Historical Building

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just the same. Now, if you're ever wandering the North Texas campus and you spot a building that looks like it's been around long enough to have opinions, well, you'd be right. That structure went up in 1912 and 1913, built to serve as a library and a gymnasium, and it holds a distinction nobody else on that campus can claim: it is the oldest remaining building on the grounds.

Think about everything that has come and gone around it over more than a century. That building is still standing there, watching. In 1925, a history professor by the name of Joseph Lyman Kingsbury (born in 1880, passed in 1949) he started something inside those walls.

A museum. And from that point on, the place took on a new name: the Historical Building. Now, Kingsbury's museum was not your ordinary regional display case.

The collection was described as eclectic, and it pulled in published works and artifacts from around the world. Around the world, mind you; housed right there on a North Texas campus. That museum kept its home in the Historical Building all the way until 1986, which means it had a good long run.

When it finally closed, the collection didn't just disappear. It was distributed to other institutions right there in Denton, so those pieces scattered outward like seeds. And the building itself?

It never missed a beat. Over the years it housed academic offices, classrooms, and the College Radio Station. One building, many lives.

Some things just refuse to be done.

What the marker says

Built in 1912-13 to serve as a library and gymnasium, this is the oldest remaining building on the North Texas campus. It became known as the Historical Building in 1925, when history professor Joseph Lyman Kingsbury (1880-1949) began a museum that was housed here until 1986. The institution's eclectic collection included published works and artifacts from around the world. Upon the museum's closing the collection was distributed to other institutions in Denton. The building also has housed academic offices, classrooms, and the College Radio Station. (1994)