The Mighty Battle for the Water Tank

By Jim Nicar in 40 Acres on October 17, 2011 at 8:35 am | No Comments

Some schools have a symbolic stone that students paint and repaint in the middle of campus. UT, it turns out, had a giant water tank. The shenanigans around it have become the stuff of legend.

Among the many landmarks that have graced the UT campus through the years, none is as infamous as the spindle-legged water tank that sat just north of the old Main Building, near the small parking lot behind Painter Hall today. Installed in 1904, a campus fixture for almost two decades, the tank provided a backdrop for many campus shenanigans, and was the catalyst for a long-lasting rivalry between law and engineering students. Oct. 14 marked the anniversary of the first great battle for the water tank.

The need for a tank originated in 1900, when a cataclysmic spring flood brought down the seven year-old Austin Dam that created Lake Austin. (It has since been replaced by the Tom Miller Dam, which divides Lake Austin and Lady Bird Lake.) City water service was interrupted and remained sporadic for years, and the frequent water shortages forced Austinites to make emergency plans until a new dam could be built.

Just before the start of the 1904-05 academic year, UT President William Prather ordered the elevated water tank constructed behind the auditorium of Old Main. Dubbed “Prexy Prather’s Pot” by the students (“Prexy” was slang for “President” at the time), it towered 120 feet on four lattice supports and stood “in somber majesty on the open campus, in its coat of black paint.”

The tank cost just over $11,000, but after it was ready and tested, the University discovered that the city could only provide enough water pressure to fill the tank halfway, making it almost useless. Even worse, the tank leaked, and a permanent pool of mud formed directly beneath it. Fortunately, the University didn’t experience a water emergency, but the tank itself became the focus for student antics.

On the brisk autumn morning of October 14, just a few months after the tank’s arrival, the campus awoke to find that the junior law class (the first-year law students) had scaled the ladder attached to the northwest support and decorated the sides of the tank with white paint. The initials of the 1907 Law Class, “0L7,” were boldly displayed, along with “Beware Freshie” and some derogatory remarks about freshmen, especially first-year engineering students.

“Every time we viewed the shameful sight, it burned deeper into our seared vision,” wrote Alf Toombs, a freshman engineer. While the junior law’s handiwork taunted from above, freshmen huddled all day and plotted their revenge. Toombs acquired a large sheet of tough paper, and drew “by aid of a bottle of Whitmore’s black shoestring dressing, the silhouette of a jackass of noble proportions, and with the brand of the ’07 Laws on his flank.”

The choice of the animal wasn’t arbitrary. In 1900, law professor William Simkins was lecturing to his first-year Equity class, and had asked a student about the day’s lesson. Before he could respond, a mule grazing outside the classroom window brayed. “Gentlemen,” said Simkins above the laughter, “one at a time!” Thereafter, junior law classes were nicknamed “Simkins’ Jackasses,” or simply, the “J.A.s.”

Shortly after dinner that evening, the “clans of the engineers” gathered around the water tank, shouted class cheers and yells of defiance, and dared the law students to dislodge them. “Mars was the ruling planet in the horoscope for University students for several days,” noted the Texan student newspaper. The junior laws responded accordingly, and amassed to face off against their campus rivals. Once begun, the freshman scrap sprawled over a half-acre and lasted almost an hour. “I entered the melee with a full wardrobe,” Toombs recounted, “and emerged minus a sweater, shirt, cap and part of my ‘munsing-wear,’ not to mention about four square inches of skin.”

Though the junior law students were generally older and stronger, the engineers held a numerical advantage. As opportunities arose, unwary laws were captured and “baptized” in the mud pool below the water tank. The battle didn’t subside until the both groups were exhausted, and the muddy and overpowered junior laws had retreated, at least temporarily.

Flushed with their victory, the engineers recruited Toombs, along with fellow freshmen Clarence Elmore and Drury Phillips, to climb and redecorate the water tank. The ascent was perilous, as the ladder only went as far as the bottom of the parapet that guarded the service platform. Each of the three would have to grab the parapet, hang by their arms, and swing their legs up and over the railing to get a foothold. Since the law students had done this the night before, the three set out on their mission. Armed with white paint, paintbrushes, and Toombs’ sign, the group brought along a pair of blankets each, as they planned to stay and guard their work through the chilly night.

The law students’ graffiti was replaced by a skull and crossbones, class initials “C.E. ‘08” and “E.E. ‘08” for the civil and electrical engineers, along with, “Down with the Laws,” and “Malted Milk for Junior Laws.” Toombs’ painting, “a meek, symbolic jackass, branded 0L7,” was hung in a prominent position. Before bedding down for the night atop the water tank, the three discussed what to do if the laws should return. As one of them had brought along some chewing tobacco, it was decided that if their fort was invaded, all of them would “chew tobacco for dear life and expectorate on the attacking party.” A late-night visit by four freshmen in the Academic Department caused some alarm, and the defense was employed. The pleading Academs insisted that they only wanted to add their own class initials to the side of the tank. After some heated deliberation, the engineers grudgingly consented. The rest of the night passed quietly, but it was a miserable one for Toombs. “You see, I was not a user of tobacco, and my gallant defense got the best of me. I was deathly sick for two hours.”

The tank’s revised appearance had the campus buzzing the following morning, and the talk continued for weeks. Engineers and Laws both claimed victory, and expressed their views poetically in “The Radiator” column of the Texan. The law students boasted:

Take your dues, ye engineers,

Take a mudding mid the jeers

Of the ‘Varsity’s population –

The Law’s Equity is just,

And the Laws will, when they must,

Give to you its application.

 

While the engineers parried:

That same night the Engineers,

A noisy, noisome crowd,

Took lessons in high art at which

No Law man was allowed.

And those few Laws that hung around

Knew not which way to turn.

On every hand the enemy,

Whose need seemed to be stern.

President Prather, though, was not amused, and by mid-morning had hired someone to repaint the entire tank in gray and remove the ladder. Of course, this only provided an irresistible challenge to the students, and the water tank was regularly decorated through the rest of the academic year.

When David Houston succeeded Prather as president in 1905, he adopted a different strategy, and told the students they were welcome to paint the tank as often as they wished. This took all of the fun out of the deed, and the tank was neglected for years. William Battle, the professor of Greek famous for his “Greek Room,” rose through the academic ranks, and was appointed president ad interim in 1914. His attitude was “touch not,” which promptly re-ignited student interest, and the tank was decorated once more.

The water tank remained on the campus through WWI. Along with the usual class initials and slogans, the tank sported the insignias of the military schools stationed at the University through the war, including a particularly well-done mural of a bi-plane painted by a soldier in the School for Military Aeronautics.

In 1920, the tank was sold to a Houston contractor for $2,000 and finally removed. Its passing was eulogized in the student newspaper: “Our old historic and beloved tank is no more. This old tank was to the University what the Statue of Liberty at the entrance to New York Harbor is to the lover of American democracy. It is the embodiment and emblem of all the splendid traditions, good or bad, of this still more splendid institution.”

Top: The water tank bearing its graffiti. Below: the old Main Building, surrounded by spring bluebonnets, with the water tank to the north. Photos courtesy Jim Nicar.

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Tags: University of Texas history, UT history, UT Old Main, UT water tank, William Battle