100-year-old photos show the University of Texas at Austin before the hoopla

Scroll through the slideshow to see early photographs of the UT campus, dating back more than 100 years. Scroll through the slideshow to see early photographs of the UT campus, dating back more than 100 years. Photo: Dolph Briscoe Center For American History, University Of Texas At Austin Photo: Dolph Briscoe Center For American History, University Of Texas At Austin Image 1 of / 45 Caption Close 100-year-old photos show the University of Texas at Austin before the hoopla 1 / 45 Back to Gallery

Back before the tailgating parties, the Red River Rivalry and The Drag, the University of Texas at Austin was simply a campus in the middle of brush country.

Photographs taken over 100 years ago by Professor John Matthias Kuehne show how the university’s handful of buildings looked in black and white, and surrounded by cacti and mesquite trees on the 40-acre site known as “College Hill.”

As a photography professor, Kuehne shot many photographs around Central Texas, as well as around the world. His photograph collection at the university’s Briscoe Center for American History ranges from 1894-1950, and even contains some of the earliest colored images of the university.

Kuehne taught the first photography course at the university in 1908, but he later became a physics professor until 1951 and was deemed a “pioneer” for researching the link between magnetism and electricity.

Click through the slideshow to see the earliest photographs of the University of Texas at Austin, which date back to 1894.

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