The Council of Independent Colleges: Historic Campus Architecture Project

J. E. and L. E. Mabee Regional Heritage Center

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J. E. and L. E. Mabee Regional Heritage Center (front facade), Wayland Baptist University

J. E. and L. E. Mabee Regional Heritage Center (three-quarter view, ca. 2003), Wayland Baptist University

Institution Name: Wayland Baptist University
Original/Historic Place Name: Llano Estecado Museum
Location on Campus: between 8th and 9th
Date(s) of Construction:

1976	original construction Brasher, Goyette & Rapier

Designer: Brasher, Goyette & Rapier (Lubbock, TX)
Type of Place: Individual building
Style: Regionalist/Vernacular (Glossary)
Significance: architecture, history, religion
Narrative: see below
References: see below

Materials:

Foundation: concrete; steel

Walls: exterior: walls are pre-fab concrete slabs

Roof: tar; gravel

Function:

ca. 1976-present (2006)	other (gift shop, meeting rooms)
ca. 1976-present (2006)	faculty offices (director and staff)
ca. 1976-present (2006)	auditorium
ca. 1976-present (2006)	museum (of the region, archives of Hale County Historical Commission, processing labs and storage for artifacts)

Narrative:
The Mabee Regional Heritage Center was a Bicentennial project of the university in conjunction with the Hale County Historical Commission, the government of Hale County, and the local school district. The building is a replica in pre-fab concrete slabs of the half-dugout homes of the area's first agriculturalist Native Americans, who lived here approximately five hundred years ago. Manmade berms surround part of the structure to create the image of the half-dugout. A pedestrian bridge allows access to the building from the street and across the "moat" formed by the berms situated above the patio level.

References:

Cox, Mary L., History of Hale County, Texas. Plainview, TX: [s.n.], 1937.

Wofford, Vera D. ed., Hale County Facts and Folklore. Lubbock, TX: Pica Publishing, 1978.