The Incomparable Dairy Barn

June 13, 2022

A look at the long history of a staple on the Texas Tech campus for National Dairy Month.

Built in the 1920s, the Dairy Barn is one of the original buildings on the campus of what was then known as Texas Technological College. In its early days, the barn was a functional facility, with students allowed to bring as many as three of their own cows with them to campus, so they could pay their tuition with milk sales. By 1931, the dairy manufacturing department was providing milk and ice cream to campus cafeterias, with the excess sold to the Lubbock community. 

Dairy Barn 2 — *Photo provided by Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library*

Dairy Barn 3 — *Photo provided by Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library*

Dairy Barn 4 — *Photo provided by Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library*

Dairy Barn 5 — *Photo provided by Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library*

Dairy Barn 6 — *Photo provided by Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library*

Dairy Barn 7 — *Photo provided by Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library*

In the mid-1960s, the dairy manufacturing department vacated the building, leaving the Dairy Barn to fall into disrepair. By 1976, discussions were being had about the restoration of the Dairy Barn and its potential uses. In 1984, the Dairy Barn was deemed unsafe and structurally unsound by the Coordinating Board for the Texas College and University System. The Texas Tech student senate took action to preserve the Dairy Barn in 1989, creating a “Save the Barn” campaign. It raised $64,000 to weatherize the building and fought to have it placed on the National Register of Historic Places, which was achieved in 1992. A 2012 project gave the Dairy Barn a facelift, with new paint and shingles put on to help preserve the historic building.  

In 2017, the Office of the President agreed to match donations dollar-for-dollar up to $1.3 million to make the Dairy Barn a working building again. Ground broke on the renovations in 2019 and the facility was finished in 2020. Today, the historic Dairy Barn stands as a symbol of Texas Tech’s agricultural heritage and is an integral part of the Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources.   

Dairy Barn 10 — *Photos provided by Facilities Planning and Construction*

tags: College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Feature Stories, Stories, TTU Features

Texas Tech University

A new era of excellence is dawning at Texas Tech University as it stands on the cusp of being one of the nation's premier research institutions.

Research and enrollment numbers are at record levels, which cement Texas Tech's commitment to attracting and retaining quality students. In fall 2020, the university achieved a goal more than a decade in the making, reaching a total student population of more than 40,000. In 2018, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education again placed Texas Tech among its top doctoral universities in the nation in the “Very High Research Activity” category. Texas Tech is one of 94 public institutions nationally and 131 overall to achieve this prestigious recognition.

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Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources

The Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources is made up of six departments:

Agriculture and Applied Economics
Agricultural Education and Communications
Animal and Food Science
Landscape Architecture
Plant and Soil Science
Natural Resources Management

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Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library

The Board of Regents of then-Texas Technological College formally established the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library in 1955, but the library’s collection dates to the early years of Texas Tech.

The largest rare-book library in 130,000 square miles, the major historical repository and research center spans a 78,000-square-foot facility with climate-controlled stacks and pulls tens of thousands of individual items to answer research requests from all over the world. In total, the SWC/SCL houses 22 million historical items, including the master Coronelli globe, constructed in 1688 and once owned by William Randolph Hearst.

The SWC/SCL offers:

more than 1,600 manuscript collections
80,000 volumes related to the region
4,000 oral history interviews
nearly one million accessible photographs
1,500 newspaper and periodical titles
8,000 reels of microfilm and videotape

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Texas Tech Today

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