This used to be my playground

I just made myself thoroughly homesick by looking at photos of my alma mater on flickr.


Photo by briggsaustinb

Those triple windows on the upper left of Manly Hall are where my office was. I’d sit up there for hours and research and write papers, grade papers, meet with students, read, and mostly just stare out the window, because I could see so much of the campus I loved while I daydreamed.


Photo by Dystopos

Behind Manly is Woods Hall, the art building. (My father was an art student at UA some twenty-five years before I first went there as an undergraduate.) These were among the first buildings built after Union troops burned the campus to the ground in April 1865. The burning included the library and all its holdings, although Union Colonel Thomas M. Johnston pleaded with his commander, General John T. Croxton, to let him spare it. Ironically, General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox less than a week later–just days too late to have saved the university.

Four buildings which survived the fire exist now:


Photo by wes4ua
The President’s Mansion (built in 1841)


Photo by Diamonduste
The Gorgas House (built in 1829, the oldest building on campus)


Photo by bnicol
The Little Round House was built in 1859 as a sentry box and now houses, as best I recall, historical artifacts that are part of the library’s holdings.

16 thoughts on “This used to be my playground”

  1. What a beautiful school. Go Crimson Tide! (I went to an unattractive, extremely overpriced school. Blah.)

    My niece got into Auburn, but she lives in Georgia and her dad didn’t think Auburn was worth out-of-state tuition. It is kind of high. She goes to a school called Georgia College and State. Go Bobcats.

    1. Auburn…Auburn…. I think I’ve heard of it. =)

      (My brother, nephew, and two in-laws went to Auburn. It’s a great school. But yeah, I hear you on out-of-state tuition. Yikes!)

      And indeed–roll Tide!

        1. I agree.

          I’ve never seen this statue. It’s somewhere in Tuscaloosa–maybe at the Bryant Museum? But I thought you’d appreciate the Bear and Shug together.


          Photo by Kenny Smith

      1. WHAT???????????????????????????????

        War Eagle….

        humph… the should beg, borrow, steal or whatever it took to attend AUBURN.

        I, too, cheered loudly (my dogs thought they were in touble) for the Tide against the Bulldogs. They need to be back on top for a while.

      1. UK has a nice campus, but WKU’s president is all about campus beautification. I am a bit biased, though, I guess, as my teaching time at UK left a bad taste in my mouth; although, I did enjoy my job at UK’s medical school library while in Lexington. I’m headed up there tomorrow to visit my ex-roommate before heading to Louisville for a weekend at Chris’s.

        1. The other school I remember from Lexington is Transylvania. I don’t know Louisville well, but I’ve spent a lot of time in Lexington. My sister went to UK, and one of her former roommates had a dog who could bark in a way that sounded like “Go Big Blue!”

    1. That’s just a little smattering of places I like there. But the older buildings are my favorites.

      Of the more modern buildings, the biology building is round, but it has a front on it that keeps that from being immediately apparent. My first time there trying to find my lab, I was literally walking around in a circle without realizing it. (I’m going to give my very intimidated eighteen-year-old self a free pass on that one.)

  2. Flickr’s one of the coolest things, when it comes to revisiting places without leaving one’s chair. Bless ya, Flickr!

    Your campus is so lovely to fresh eyes (like my 41-year-old optometry-dependent ones), but to yours it must yank your heart with memories, stories, moods.

    The red brick lover in me thanks you for this entry. : )

  3. Thank you for sharing – I can hardly believe it’s a College – something as far from “educational institution” you couldn’t imagine!

    It’s almost like a small village in itself.

    The Little Round House is just lovely.

    And you know what strikes me most about this campus is how very clean and well kept it is. They obviously take a great pride in the place . . . a lesson some of our colleges could learn!

    1. When I travel now, it shocks me how much litter is on the roadsides. We got better about that at one time. Now we seem to be much worse.

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