DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Somewhere in Amarillo, on the campus of Amarillo College, there stands a building that's got a little more going on than most folks realize — and once you know the story, you'll never walk past it the same way again. This is Ordway Hall.
Now, before there was a hall, there had to be a school. Two men — George Ordway and James Guleke — went and obtained legislative authority to establish Amarillo College. That's the kind of sentence that sounds simple until you remember what it actually takes: the arguing, the convincing, the slow grind of getting a state legislature to agree on anything.
But they got it done. And George Ordway, having helped bring the whole thing into existence, went on to become the first president of the institution. That's the kind of full-circle moment that'll settle right into the marrow of a good story.
Then comes 1936. The Great Depression is still very much a fact of life across Texas, and yet somebody looked out at that Amarillo horizon and said, we are going to build something. Architect Guy Carlander took on the design of this administration building, and construction ran from 1936 into 1937.
What Carlander put up was no plain box of a building. The plan is shaped like an L — an auditorium on one side, and a two-story wing of classrooms and offices stretching out with nineteen bays, nineteen, before it rises up and caps itself off in a four-story tower. Four stories.
In the middle of the Panhandle plains, that tower had to have felt like it was reaching up to announce something. Now here's where the building starts to get downright interesting, because Carlander went full Geometric Art Deco on the exterior. Chevrons.
Flutes. Parallel bands. All of it accenting buff brick and cast stone in that clean, angular language that Art Deco does so well — bold without being loud, ornate without losing its discipline.
But the real secret, the thing that makes you stop and look twice, is the sculpted terra cotta panels on the corners. They depict gnomes. Reading and writing.
Little gnomes, tucked into the corners of an academic building, eternally at their studies. Whether that was Carlander's wry little joke or a genuine statement about the life of the mind, the marker doesn't say — and honestly, the mystery suits it. Step inside and the building keeps going.
Buff and red brick walls. Terrazzo floors laid in diamond and mosaic patterns. The kind of craftsmanship that says the people who built this expected it to last.
They were right. George Ordway's name is on the door. Nineteen bays, a four-story tower, and gnomes reading in the corners — Amarillo College got itself a building worth keeping.
What the marker says
Architect Guy Carlander designed this administration building for Amarillo College. It was built in 1936-37 and later named for George Ordway, who with James Guleke obtained legislative authority to establish the school; Ordway later became the first president. The L-plan building consists of an auditorium and a two-story classroom and office wing with 19 bays terminating in a four-story tower. Geometric Art Deco style elements such as chevrons, flutes and parallel bands accent the buff brick and cast stone exterior. Sculpted terra cotta panels on the corners depict gnomes reading and writing. Interior materials include buff and red brick walls and terrazzo floors with diamond and mosaic patterns.Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-2008