Administrative and Classroom Building “Old Austin”

Images of the ECTTS Administration Building reveal how that stately central edifice quickly became an impressive and marketable metaphor for the entire school. The building’s majestic size, balanced on east and west by dorms for men and women, conveyed the orderly curriculum and solid training prospective teachers would acquire there. The grand structure, topped with a cupola unique to the area, thus came to be featured time and again in school publications. The first ECTTS catalogue described it as including “the school offices, Library, Chemical laboratory, ten recitation rooms, four music rooms, and the Assembly Hall … [with] a seating capacity of eight hundred. Here the devotional exercises are held daily.” Far more than a home for administrators, the building was the core campus space, a venue for nearly every dimension of campus life.

By the early twentieth century, picture postcards had attained popularity as a way of sharing photographs. Not surprisingly, postcards of ECTTS often featured the Administration Building as the sole or at least central image. The building’s renown in postcards continued in the 1920s and through much of the 1930s. It was only after the campus underwent, in the late-1920s and early 1930s, a building boom climaxing with the Social and Religious Building, later named Wright, fronted by a garden and fountain, that campus postcards came to feature the newer structures alongside the older and more venerable.

Postcards of the Administration Building also reflected the pride local businesses had in the new school, as well as, admittedly, their efforts to make money. The brownette (sepia-toned) postcard relates that it was published by A. B. Ellington Company, and printed by C. U. Williams, Bloomington, Illinois. Ellington’s was a Greenville variety store that specialized mostly in school supplies, stationary, office supplies, and books. Located on Evans Street and then later Fourth Street, Ellington’s catered to the campus as well as the town’s educated elite. With postcards of the Administration Building, it offered students and faculty a novel and attractive reason to stop and shop. Ellington’s also published postcards of other buildings on the original campus, including a color edition of the “Boy’s Dormitory.” One of A. B. Ellington’s daughters, Eloise, later graduated, incidentally, from East Carolina and ran the family book store following her parents’ passing. In a modest way, the postcard thus embodied early on the close ties of town and gown.

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Sources

• “Area Deaths & Funerals: Eloise Ellington.” Rocky Mount Telegram. February 9, 1970. P. 2.
• “Boys' Dormitory, E.C.T.T.S., Greenville, N.C.” University Archives, # 55.06.0013. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/1369.
• “E.C.T.T.S. Administration Bldg., Greenville, N.C.” University Archives, # 55.06.0010. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/1366.
• First Annual Catalogue of the East Carolina Teachers’ Training School, Greenville, North Carolina, 1909-1910. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printing Company, 1910.
• King, Henry Thomas. Sketches of Pitt County: A Brief History of the County, 1704-1910. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printing Company, 1911.
• “True Official Directory of Greenville, N.C.: Book Stores.” Greenville News. August 10, 1920. P. 3.

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Other names

Old Austin

Built

1908/09

Razed

1968

Construction cost

$32,538, bid

Gross sq. ft.

75,200

Architects

Hook & Rogers, Charlotte, NC

Namesake

Herbert E. Austin (1866-1929), a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, taught at ECTTS as a professor of Science and Geography from 1909 to1929 and was the school's acting dean. He was a charter member of the faculty.

History

One of the four original buildings of the East Carolina Teachers Training School. "Old" Austin housed classrooms, an auditorium, a library, meeting rooms, and administrative offices during the early years of East Carolina. The building and neighboring Wilson Hall were razed in 1968 to make room for the Jenkins Fine Arts Center. The memory of Old Austin is maintained by the twice-scale replica of its distinctive cupola which now adorns the Mall. The east wing was added in 1914; the west wing and rear sections were completed in 1922. The west wing was described in the first issue of the East Carolina Teachers College News:

The additions to the Administration Building provide for a library, a gymnasium, a small assembly hall, a book-room, sleeping quarters for the Alumnae visitors, a sewing department, an enlarged cooking laboratory, several additional class rooms, offices, practice rooms for music.

In 1920 the Student Government Association was formed. The group's constitution calls for an "Administration Building Committee," which oversaw student conduct while in Austin. The building was the focal point of the campus until it was demolished to make way for the Jenkins Fine Arts Center. An attempt was made to save the cupola of the building.

Additions

1914 – East Wing, Hook & Rogers (Charlotte NC) & H.W. Simpson (New Bern NC) 1920 – Training School Quarterly, Volume 8, 1920, p. 90:

A number of changes were made in the administration building. The basement was finished and made into a new post office, new stationery room, three classrooms, storage room, and a vault. What was the library was divided into two parts: The secretary's office and the private office of the president. As you come in the door to the administration building, to your right is a small reception room. The library is now in what was the history room, classroom number 4, which is on the northwest corner of the building. The entrance to the administration building was enlarged, greating improving and making the hall very spacious.

1922 – West Wing, H.A. Underwood (Raleigh NC)

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