Centennial video series: The Owl

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Rice University’s weekly centennial videos run through Oct. 12

HOUSTON – (March 29, 2012) – Today Rice University, the Texas Medical Center and Rice Village offer a plethora of restaurants, shops and other amenities to faculty, students and staff of the university. Of course, it wasn’t always that way, especially in the early days of the Rice Institute. One of the only options for the Rice community at the time was a nearby refreshment spot — a shack really — called The Owl. Located between campus and the Rice Trolley stop on Main Street, it became a destination for students to gather with their friends over a 5-cent Coke after class. While the first owner is unknown, The Owl was bought by Rice Athletics supporter and businessman George Martin in 1919 and was expanded and improved. It’s unknown when The Owl closed, but it is believed to have shuttered between 1921 and 1928 when Palmer Church was built.

Working with Centennial Historian Melissa Kean, video producer Brandon Martin goes back to the early 1900s for a look at The Owl. To learn more about Rice’s history, visit Kean’s blog at www.ricehistorycorner.com.

To help celebrate the university’s centennial Oct. 12, Rice University is producing weekly videos exploring the school’s unique history.

The video, available on YouTube at http://youtu.be/wUkZ5_eCWBg, is also available to media in high quality and without music for editing purposes. For higher-quality video, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations at Rice, at david@rice.edu or 713-348-6327.