the only publicly funded historically African American college in Texas, and time after time survived the political and economic oppression of African American educational institutions that occurred in Texas from the Reconstruction Era through much of the 20th century. All full historical accounting of the university is available for further reading on the
Texas State Historical Association website.
PVAMU’s campus has several historic buildings, some of which were designed by renowned African American architects who studied and later taught at the university. Seven of these buildings -- all built around the first half of the 20th century -- were ultimately nominated and recognized by the NRHP for their historic and architectural significance throughout their tumultuous periods. As best described by the original April 21, 1999 NRHP
Nomination Submission form:
“[…] Fieldwork in the summer of 1997 identified only seven (out of 89 catalogued in 1936) extant historic resources associated with the campus. […]. Built using masonry construction techniques, they typically rise one to three stories in height on generally rectangular plans. Block massing and symmetrically composed facades predominate, with partial basements and entry focal points providing formal design elements. Finish materials historically included brick, cast stone and tile detailing, asphalt shingles and generously proportioned wood fenestration. Varying stylistic influences, specifically ornamentation drawn from the Classical Revival, Collegiate Gothic and Modern styles of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, reveal the involvement of architects throughout the period of significance. Historic settings typically provided generous green spaces dotted with native oak trees and low scale vegetation around each building. A network of concrete sidewalks and entry stairs evolved during the period of significance to connect campus facilities. Remodeling over the years resulted in changes that generally respect the historic character of these resources. Typical changes include construction of new wings to accommodate growth on campus, alteration of fenestration materials to improve energy efficiency and reconfiguring of sidewalks and entries to comply with [new federal] guidelines.
[…] Reflective of the primary mission of the university, [these seven] Education Buildings bespeak the development of the campus throughout the period of significance. As such they are significant for their historical associations […] in the areas of Education and Ethnic Heritage. Strong associations with significant leaders on the campus suggest nomination […] in these same areas, given a direct association between the contributions of the person and the building in question.”
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Designed by PVAMU alumnus (and subsequently PVAMU teacher) Louis E. Fry between 1927 and 1928, Evans Hall is currently just referred to as the Center for Student Services (a.k.a. “Building #0544”, located on L.W. Minor St.). It is a 3-story Late Gothic Revival brick structure with a grand pedimented central entrance; per the NRHP submission nomination form, it was conceived as: “a dormitory intended to house 100 girls and have toilets on each floor. Fry's original design for the dormitory included large windows and liberal room space (13 by 17 feet intended for two girls), as well as kitchen and dining facilities. The university cut the kitchen and dining room from the original plans.” The female dormitory was later completed with another nearby dorm facility ("Anderson Hall", which is also listed in the NRHP) and currently houses several student services, including the Office of Recruitment & Marketing, New Student Orientation, Office of Career Services, as well as Multicultural Affairs, Student Conduct, Special Programs, Disability Services and Veterans Affairs.
Louis E. Fry built several other buildings on PVAMU's grounds, one of which is also on the NRHP: the Alfred N. Poindexter Veterinary Hospital, currently still in use as a research Veterinary Clinic and located at the eastern end of campus. Below is brief history on Mr. Fry, once again per the original NRHP nomination submission:
“Louis [Edwin] Fry attended Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College in 1918 and enrolled in Mechanic Arts. In 1922 Fry received a degree and continued his education at Kansas State College in Manhattan, Kansas. Inadequate finances forced him to return to Prairie View to work as a stationary engineer at the Power Plant. He eventually returned to Kansas State and registered in the architectural engineering department as the only African American in attendance. While attending Kansas State, Fry met Claude L. Wilson who would later become a vice president of Prairie View.
Fry designed the 1925 Alfred N. Poindexter Veterinary Hospital on the Prairie View campus as a senior project, although the date of his design for the veterinary hospital remains unclear. He may have designed the building in 1922 while still at Prairie View or may have worked on the project at Kansas State.
Fry returned to Prairie View in 1927, this time as a teacher in a department headed by Claude Wilson. In the 1920s students in the industrial program took trade method courses supplemented with practical experience on campus including classroom building, grounds maintenance and power plant maintenance. Often these projects did not coincide in a timely manner with the appropriate topic in the course. Thus, building a well-structured program of teaching became essential to the development of the Mechanical Arts program and the future College of Engineering. In an unpublished report, C.L. Wilson and L.E. Fry reviewed the teaching methods of the industrial program and recommended a full-time Industrial Education Teacher whose duties would be to teach college courses in Industrial Education and to supervise Industrial Work. They concluded that the industrial instruction should be completely divorced from hands-on production work and each handled by a separate staff. These recommendations also included the installation of modern equipment to enable instructors to teach their trades in the most up to date fashion and outlined the replacement of the present course in Mechanic Arts with a four year degree course in Building Construction.
In addition to making curriculum recommendations, Fry also became involved with the campus master plan concerning open space and traffic and soon began designing campus buildings. In 1927 he designed Annie Laurie Evans Hall [...]. Fry also designed the new hospital building built in 1929 shortly after the original hospital burned. This building embodies the work of all three significant architects on the Prairie View campus. Louis Fry served as the architect for the 50-bed hospital while Claude Wilson worked as the mechanical engineer and Frederich Giesecke served as the engineer for the project. With the building under construction Fry return to Kansas State and earned a master's degree in 1930.
Fry's buildings on the Prairie View campus reflect his earliest work. He designed numerous buildings on other African American college campuses including the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Alabama State University, Lincoln University of Missouri and Morgan State University later in his career. After earning his master's degree he taught at the Tuskegee Institute where he established an architecture department in 1935. He also taught at Lincoln University of Missouri where he was the only licensed African American architect in the state. After receiving his Ph.D. from Ohio State in the mid 1940s, Fry studied at Harvard with Walter Gropius, the noted German architect and founder of the Bauhaus, and worked as a draftsman for Marcel Breuer, one of Gropius' followers. After World War II Fry returned to teaching at Lincoln and continued to design buildings for Lincoln, Alabama State and Tuskegee. In 1947 he became a professor of architecture at Howard University in Washington D.C.. Fry received the 1995 Washington Chapter AIA Centennial Award for his distinguished service to the profession of architecture as well as to the community.”