Wisely Hall
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
After Stephen F. Austin State University moved to the northern edge of Nacogdoches in the spring of 1924, it became evident to President Alton W. Birdwell that housing options for students in the surrounding area were inadequate. However, before plans for dormitories could materialize, the Great Depression immobilized the expansion of Texas educational institutions. President Birdwell and business manager J.H. Wisely saw the Public Works Administration (PWA) of the National Recovery Act of 1933 as a solution to the dearth of campus housing. By the end of 1933, Birdwell and wisely presented plans for a men’s dormitory that would accommodate 70 students in 35 rooms. There were also plans for a kitchen, dining room, apartment for the manager and social and club rooms for student use. In 1934, the State Board of Regents agreed to the plans and issued bonds for $93,000, with the PWA providing funding. W.E. Ketchum was the architect for the project and the A.M. Campbell Company was chosen as general contractor. The “boy’s dorm” was the first PWA project in Nacogdoches. Its construction began in July 1935 and was completed in 1936 at a final cost of $106,000, including furnishings. The boy’s dorm quickly became a favorite place for all students, but especially commuters, to congregate. Many of the residents were also employed as waiters and servers in the cafeteria. In 1943, President Paul Lewis Boynton recruited the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Branch Number 1 to use the dorm as barracks. Male students moved back into the dorm in January 1944. In 1948, President Boynton and the Board of Regents changed the name to Wisely Hall in honor of J.H. Wisely, who died in 1945.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
The building shows how New Deal public works reshaped American campuses during the Depression and how those same halls were pressed into service for the war effort.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Wisely Hall was born out of two of the defining forces of its era: the growth of public higher education and the crushing arrival of the Great Depression. When Stephen F. Austin moved to the northern edge of Nacogdoches in the spring of 1924, it was a young and growing school, and its president quickly saw a problem — there was nowhere near enough decent housing for the students streaming in.
Then the bottom fell out. The Depression froze the expansion of educational institutions across Texas and the nation. Plans that had seemed merely a matter of time were suddenly impossible, because the money had simply vanished. A dormitory the school badly needed was exactly the kind of project that stalled.
The way out came from Washington. The New Deal of the 1930s created programs to put people to work and build public infrastructure, and the Public Works Administration, established in 1933, was designed to fund large, permanent construction projects. For a cash-strapped college, it was a lifeline.
People & events
Two men drive this story. President Alton W. Birdwell recognized the housing shortage early and refused to let the Depression bury the idea. Business manager J. H. Wisely worked alongside him, and together they saw the new federal PWA as the answer to the campus's lack of housing.
By the end of 1933 they had a plan: a men's dormitory for seventy students in thirty-five rooms, complete with a kitchen, a dining room, a manager's apartment, and social and club rooms. In 1934 the State Board of Regents approved it and issued bonds, with the PWA providing funding. With W. E. Ketchum as architect and the A. M. Campbell Company as contractor, construction began in July 1935 and finished in 1936 — the first PWA project in Nacogdoches. The 'boy's dorm' quickly became a gathering place for students, and many residents also worked as waiters and servers in the cafeteria.
Then came the war. In 1943 the school's president recruited a Women's Army Corps branch to use the dormitory as barracks; male students moved back in early in 1944. And in 1948 the building was renamed Wisely Hall to honor J. H. Wisely, who had died in 1945 — a permanent tribute to the man who had helped will it into being.
Its place in the American story
Wisely Hall is a piece of the New Deal you can still walk into. Across the country, PWA dollars raised schools, dormitories, courthouses, dams, and bridges — much of it so solidly built that it is still in service generations later. This dormitory is one small brick in that enormous national program, and it shows exactly how the New Deal touched an ordinary campus: not as an abstraction, but as a place for students to sleep, eat, and gather.
Its wartime chapter connects it to a second great national experience. During the Second World War, colleges and other institutions across America were pressed into military service, their buildings handed over to training programs and uniformed personnel. A men's dormitory becoming barracks for a Women's Army Corps unit is a vivid reminder of how completely the war reordered civilian life — including the newly expanded role women took on in the military.
Together those two chapters — Depression relief and wartime service — make the building a compact witness to how the federal government reshaped American life in the 1930s and 1940s.
If you visit
Read the building as a document. A structure raised by the Public Works Administration tends to be sturdy and dignified rather than flashy, built to last on public money — look for that solid, no-nonsense quality when you take in its lines and materials.
Then hold two very different scenes in mind as you stand there. First, the 1930s: students moving in, some of them working the cafeteria to help pay their way, the dorm becoming a social hub in hard times. Then the 1940s: the same rooms serving as barracks for a Women's Army Corps unit before students returned. Few buildings ask you to picture such different lives under one roof.
As part of a campus visit, let the marker slow you down. A college is easy to rush through as background scenery, but this one spot ties the school directly to two of the biggest stories in twentieth-century America — and knowing that, you will never see the ordinary dormitory quite the same way again.
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
- · J. H. Wisely
Related events
- · Public Works Administration
- · World War II
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Paul Lewis Boynton
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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.
Women's Army Corps School
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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.
Birdwell Field, Aikman Gym and the Women's Recreation Center
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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.
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