2026-09-29T23:27:47+00:00 Zend_Feed_Writer https://rattlersremember.stmupublichistory.org/ Rattlers Remember https://rattlersremember.stmupublichistory.org 2019-12-16T05:03:02+00:00 2020-10-22T13:18:17+00:00 https://rattlersremember.stmupublichistory.org/items/show/36 Mario Sosa When looking at all the buildings at St. Mary’s University, perhaps Lourdes Hall stands out to you the most differently in terms of architecture. That is because it shares the same rooms as the Hilton Palacio del Rio Hotel downtown. The beginning of Lourdes Hall begins with the building of the Hilton hotel. Because San Antonio was the site of the Hemisfair World’s Fair in 1968, the city needed a grand hotel downtown for the millions of visitors arriving. In order to build the hotel in time for the HemisFair, Zachry Construction Company relied on modular building. This was a method of construction that had involved quickly assembling rooms individually off-site and later placing them down at its designation. Zachry Company constructed each room separately seven miles off-site. The carpeting, drapes, light bulbs, and furniture were placed in the rooms off-site as well. The workers carried the rooms over to the site downtown and stacked them together. To accomplish such engineering, workers used an IBM computer the size of a room. Thanks to modular building and modern technology, the entire process only took 202 days. While this was not the first instance of modular building, the construction of the Hilton Hotel popularized this method by making it into national headlines. Lourdes Hall was constructed around the same time as the HemisFair exposition in 1968. Unlike the previous buildings on campus, Lourdes Hall is a modular building. In fact, Zachry Construction Company used leftover rooms from the Hilton Hotel to build Lourdes Hall. Just like the Hilton Hotel, they assembled everything for Lourdes Hall outside of campus. The construction crew attached all of the components such as the electrical wires and plumbing equipment into the rooms and transported everything to campus. Once there, the company used a crane to anchor the rooms together. It was essentially stacking cubes on top of each other. Workers then built a utility room in between every two rooms to attach the wires and plumbing from the rooms together. All of this was supposed to be a faster and more effective way to construct buildings. After its completion, Lourdes Hall initially became a girls’ dormitory, although it later became a dormitory for both boys and girls. The construction of the Hilton Palacio del Rio Hotel and Lourdes Hall helped to popularize modular building. Although not as fancy or detailed as traditional construction, modular building is a faster and cheaper method. This makes Lourdes Hall the only building to have ever literally dropped into campus. For more (including 3 images and 1 sound clip), view the original article. 2019-12-14T08:12:59+00:00 2019-12-16T16:55:33+00:00 https://rattlersremember.stmupublichistory.org/items/show/35 Mario Sosa In the early 1970s, there were a growing number of men wanting to become Marianist brothers. At this time, St. Mary’s University had the brothers living in Charles Francis, but it only had 60 rooms, all of which were occupied. In response to the growing number of Marianists, the university constructed Treadaway Hall to accommodate 200 brothers. Marianists from the St. Louis Province of the United States were responsible for financing Treadaway. Perhaps the most recognizable feature in Treadaway Hall is its slanted windows. By having the windows tilted at an angle, people looking in from the outside cannot see much. The reasoning for designing the windows this way was so that residents would not have to place blinds or curtains up. The rooms each have a bed, a desk, and a sink with a vanity, mirror, and a medicine cabinet to compliment it. To ensure that the design would be efficient, one of the brothers responsible for creating the rooms, Gene Myer, built a model room right next to where Casa Maria is today before starting constructing the rooms in Treadaway. The model room stayed up until it was taken down not too long ago since the Brothers had no use for it. On the first floor was a dining hall that was able to feed all the brothers living there. The building also had room for an auto shop built in the basement. In regards to the basic structure of Treadaway hall, Brother Richard Dix explained that since Treadaway Hall was for Marianist men, the walls and ceilings were made with bare concrete to appear masculine. Concrete piers that are dug down around 30 to 40 feet support the building. However, the usage of caliche cement, a sedimentary rock made of gravel and sand, has shown to be problematic. In one instance, when one of