Hunter Gymnasium

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Back in 1940, the town of Marfa landed itself a Works Progress Administration grant, more than fifteen thousand dollars, to put up a brand new gymnasium. Now fifteen thousand dollars in 1940 was real money, and Marfa wasn't about to waste it on something ordinary.

They named the place Hunter Gymnasium, in honor of athletic director Boren Hunter, and then they went and built something that would turn a few architectural heads if those heads ever bothered to look closely enough. See, most gymnasiums of that type were throwing up concrete and steel and calling it a day. Marfa said: what about adobe?

Plastered adobe infill walls, the marker calls it a rare earthen material in buildings of this type, and rare is putting it politely. You just didn't do that. And yet there it stands.

The bones of the building are concrete pilasters, a continuous perimeter footing, steel open web roof trusses holding up that roof like they mean it, and wrapped around all of that, the earth itself, plastered smooth. The plan is modified rectangular, and there's a projecting entry that steps down to the athletic court, like the building is inviting you in, making sure you know something real is about to happen on that floor. And something real did happen, for generations.

School events, community gatherings, the kind of moments that don't make the history books but make a life. Boren Hunter's name went up on that building, and the building went to work, and between the two of them they've been figuring prominently into the lives of Marfa ever since.

What the marker says

In 1940, Marfa received a Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant of more than $15,000 to help build a new gymnasium named to honor athletic director Boren Hunter. The modified rectangular plan building features plastered adobe infill walls, a rare earthen material in buildings of this type. Other elements include concrete for pilasters and a continuous perimeter footing, and steel for open web roof trusses. A projecting entry steps down to the athletic court. The facility has been used for numerous school and community activities, figuring prominently into the lives of generations of students and citizens.