Site of the FIRST President's House - Denton, TX
N 33° 12.841 W 097° 08.883
14S E 672595 N 3676541
A University of North Texas sign stands near the south entrance to Hickory Hall, providing some history of the first "President's House" on the campus, which occupied this site from 1909 to 1956.
Waymark Code: WM12WN1
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 07/27/2020
Views: 1
The sign has an inset photo of the house in question, along with this text:
The first President's House was built in 1909 on the site of the old Normal Building at a cost of $5,000. It was erected as the residence of President W.H. Bruce and also was the family home for three of his successors, R.L. Marquis, W.J. McConnell and J.C. Matthews. Each president could walk from the back porch to his office next door. The 57-by-54-foot frame residence, with its entrance adorned by two-story fluted columns, had a large living room, dining room and kitchen on the first floor and bedrooms and a screened-in sleeping porch upstairs. The partially finished attic served as the storage space and was the perfect children's playroom. President Matthews' youngest son, Kenneth, whose family moved into the house in 1951, remembers keeping his treasures in the "secret" wall spaces the Marquis boys had made of cigar boxes. His Lionel train layout occupied two rooms, and the upstairs balcony doubled as a pirate ship. Not only was the home a gathering place for family celebrations and holidays, it also was considered the public home of the college. It served as the site for many receptions and was kept ready to greet guests at a moment's notice. The building was razed after a new President's House was built in 1956 where the Gateway Center now stands at Eagle Drive and North Texas Boulevard. The Industrial Arts Building was erected on this site in 1959, housing the program that previously occupied a barracks, a metal building and part of the Power Plant. The building later was known as the Engineering Technology Building and was renamed Hickory Hall in 2004. (2012)
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There are some old photos of the house to be found at the University of Texas's Portal to Texas History (see URL, below), but remember that there have been two other residences since then, and photos of all of them are mixed together in the collection.
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