Birdwell Field, Aikman Gym and the Women's Recreation Center
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
When Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College was funded in 1921, the Texas legislature only authorized one building--the Austin Building, known as "Old Main". President Alton W. Birdwell recognized the importance for extra curricular venues for the college and the region, and immediately began planning to meet these needs. He arranged for the construction of the school's first athletic field in 1923, before the college even moved to its North Street campus. From 1923 until 1941, which was its last year of use, the only changes made to Birdwell Firld were the addition of bleachers in 1924. Memorial Stadium, dedicated to those who had died in World War II, replaced Birdwell Field in 1946. Thanks to a generous donation from local philanthropist Frank Aikman, a multi-purpose building was constructed and named in his honor. Aikman Gymnasium served the college not only as an arena for athletics, but also as an auditorium, a theater with seating capacity of 3,500, and as a setting for commencement exercises until they were moved to Shelton Gymnasium in 1953. A physical education building for women was requested as early as 1931, but was not constructed until 1935 with assistance from the Public Works Administration. While its primary purpose was as a setting for women's physical education, the Women's Recreation Center (WRC) replaced Aikman Gym as the location of college dances, and served as the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) post exchange during World War II. Both Aikman Gym and the WRC were demolished in 1975 to make room for new university facilities. (2008)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College was funded in 1921, the legislature paid for only one building—the Austin Building, or "Old Main." President Alton W. Birdwell, convinced the young college needed more, arranged its first athletic field in 1923, even before the campus moved to North Street. Over the following decades the college added Aikman Gymnasium, a 3,500-seat multipurpose hall given by philanthropist Frank Aikman, and a Women's Recreation Center built in 1935 with Public Works Administration help, which doubled as a WAAC post exchange during World War II. Memorial Stadium later replaced Birdwell Field, honoring the college's WWII dead.
Why it matters
These vanished venues chart the growth of a Texas teachers' college into a full university, and show how campus life, New Deal public works, and even wartime service all left their imprint on a single stretch of ground.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1921, the Texas legislature funded a new institution in the Piney Woods of East Texas: Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College at Nacogdoches. "Teachers college" is the key phrase — across America in this era, states were building normal schools and teachers colleges to train the instructors a growing, modernizing nation needed for its classrooms.
But the legislature authorized only one building, the Austin Building, aptly nicknamed "Old Main." A single structure does not make a campus, and certainly not the kind of place where young people live, learn, compete, and gather. The gap between what a college was funded for and what it actually needed to become a community is the engine of this whole story.
The decades that followed — the 1920s and 1930s especially — were a time when American higher education was expanding fast, when New Deal public works were reshaping campuses, and when the coming of World War II would touch even a small teachers college in East Texas. All of that left its mark on this one stretch of Nacogdoches ground.
People & events
The driving figure is President Alton W. Birdwell, who understood that a college is more than a classroom building. He began planning for "extra curricular venues" almost immediately and arranged for the school's first athletic field in 1923 — remarkably, before the college had even moved to its North Street campus. Birdwell Field served from 1923 until 1941, its only real change being the addition of bleachers in 1924.
Around that first field, a fuller campus rose. Thanks to a gift from local philanthropist Frank Aikman, a multipurpose building bearing his name was constructed — Aikman Gymnasium, which was far more than an arena. It served as an auditorium and a theater seating 3,500, and hosted commencement exercises until those moved to Shelton Gymnasium in 1953. A physical education building for women, requested as early as 1931, finally rose in 1935 with help from the Public Works Administration.
That Women's Recreation Center had a life beyond its purpose. It replaced Aikman Gym as the site of college dances, and during World War II it served as the post exchange for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. Meanwhile Birdwell Field gave way in 1946 to Memorial Stadium, dedicated to those who had died in the war. Aikman Gym and the WRC were both demolished in 1975 to make room for new university facilities — vanished now, but each a chapter in the college's rise.
Its place in the American story
This modest cluster of vanished buildings tells the national story of how a bare-bones teachers college grew into a full university. All across America, institutions founded to train teachers steadily expanded their missions and their campuses over the 20th century, and the physical record of that growth — a first field, a donated gym, a women's building — is exactly what this marker preserves.
It also carries the fingerprints of two great national forces. The Women's Recreation Center, built in 1935 with Public Works Administration assistance, is a small piece of the New Deal, when federal work programs built schools, gyms, and public buildings across the country and left a lasting mark on American campuses. And the way that same building became a WAAC post exchange during World War II shows how thoroughly the war reached into civilian and campus life.
Memorial Stadium, dedicated to the college's war dead and built where the old field had been, closes the circle. It is a reminder that even far from any front, American communities counted their losses and built to honor them.
If you visit
You're visiting ghosts here — Birdwell Field, Aikman Gym, and the Women's Recreation Center are all gone, cleared over the years for the university that grew up around them. The pleasure of this marker is imaginative: standing on a modern campus and picturing the first athletic field laid out in 1923, before the school had even moved here, on the strength of one president's conviction that students needed more than a single classroom building.
Try to picture Aikman Gymnasium doing everything at once — a basketball arena one night, a 3,500-seat theater the next, a commencement hall come spring. Multipurpose buildings like that were the beating heart of small colleges, and losing them to newer, more specialized facilities is its own quiet kind of progress.
For a road trip through East Texas, Nacogdoches and the Stephen F. Austin campus reward travelers who like watching institutions grow across time. Look for Old Main's descendants and for Memorial Stadium's namesake purpose, and let this marker remind you that a campus is a palimpsest — every new building written over the outlines of an older one.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Alton W. Birdwell
- · Frank Aikman
Related events
- · World War II
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Women's Army Corps School
Nacogdoches, TX
When World War II drained young men — and students — from campuses across the country, the U.S. Army turned college classrooms into training grounds for its newest recruits: women. With enrollment at Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College fallen below 500, the Army opened Administration School No. 1 here in 1943 to teach members of the Women's Army Corps the clerical and administrative trades of a modern military. Housed in the dormitories and drilled in six-week courses, roughly 3,000 women passed through before the school closed in 1944, each graduating class thanking the town with a variety show at the high school.
Paul Lewis Boynton
Nacogdoches, TX
Paul Lewis Boynton, a Texas-born psychologist trained at Peabody College, became president of Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College in 1942 just as World War II drained its male students away. To keep the school alive he persuaded the federal government to open a Women's Army Corps training school on campus in 1943 and secured surplus buildings and land that launched a forestry department in 1945, then guided a surge of postwar enrollment until his sudden death in 1958.
Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College During World War II
Nacogdoches, TX
When the United States entered World War II after Pearl Harbor, the president of Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College gathered students and faculty to meet the national emergency—and the campus emptied into the war. Enrollment fell by sixty percent, football was suspended, and a campus flag bore more than a thousand blue stars for those serving and twenty-four gold ones for those who died. In a notable distinction, the Army chose SFA in 1943 as the first college in the nation to host a Women's Army Corps training school. After the war, returning veterans on the G.I. Bill swelled the college and its recreation grounds were rededicated as Memorial Park and Memorial Stadium.
Wisely Hall
Nacogdoches, TX
When Stephen F. Austin State University moved to the edge of Nacogdoches in 1924, student housing was scarce, and the Great Depression soon froze plans for expansion. President Alton Birdwell and business manager J. H. Wisely turned to the New Deal's Public Works Administration, and in 1935–36 the town's first PWA project rose: a men's dormitory that quickly became a favorite gathering spot. During World War II it housed a Women's Army Corps unit before returning to student use, and in 1948 it was renamed Wisely Hall in honor of Wisely.