University of Houston Campus Tour

The University of Houston opened in 1927 as a junior college holding night classes in a high school, became a four-year university in 1934, and moved onto this southeast Houston campus in 1939 thanks largely to oilman Hugh Roy Cullen. This walk begins in the original core around Cullen Family Plaza, where students rub the bronze cougars' paws for luck. It then heads through the library and the arts district before swinging east to the stadium and the station that put America's first educational TV broadcast on the air.

The University of Houston grew from a junior college holding night classes in a high school in 1927 into a major public research university, and oilman Hugh Roy Cullen did more than anyone to give it a permanent home. This walk explores the campus his gifts helped build, along with the traditions and firsts that grew up around it.

The original core is full of Cullen names. Dedicated in 1939, the Roy G. Cullen Building was named for the family's son, who died in an oilfield accident. It was the first building on the permanent campus and is often described as one of the first air-conditioned college buildings in the country. Nearby, students and fans rub the paws of the bronze cougars on the plaza, a 2004 gift, for luck before games.

The campus has a cultural side too. The Blaffer Art Museum keeps no permanent collection. Instead it mounts rotating exhibitions of contemporary artists from Houston and around the world, and admission is free.

The walk also takes in a real piece of broadcasting history. On May 25, 1953, KUHT went on the air from the university as the nation's first noncommercial educational television station, and only the second TV station of any kind in Houston. College courses beamed into living rooms were its early staple, and it lives on today as Houston Public Media.

It's a varied, rewarding walk through the campus that Houston's oil money and civic ambition built.