College Hall Gymnasium

The College Hall Gymnasium, finished in 1915 located in the basement of the building, was “a spacious room with ample floor space for any games played there” and a balcony with a seating capacity for 150. It was the site of the first known indoor basketball court at Henderson.

In November, 1922, as basketball season approached, the gymnasium acquired a new look when J. B. Garrett, Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds, directed a crew of carpenters who installed new flooring and bleachers and then painted the walls white. The new floor consisted of several layers of material. “Deep down in the ground carpenters poured a layer of concrete over a layer of grain. On top of the concrete, they laid rows of 2 x 4's “interlined with sawdust” to act as a shock absorber. Next came the subflooring covered with “Slater Felt or damp-proof paper.” Not obtainable in Arkansas, the top flooring of Edgegrain pine had to be ordered from Louisiana.

A few years later, to increase the seating capacity by at least 300, the carpenters built a row of bleachers underneath the balconies. They also gave the old gymnasium “a new suit, all white, which provided “a much more pleasant appearance than heretofore.” With these improvements, the “new” gymnasium “would rank well among the best of the state” and add to the value of “Greater Henderson-Brown”.

After the new Haygood Gymnasium was built in 1935, student workers removed the balcony around the old gymnasium wall as part of a project to convert the gymnasium into a practice basketball court and physical education classroom. Once the pride of the College, the balcony extended about eight feet from the wall and added to the seating capacity of the gymnasium. The original College Hall Gymnasium was destroyed with the rest of the building in 1964, following the construction of McBrien Hall.