the water pipes came apart under Treadaway, the caliche on the piers got wet. This resulted in the concrete expanding and essentially started lifting the entire building off of the pillars. To remedy the problem, the school had to dig up several feet of dirt. Jim Jakely was a brother who almost single handedly dug up the dirt. By the early 1980s, only about 30 brothers were living on the fourth floor of Treadaway. Since most of the rooms were vacant, the Marianists relocated the remaining brothers and gave the building over to the university. Since then, much of Treadaway has been redesigned. While the chapel in Treadaway remained intact since its conception, the dining hall became the music department, the auto shop turned into the police department, the machine shop room converted into housekeeping and storage, the kitchen changed into the mailroom and the recreational room transformed into the English Communication Arts area. Today, Treadaway hall is still used as a dormitory for students. Despite the small room size, many students enjoy the privacy of one person rooms. Students there tend to get loft beds so that they could have extra room for a TV or other furniture below. While no longer a dormitory for the brothers, Treadaway hall is still considered a part of home to those residing at St. Mary’s University. For more (including 4 images and 2 sound clips), view the original article. 2019-05-05T20:58:05+00:00 2019-05-08T01:16:38+00:00 https://rattlersremember.stmupublichistory.org/items/show/12 Tyler Sleeter Chaminade Tower was built in 1921 on the grounds of St. Mary’s University. It originally served as a men’s dorm with offices on the basement and first floor. Chaminade Hall was built in 1951 as a men’s dorm. The Hall was built attached to the Tower, but there was no entrance that allowed passage from one building into the other without going outside. Chaminade Tower was remodeled in 1993 and became designated for office use only. All dorm rooms were removed from the Tower. During the 1950s, Chaminade Tower was a men’s dorm on the second through fifth floor. The seniors had first choice of rooms and they usually chose the lower floors since there was no elevator, leaving freshmen and sophomores to the top floors. A Brother lived on each floor and served as a resident assistance for the young men. At one point, a group of young men took apart a Model-T, carried the parts to the second floor and reassembled the car in the hall. The basement of the building was deemed a bomb shelter during this time period. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Tower continued as a men’s dorm, but things were starting to change. The basement was turned into a career center, and the chaplain’s office moved to the first floor where a confessional was built for student use. One student questioned the existence of God during a thunder storm, lightning struck the building and dropped rubble at his feet. The student ended up in Assumption Chapel praying to God. Other students were injured during storms causing lightning rods to finally be added to the rooftop. During this time the first floor or Chaminade Tower was expanded to add meeting rooms near St. Louis Hall. An explosion at a local Air Force Base caused windows to be blown out of the Tower in 1966. During these years, a student living on the top floor collected snakes, which was allowed at the time. He enjoyed wrapping the snakes around his neck and taking them with him around campus, but especially to basketball games. He had one snake that looked like a rattle snake that earned him the nickname “rattler man.” One time, at a basketball game, his snake got away and started to slither across the court while the visiting team was practicing, scaring them all. In the 1980s, Chaminade Tower continued to be a men’s dorm with several of the offices changing in the basement and first floor. The offices of the President and Chaplain were replaced by Admissions offices. The Admissions staff had to double and triple park, so they left all their car keys at the front desk. When one had to leave, they had to move all the other cars to get out. In 1993 the Tower was completely remodeled, turning the entire space into offices. The offices located on the basement and first floor were relocated all over campus during the renovation. There were also significant changes made to the parking lot so that the people in the admissions office no longer had to rearrange everyone’s cars to leave the lot. Although Chaminade Hall has been relatively unchanged since it was built, Chaminade Tower has seen many changes over the years. Even so, the Tower remains a prominent part of life on campus for both students and staff. For more (including 5 images and 1 sound clip), view the original article.