Texas Technological College Historic District

Texas Tech University's historic core in Lubbock covers about 110 acres and preserves the campus built from 1924 to 1951 for Texas Technological College, which the legislature established in 1923. Its layout follows a cruciform plan with a circular common and esplanades, lined with two- and three-story masonry buildings of buff brick, carved stone and ceramic tile roofs. The designs, led by William Ward Watkin and the firm Sanguinet, Staats and Hedrick, especially Wyatt C. Hedrick, apply Spanish Renaissance detailing to collegiate forms. The district holds 32 contributing resources, including the Administration Building, library, museum, dormitories, agricultural buildings and a bronze Will Rogers sculpture, plus four noncontributing ones. It was recognized for its role in meeting West Texas's need for higher education tied to farming and ranching, and for its cohesive Spanish-influenced architecture on a formal Beaux Arts plan. The dairy barn and silo were already individually listed in 1992, and the buildings remain in educational use.