Huntsville Sites

Belvin Hall was the first student residence constructed on the campus of Sam Houston State University, then called Sam Houston State Teachers College. With an occupancy of 92, the building has remained a women-only residence since it opened. The Public Works Administration financed the four-story red brick building with a $150,000 grant and loan package. The college built on an addition called Buchanan Hall in 1945 to support the increasing population of the school. Now known as Belvin-Buchanan Hall, the combined structure houses 209 girls.

In the early 1930s, at a meeting of the Huntsville-Walker County Chamber of Commerce, it was suggested that a park be built around Huntsville. The Chamber of Commerce took the proposal to the Texas State Parks Board. The board required that the community provide the land for the park. Twenty thousand dollars in bonds would have to be sold by Walker County to pay for the land needed. In early 1936, the bond issue passed with more than four to one in favor of selling the bonds. From 1937 to 1942, Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Company 1823(CV), an experienced company of...

Pritchett Field is a historic football stadium at Sam Houston State University. The first football game at Pritchett Field was on October 6, 1912. The Work Progress Administration constructed stone bleachers on both sides of Pritchett Field in the 1930s. In 1967, the stone bleachers on the east side were removed. Pritchett field is currently the home field of Sam Houston State women's soccer.

The Civil Works Administration (CWA) built the Josey Boy Scout Lodge in Huntsville in 1934. Huntsville native and self made millionaire Robert A. Josey donated $5000 for the construction of a Boy Scout lodge in 1933. "The material for the construction was donated by J. P. Gibbs of Gibbs Brothers and Co. and included treated logs and stones from local forests and quarries. Lewis. E. Meekins of Austin was hired as contractor to build the log cabin style lodge. The structure was designed by architect Mike Mebane and based on a scale model made by the Scouts themselves." The lodge has five rooms,...

Between 1939 and 1940, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked at the state fish hatchery northeast of Huntsville, Texas as part of project 65-1-66-175. The WPA reworked the ponds to remove sediment, added an 8-inch water supply line and concrete drainage boxes. They improved the drainage ditches by digging them out, rebuilding some with rock masonry walls and adding culverts where necessary. They also widened some of the levees around the ponds to allow trucks to drive on them. Years later, the lake that fed the ponds of the hatchery drained when its dam failed in a storm, forcing the closure...