University of Texas School of Law - Peregrinus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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Exactly thirty years ago, the law school moved to its structure on 26th Street. Townes Hall appears above left, sans current construction buildings and Tarlton Library. Tarlton Law Library was housed in the east Townes Hall, the far right in each picture, until the fifth academic law library in the nation was built in 1980. Prof. Johnson bolts oot a show tunc in 1977 The Assault and Flattery revue began in 1952 in an open-air theater near the Main Building, and became a real spectacle the following year when Oean Page Keeton. Prof. Corwin Johnson. Prof. Gus Hodges. Cornell law dean Gray Thoron. Judge Joe Sneed of the Ninth Circuit, and Fulbrtght Jaworski partner Jack Procter won first place with a cancan line billed as A Dozen Wicked Legs. Featured over the years have been Dean Ernest Smith performing an elegant soft shoe in tails. Corwin Johnson, above, singing his showstopper Mr. Wonderful. That's Me. and associate dean T. J. Gibson in one hit after another. Above and left: the Law Building.

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Villainous engineering students mutilate yet another Peregrinus, left. white tawstudentsdispiay proper reverence tor the animal by incorporating it into an official school banner, right. The west wng of Old Main. Between 1884 and 1908. the law school was housed first in the west wing of Old Main, and then in the basement. School officials forgot about the law students in the basement when a supply house salesman came to take cap and gown orders. Law students answered this slight by refusing to wear traditional gowns at all; the sunflower ceremony tradition of white suits and sunflowers was born, and persists in part to this day. In 1908 the school moved to the new Law Building on the south side of the campus at 21st and Wichita. It was in this building that Col. Simkins. toward the end of his Contracts class, was interrupted by a braying donkey in the adjoining Cavanaugh tract. After the class laughter died down. Simkins told the class that it was just your brother calling you! Hence the term first year J.A.'s.” Simkins gave an annual lecture defending the Ku Klux Klan. which he helped originate in Florida, as the protector of women and children. Simkins is also one of the originators of the Peregrinus. 0 0 Main as if appeared after the law school moved to its new bunding. The Law Ounding. home of the law school from 1908 to 1953 Anecdotal History — 19

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EX COLL: ELTON M. HYDER, JR. The walnut-framed French Regency mirror which hangs in the lobby of Tanton Law Library is famous. The mirror dates from the mid-nineteenth century, and its Italian walnut frame is adorned with carved chimera, acanthus leaves, flower and fruit garlands, and birds. But perhaps its most famous feature is that it has become the ‘'interview mirror.” qualified by its ine foot high, six foot wide proportions and by its magnificence to be the •uitab e last minute glass for students on their way to interviews. The interview mirror is one of 73 pieces of furniture, rugs, and accessories, which along with 585 historic prints, paintings, and framed Americana comprise the Hyder Collection, on loan to the law school by Elton M. Hyder. Jr., a Ft. Worth attorney. The Hyder Collection is the most extensive collection of legal art and documents in the nation, having recently surpassed a rival collection at Harvard Law School. Since 1981, when Mr. Hyder presented 350 pieces to the university, such documents as a concessional land grant signed by Thomas Jefferson and by then-Secretary of IState James Madison, and two pages from the English Register of Writs (circa 1300). have been added to the collection. Handsome and rare oil paintings, such as a 1790 oil by J. Rising entitled Portrait of Counselor 'Men.” cover the walls of the law school. The average age of the collection pieces is over 150 years. Mr Hyder is a 1943 graduate of the law school and a life member-trustee of 'he University of Texas Law School Foundation. Before starting his law practice in Ft. Worth. Hyder acted as assistant Attorney General of Texas, and was involved in the prosecution of General Tojo and other Japanese war criminals in Tokyo after World War II. The curator of the collection is M's. Custis Wright. Mrs. Wright sleuthed the identity of the Rising portrait in England, and her research has taken her as far as China. The collection ranslorms the library into a place of beauty and history, and adds an addi-tonai dimension to learning. Ferae naturae are featured on a number of the valuable antiques: above, a detail of an engraved brass lock on a Korean elmwood storage chest; below, a gargoyle on the interview mirror. Lynn Berat A table leg fashioned into a dragon and elephant, from a mid-nineteenth century Burmese rosewood table Ex Con —21