Rusk Building

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Rusk Building on the Stephen F. Austin campus in Nacogdoches. Now settle in, because this one's got layers.

The land itself sets the stage. We're talking about the homestead lands of Thomas Jefferson Rusk, warrior statesman, and that ground carries some weight before a single brick ever goes down. Stephen F.

Austin State Teachers College comes along, and by 1924 the place is swollen with success, already moving into brand new facilities, the Austin Building and Aikman Gymnasium. The board of regents had the Rusk Building in their original plan from the start. But here's where the story slows down, as stories involving the State Legislature sometimes do.

Cost-cutting measures put the brakes on, and the Rusk Building had to wait while the rest of campus got settled. It finally rose in 1926. The architect was W.

E. Ketchum, and the contractor was F. A.

Mote, the very same man who had built the Austin Building back in 1924. Apparently, when you need something done right on this campus, you call the same people twice. What Ketchum and Mote put up was something worth calling back for.

A classical revival public building of real distinction. Fifteen bays across the primary facade. A grand staircase.

A pedimented three-bay entry flanked by Doric columns and finished with cast stone details. The kind of building that tells you plainly: learning happens here. And it did.

The college library moved in. The departments of education and business. A demonstration school for teacher training, where the next generation of Texas teachers learned their craft.

The years rolled by, and the building kept working. Applied arts and sciences, communications, continuing education, social work and criminal justice, all found a home inside those walls. The registrar, admissions, student services, they set up their offices there too.

Down in the basement, the Texas Folklore Society and university printing services carved out their own corners of the place. Then came 1987, and an extensive renovation project that returned the Rusk Building to its original grandeur. Not a reinvention.

A restoration. The structure, the marker tells us, retains a high degree of architectural integrity to this day. On the homestead lands of a warrior statesman, a building that has housed libraries and learners and folklorists and future teachers, still standing at the center of the Stephen F.

Austin State University campus. Some buildings just refuse to stop mattering.

What the marker says

Built on the homestead lands of warrior statesman Thomas Jefferson Rusk, Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College (SFA) was swollen with success shortly after taking over its new facilities, the Austin Building and Aikman Gymnasium, in 1924. The board of regents had approved the erection of the Rusk building in their original plan, but cost-cutting measures in the State Legislature led to a delay in its construction until 1926. Designed by architect W. E. Ketchum, it was built by F. A. Mote, the same contractor who had completed the Austin Building in 1924. An excellent example of a classical revival public building, the Rusk Building features a fifteen-bay primary facade, a grand staircase, pedimented three-bay entry, Doric columns and cast stone details. An important academic facility for a variety of SFA programs, it initially housed the college library, departments of education and business, and the demonstration school for teacher training. In later years it was home to the departments of applied arts and sciences, communications, continuing education, social work and criminal justice, as well as administrative offices of the registrar, admissions staff and student services. The Texas Folklore Society and university printing services have occupied the basement. An extensive renovation project in 1987 returned the Rusk Building to its original grandeur. The structure retains a high degree of architectural integrity and remains a central facility on the Stephen F. Austin State University Campus. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1998