Tower Memories With Dad

Richard Corse, BBA '81

The history and symbolism of the Tower are, for me, part of a family collective celebrating multiple generations of UT memories.

My wife's grandfather, James Clayton Dowdy Sr., was a mason and laid brick on the Tower from bottom to top. Her father often touched the bricks his dad had helped place when he passed by the Tower while walking to class.

My uncle, Ben Smykal, was a student and part-time tour guide at the Tower in 1936. Trip after trip, he guided campus visitors up to take in the sweeping views from the top. The trip was not for the faint of heart, as the only way up was in an open-air construction lift along the north side of the Tower. It was more chicken coop than elevator.

The view from the Tower in 1936 was without skyscrapers or urban sprawl, with a student population of fewer than 7,000. The Capitol and the football stadium were among the few recognizable landmarks he recalled when he was invited back to the Tower for the 1999 reopening. As he told an Austin American-Statesman reporter, there was no I-35: "It was just Congress Avenue, then dog leg, dog leg and on to Dallas."