What’s Up? Video: City’s 85th birthday celebration on Oct. 18 features history wall unveiling

Grace Hallowell:

What’s up, College Station? I’m Grace Hallowell, and today, my guest is Ross Brady, Assistant to the City Manager here in College Station. Hi, Ross.

Ross Brady:

Hi, Grace. It’s great to be here.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, we have a very exciting event coming up: the 85th anniversary of College Station becoming a city. We have a lot of fun things planned to celebrate this anniversary, so kicking things off, give us a brief History 101 of what led to College Station becoming a city.

Ross Brady:

Absolutely. So going back to the earliest days that we know, before recorded history, this area was inhabited by Native American tribes: the Wacos, Tonkawas, and Tawakonis. And then the Mexican government granted land to Richard Carter. He is the first recorded settler, and he brought his family and enslaved workers to the area. And then the city didn’t emerge until the university was brought here.

So Harvey Mitchell donated 2,400 acres of land to the state for the creation of what became Texas A&M University, and that was in 1871. There was no community here in College Station at the time, although Wellborn had began as a railroad camp for the railroad that was being constructed there.

The city emerged from the university there, so in the earliest days, all student housing and the vast majority of faculty housing was all on campus. There was the railroad depot on Wellborn Road, and then a small commercial area had grown up in what’s Northgate today. And then the first residential neighborhood that came about before we incorporated was what is now known as Historic South Side, the neighborhood just to the south of campus. And that development started in, I think, 1921 and opened up in 1923. They’ve actually just celebrated their 100th anniversary.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, it’s very fascinating to look back at old photographs and looking at how much has changed since then, and it’s definitely something worth celebrating.

Ross Brady:

It really is. It’s fascinating. As far as cities go, we’re very young, but when you see how much has changed in the area since then, from those very rural beginnings to the rapidly-growing area that we are today, it’s fascinating.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, so let’s talk about: With the anniversary celebration, what can people expect from this event?

Ross Brady:

Right, so it’s a birthday party, first and foremost. We are going to be unveiling something that I think is pretty cool. We’ve put together a somewhat three-dimensional history wall. That’s the timeline from the city, from those earliest days, as we talked about, with the Carter homestead, up until present. And so that will be unveiled that day, and I hope people will come out and get to see it, and that’s something that will be permanent in City Hall and can be viewed at any time.

And then we’ll be having birthday cake and some other celebration aspects. There will be raffle prizes. A scavenger hunt has been put together by Historic Preservation Committee, and the scavenger hunt will actually run for two weeks, so it’ll go on into the very beginning of November, with prizes for that. And the city will be unveiling a commemorative challenge coin, which is something we’ve done before for a couple of events. So we had one for our 75th anniversary, which looks like this. It was meant to look like a train ticket, so a rectangular shape, as opposed to the round that you normally expect for a challenge coin. And then we’ve been doing one each year since we opened the new City Hall, and it’s something we want to continue into the future.

So starting in 2021, with the opening of City Hall, we have one where the back side of the coin shows City Hall, and then the front is the city seal. The front remains consistent every year. And then last year, we partnered with the George Bush Foundation to create this one with the seal for the Bush Library.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, and I know the coins are always something that I look forward to seeing since I started here at the city. I think they’re a fun thing that we can have people collect, and it really does showcase the history of our city. And so the celebration is right here at City Hall. What time? What date?

Ross Brady:

Celebration’s October 18th, which is actually the day before our city charter was signed, which was October 19th, in 1938. Our event will be on the 18th, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM, here at City Hall, 1101 Texas Avenue.

Grace Hallowell:

Perfect, yes, City Hall is here for our residents to come and share in our resources and celebrate with us for our great city. Cake: always great to have at a party.

So what else can you share about the history of College Station and why it’s so important that we recognize an anniversary like this?

Ross Brady:

Well, I think for any organization or group of people, it’s good to look at your history and understand the journey of how you got to where you are today, based on where you came from, and that you can understand the present better. And so College Station is again, a comparatively young city, but it’s interesting to see how it has emerged from, again, as I said earlier, the very rural area to this much more dense, growing, thriving community.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, we’re always growing and forward-thinking. All right, and if people have questions or want more information, where can they go to learn more?

Ross Brady:

City’s website: cstx.gov. On the website, we have information about the birthday party, and we also have a link where people can pick a time to donate an item, or I should say loan an item to the city. If it’s of historic interest or value, our Historic Preservation Committee is interested in having those displayed during the birthday party. So they can contact Sherry Frisk for that link, and she will help them loan the item to the city.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, and that’s another really unique thing, too, is to showcase: As a community, you can be involved in this celebration, too. And I know people tend to keep things for generations that definitely deserve a spotlight.

And going into this question: Why did the city decide to incorporate? Why didn’t they want to stay rural, or what went into the decision-making process of becoming a city?

Ross Brady:

So the community chose to incorporate for the same reason a lot of cities do even today, which is utilities and services. So when everything was on campus, all the housing was on campus. Obviously, the university provided its own water and electricity. The corps of cadets provided fire protection. But as things started to grow off campus, people needed those utilities, so that first subdivision, the Historic South Side, the university partnered with that developer to provide the utilities to hook up their water system. And then the developer charged residents an annual fee for their use of that water system and then garbage collection in the streets. There was no police service, no fire, and the residents were responsible for building their own septic tanks.

Grace Hallowell:

Which is a lot of work.

Ross Brady:

It is, it is. It’s good when there can be a more organized system for providing that.

So then in the 1930s, as the university was growing and they started to reorient themselves geographically, which is when the administration building was built, facing Texas Avenue, whereas the main building on campus had previously been the Academic Building, facing Wellborn. They wanted to restructure how the campus was laid out, and the faculty housing they had was getting in the way of that.

In the 1930s, it was decided that they were going to ask all faculty to move off of campus, and so that was the catalyst for, “All right, well, if we have to live off campus, we want to make sure that we have these services that we are used to having on campus and in any other community.” And so that led to the movement for incorporation.

And then interestingly, the City of Bryan, which is a much older city, incorporated in the 1870s, I believe, they wanted to annex the city during this time period, too. So yes, they have College Station, but they were limited by the amount of land you could annex in one year; there’s a state law regulating that. And so they annexed as much as they could, which is what formed the modern-day northern boundary of College Station/southern boundary of Bryan, right there along Northgate and Rosemary and Cooner Street.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, it’s very interesting and important to look back to realize just how far we’ve come.

Ross Brady:

Well, it’s just fascinating. Those little things are what I love about history, the things that form these boundaries that we’re still very much shaped by today, but that happened in these rapidly-made decisions at the time.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, well, very exciting. Happy 85th birthday to College Station.

Ross Brady:

Happy birthday, College Station.

Grace Hallowell:

Thank you for being here, Ross.

Ross Brady:

Thank you, Grace. It’s been great.

Grace Hallowell:

And that’s What’s Up?

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