“College Street only went to the east side of Unit 3. [circa 1963] There was a barbed wire fence just behind the Units, and cows were always standing there. That is where they were fed. ”

For the Heritage Series, there were two extensive interviews with Mr. Charles Haas, the SFA Business Manager from 1959 to 1982. (For the first, see Haas and Steen Buildings I) What follows is a discussion of phase II of the Steen building program which Haas coordinated in the period from 1966 to 1976. As mentioned last week, Mr. Haas wrote the bond issues, prepared the contracts, superintended the jobs, and maintained the plans down to the abstracts of the property. Haas observed, “My name is on more buildings than Dr. Steen’s, not just because I spanned the whole period, but because in the old days, I was named the ‘contract officer.’ They had to have a body to lock up if something went wrong. That was the legal philosophy at the time.”

When Haas came to SFA, there was no master plan that he ever saw. Because of their early experiences, they then did not publish their plans once they developed them. By 1965, Haas remembered, “We had a much more detailed plan than we would ever admit to.” Ralph Steen learned not to show his hand before he was ready to act. They worked with their architects and advisors in secret. “The Board could not read blueprints. ... When we were ready for contracts, we would start showing the picture, because we did not want people to remember something different from the way it was going to look.” Although Haas admitted that they did not keep records of their planning process, he thought it was about 1965 that they contacted a Dallas firm to design a mock-aerial view of the campus. “We published the view about 1970,” he remembered.

As the plans called for shifting the center of the campus to the east, the question of Raguet Street came to the forefront. As the introductory quote suggests, the east side of the campus was the farm until 1964.. The first big items built east of Raguet, discussed last week, were Dorms 14, 16, 17 (Gladys Steen Hall), the East Cafeteria, and the Purchasing Warehouse; with these came the extension of College Street to the east. In 1967, in the first move of phase II, they completed Wilson Drive to connect College with Starr Avenue. Wilson Drive permitted a new north/south corridor through the campus. The Raguet Street question remained dormant, for the most part, through the next two classroom buildings, both west of the Street. In 1968, the new science building opened; Miller Science Building was the first building to materialize using the new ‘building use fee’ passed by the legislature. The Ferguson Liberal Arts Building followed in 1969. As students in increasing numbers had to cross Raguet, the danger to students became an increasing concern. Even the College-Wilson-Starr route had its problems because of the congestion at the intersection of Steen Hall and the Cafeteria.

The next steps involved a host of other agencies, the purchase of additional property, and years of planning. First, the university acquired the 88 acres of the Hogan Estate east of Lanana Creek–another acquisition which was not exactly friendly–and planned a new north/south corridor in league with the city and the Texas Highway Department. Next, the agencies planned the first phase of University Drive from East Main Street and East Austin through the Hogan property on the new east side of the campus. Third, to link the campus to the new thoroughfare, the city and the university projected new bridges to permit the extensions of Starr, College, and Austin Streets to cross the Lanana. All of these plans were not completed until 1973.

In the meantime, as Haas recounted, the next buildings completed were Home Economics, Music, and Forestry, all in 1970. Haas said they did not announce their first big classroom moves across Raguet until 1971: the mirrored buildings for business and education, and the new library.

While they knew that the closing of Raguet Street would cause another problem with the local citizens, Haas said: “We had the advantage of overwhelming success going for us. All those merchants, who might have been objecting because their property taxes were going up, were now on our band wagon. They wanted their cash registers to keep ringing.” At the ribbon cutting at Northview Plaza in the fall of 1972–Haas was Chamber of Commerce President at the time–the Business Manager reported that the enrollment had just topped 10,000. He commented on the wonderful partnership between the town and the gown: “It is wonderful that there are new businesses to serve the 10,000 new people who are now in town.” Haas, smiling, said: “It was a happy time.” Haas said he worked closely with Mack Stripling, Emory Monk, and Thomas Baker. “We kept all the funds working, but since SFA had more funds on hand than the banks had money, if we had called our funds at once, they could not have done it.”

Haas recounted a scene in the Science Auditorium (later Kennedy) that same year: “It is 1972. There were over 500 contractors and suppliers packed into the auditorium. That day, we let contracts and bonds for over $18,000,000 in building construction on campus. It was the biggest day of such activity in SFA’s history.” The buildings in the package included the new library, education, business, the coliseum, and University Drive. “Interest on the millions in hand supplied enough money to build a new stadium out of cash.”

1972-73 marked the high point of the Steen building program with over $25,000,000 in construction.. While the rest of the Norton H.P.E. complex was yet to come in 1974 and the Early Childhood Lab in 1975, the enrollment was leveling off, and the funds were drying up. The baby boom was over, and the new generation of students were making different demands.. The administration and the regents were having to think of converting dorms into apartments and making hour requirements to keep the students in the dorms to service the bond debts. The happy times were passing; in Haas’ words, “Education was no longer the favorite child.”