Abilene History in Plain Sight by Jay Moore

Author:Jay Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Leafwood Publishers
Published: 2014-09-10T16:00:00+00:00

THE ROUND

BUILDING

Standing along Barrow Street in Rose Park (formerly Fair Park) since 1938 is Abilene’s iconic Round Building. The official name of the local landmark is Sears Arena, named in honor of the corporate benefactor, Sears, Roebuck and Company.

In 1928, Sears, Roebuck first opened its Abilene store in the three hundred block of Pine. Nine years later, in 1937, the company president, Robert Woods, made a visit to the Abilene store and was guest at a luncheon held at the Hotel Wooten where he met with civic leaders, including Citizens Bank president Malcolm Meek, Henry James, president of Farmers and Merchants Bank, and newspaper publisher Bernard Hanks. Mr. Woods was favorably impressed on his Abilene visit and five months later—this time at a luncheon at the Hilton Hotel—a divisional head of Sears presented the city of Abilene with $5,000 in cash.

At the same luncheon it was announced that the Sears gift would be used to construct a livestock judging arena and pavilion at the West Texas fairgrounds, with work to get under way immediately. The donation would be supplemented by a $3,000 subsidy from the National Youth Administration, a New Deal program intended to provide work for young men with the added benefit of teaching them a trade. Sears would subsequently kick in an additional $500 to pay for a licensed electrician to complete the building’s wiring.

Local architect Clinton Gaskill designed the unique circular arena with an interior that provided seating for up to nine hundred in a horseshoe-shaped configuration. The building project committee was led by auto dealer W. J. Fulwiler, who formally handed over the completed arena to the city on December 31, 1938. The first use of the new facility was in conjunction with the opening of the Central West Texas Livestock Show in March of 1939, with similar events being held during the West Texas Fair each fall.

The Round Building served other uses as well. It became the venue for Abilene theater productions beginning in1948 when the City of Abilene sponsored a summer theater project featuring the Round House Players. Local thespians first raised the curtain at 8:15 on June 21, 1948, performing the double-titled, “White as the Driven Snow” or “A Working Girl’s Secret.” In the early 1950s radio station KRBC utilized the Round Building for staging its live Saturday night program known as the Hillbilly Circus. You could tune in at 8 PM or you could pay fifty cents and sit in the Sears Arena to enjoy Western singers and musicians such as Abilene’s own Slim Willett, the Blue Sage Boys, Peggy Wilder the Bare-Footed Tennessee Girl, even Robert Lunn straight from the Grand Ole Opry.

In 1950, the West Texas Fair hosted its final fair in Fair Park before moving to a new location on the east side of town. Many of the old buildings were razed by the city. The Sears Arena remained, although it fell into disuse as the Depression-era building was used for storage.

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