| Two 200-foot towers of Radio Station WAPI stood in 1928
in an area south of what is now the Samford Avenue-Donahue Drive intersection.
Leonard B. Thomas, a student, climbed one of the towers to take the pictures
seen here. Three of the pictures have been put together to form the
top panel and two to form the bottom panel. To the left in the upper
picture is Drake Field, the varsity football field then and located approximately
where the upper Haley Center parking lot is today. The gully at left
in the late 1930s became the site of Jordan-Hare Stadium. ROTC horses
were stabled in the two buildings running north-south at lower left near
where the Sports Arena is now. Perpendicular to the stables was the
long shed housing field artillery pieces, caissons, and trucks. John
C. Ball, Jr., retired assistant AU purchasing agent, recalled spending
"many a night wrapped in a horse blanket" inside the little building in
front of the gun shed. He slept there when his father, an Army sergeant
with the ROTC detachment, had guard duty. The white sand road extended
from the gun shed to Thach Avenue near Alumni Gym and the President's Mansion.
Samford Hall is shown directly in front of the water tank that stood behind
Toomer Drugstore. Bullard Field, in the middle of the picture, was
the site for years of ROTC drill and parades, polo matches and intramural
football and softball. To the right of Bullard are the Theta Chi
and Sigma Nu houses. Shown directly behind the Sigma Nu house, but
actually several blocks away is the Presbyterian Church. At right
stands Comer Hall, with greenhouses and other agriculture buildings nearby.
-- Photos: Leonard W. Thomas and H.C. Morgan, Jr. |
