Evans Industrial Building
a.k.a. Evans Building
Huston-Tillotson College Campus, 1820 E. 8th, Austin, TXThe oldest structure remaining on the campus of Huston-Tillotson College is the Evans Industrial Building, a rectangular plan, two and a half story, concrete block, institutional structure which was erected in 1911. Simply detailed and void of stylistic ornament, the building was the first constructed during a period of expansion and transition of the school. The addition of Evans Hall to the campus countered the proponents of a strictly classical education for blacks, naturally satisfying those who endorsed a "practical" training - a controversy common to black educational institutions of the period. Responsible for the major funding and backing of the Evans Industrial Building and the expansion of the college was a civic and political leader in Austin and the State of Texas, Major Ira Hobart Evans, thirty-nine years a member of the Tillotson College Board of Trustees (1881-1920) and eleven years as its president (1911-1920).
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.