Texas Tech University Dairy Barn
Lubbock, Lubbock County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The dairy barn at Texas Tech University was completed in 1927 and was built to house the cows used by the Animal Husbandry Department. The barn and adjacent silo were designed by the architectural and engineering firm of Sanguinet, Staats & Hedrick. Principal architect Wyatt Hedrick designed an Arts and Crafts bungalow barn, a style that differed from the central campus Spanish Renaissance Revival architecture. Two agricultural instructors, Dr. A.H. Leidigh and W.L. Stangel, were instrumental in the planning stages, suggesting that the barn should appeal to the sensibilities of farmers. The El Paso firm of Ramey Bros. was awarded the contract in July 1925 to build the dairy barn complex. The barn closely followed standard dairy farming configuration and was constructed with hollow-tile walls plastered with gray stucco, wood windows, doors and exposed rafter ends. The free-standing silo was constructed from cast concrete and features a conical roof. The plans for the two-wing barn included a milk house, sun room, milking and feeding room, calf stalls, boiler room, feed mixing room and an office. By 1930, the dairy produced enough milk, butter and ice cream for the college cafeteria and private customers. Students who kept their cows at the dairy reduced their tuition through the sale of the dairy’s products. The barn was damaged in a fire on January 29, 1930, but was repaired and remained in use until 1966 when the Dairy Manufacturing Department vacated the building. Soon after, the milk house and sun room wings were demolished to make way for the Foreign Language Building. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 2015
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Completed in 1927 to house the cows of Texas Tech's Animal Husbandry Department, this dairy barn was deliberately designed as an Arts and Crafts bungalow to appeal to the farmers the young college served, setting it apart from the campus's Spanish Renaissance Revival architecture. Architect Wyatt Hedrick laid out a working dairy complete with milk house, milking rooms, calf stalls, and a cast-concrete silo. By 1930 the operation supplied milk, butter, and ice cream to the cafeteria, and students could offset their tuition by selling the products of cows they kept there.
Why it matters
The barn is a tangible reminder of the agricultural mission at the heart of West Texas land-grant education, when a college and the farming families around it grew up together.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Texas Technological College — today's Texas Tech University — opened its doors in Lubbock in the 1920s, it was a young institution planted deliberately on the wide, dry plains of West Texas. The region was built on agriculture: cotton, cattle, and the hard, hopeful work of farming a land that gave nothing easily. A college here was meant to serve those families, and its early buildings and programs reflected a mission rooted in the soil around it.
The 1920s were also a period of confident campus building across America, when new colleges chose architectural styles to announce their identity. Texas Tech's central campus took on a Spanish Renaissance Revival look, all arches and warm masonry. But not every building followed that grand template — and the choices made for the ones that didn't tell you a great deal about who the college thought it was serving.
This marker stands at a dairy barn completed in 1927 to house the cows of the Animal Husbandry Department. It was, quite literally, where a land-grant-style education met a working farm: a place where students learned the science and business of dairying on the same ground where the college was still figuring out what it would become.
People & events
The barn was the product of some deliberate thinking. It was designed by the architectural and engineering firm of Sanguinet, Staats & Hedrick, with principal architect Wyatt Hedrick choosing an Arts and Crafts "bungalow barn" style rather than echoing the campus's Spanish Renaissance Revival core. Two agricultural instructors, Dr. A.H. Leidigh and W.L. Stangel, shaped the plans with a simple, telling instinct: the barn should appeal to the sensibilities of the farmers the college served. The El Paso firm of Ramey Bros. won the construction contract in 1925.
What rose was a genuine working dairy, not a showpiece. Built with hollow-tile walls under gray stucco, with exposed rafter ends and wood windows and doors, the two-wing barn held a milk house, sun room, milking and feeding rooms, calf stalls, a boiler room, a feed-mixing room, and an office. A free-standing cast-concrete silo with a conical roof stood alongside.
By 1930 the operation was producing enough milk, butter, and ice cream to supply the college cafeteria and private customers — and, in a nice bit of practical education, students who boarded their own cows at the dairy could reduce their tuition by selling the products. A fire damaged the barn early in 1930, but it was repaired and stayed in use until 1966, when the Dairy Manufacturing Department moved out. Soon after, two of its wings were demolished to make room for the Foreign Language Building.
Its place in the American story
The dairy barn is a small monument to one of the great ideas in American education: that a college should be practical, tied to the working life of the region around it, and open to the sons and daughters of farmers. The decision to design the barn to please farmers' eyes — rather than to match the campus's formal architecture — is that philosophy made visible in brick and stucco.
The tuition arrangement is just as revealing. A student who kept a cow at the dairy and sold its milk to offset the cost of school embodies the work-your-way-through-college spirit that opened higher education to people who could never have paid cash for it. Across the country, agricultural colleges built exactly these kinds of bridges between learning and livelihood.
And the barn's later fate — partly demolished to make way for a Foreign Language Building — quietly tells the larger story of American universities themselves. Institutions that began with a working farm at their heart grew into complex, wide-ranging campuses, and the old agricultural bones were gradually built over. That this barn survives at all makes it a rare, tangible link to a university's, and a region's, beginnings.
If you visit
Look for what makes this building different from its neighbors. On a campus known for Spanish Renaissance Revival arches, the barn's Arts and Crafts "bungalow" character stands apart — a deliberate choice to look like something a farmer would recognize and trust. Notice the gray stucco over hollow tile and the exposed rafter ends, and picture the working dairy this once was.
The free-standing concrete silo with its conical roof is worth finding too. Together the barn and silo read as a complete little farmstead dropped onto a growing university campus — which is essentially what they were, back when students learned dairying by doing it.
As you stand there, remember that part of the original complex is gone: two wings were demolished decades ago, so what remains is a survivor. On a walk through Texas Tech, this is a quiet, easily missed spot that rewards a pause — a place to think about how a West Texas college and the farming families around it grew up together.
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
- · Wyatt Hedrick
- · A.H. Leidigh
- · W.L. Stangel
Themes & tags
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