n a hot September day in 1963, a wrecking crew from Hobbs Demolishing Company unceremoniously attached a cable from a bulldozer to window supports of an elegant old brick structure. The bulldozer lurched forward and with a brief shudder the wall collapsed in a shower of bricks and dust. Old Science Hall had begun to come down brick by brick. It was the last of the pre- 1900 buildings on campus to be torn down and represented a real break with "Old Texas A&M." Red bricks, ornate mill work and hipped gray slate roofs would be forever a thing of the past. On the site would rise a new wing of the Biological Sciences Building.
   Slowly but surely, the building was picked apart by the salvage company which  paid Texas A&M $2,101 for the right to tear it down. Only the highest quality materials had gone into this old campus landmark and even in 1963 they were still worth saving. The 9 x 15 inch wooden beams were especially prized by the salvage company.
    Texas A&M reserved sixty-thousand of the hand-made bricks to be used in the construction of the proposed new home for President Earl Rudder (No record has been found that they were ever used in the project). The rest of the bricks (made near Hearne, Texas) were sold to a Houston firm for $40 per thousand.
    Science Hall began life in 1900 as the Agriculture and Horticulture Building.  It was, at the turn of the century, the very symbol of modernity, standing as a stately testament to the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas' commitment to the very best instruction in scientific agriculture.  The 1890 college catalog reported the following: "This building, now in the course of erection, is planned to accommodate the agricultural and horticultural features of the college and experiment station by furnishing specially designed rooms for class instruction, laboratory investigations, museum purposes, butter and cheese making, pasteurizing milk, canning fruits and vegetables, seed store room, photographic room, and the necessary offices of those departments. This two-story brick building will be 160 feet long by 77 feet in width...it will contain twenty-seven rooms, fitted with the best apparatus and machinery now in use for the instruction of students in several branches of agriculture. 

The live stock room will permit the introduction of animal subjects for the purpose of class instruction. The butter and cheese room will contain the best dairy machinery. The canning and evaporating rooms will be equipped for the practical instruction of students in the lines of work."
   The late architect, A&M Archivist and recognized authority on campus buildings Ernest Langford '13 was extremely fond of the old structure. Langford wrote that the "front elevation of this old building was particularly pleasing...The deep cornice, which extended entirely around the building, and the highly decorated tympana of the pediments were fabricated of galvanized iron. An examination of these elements during demolition showed unmistakably that the tinsmith who formed them knew what he was doing, that he was interested in more than his dollar fifty per day."
   The exterior and interior load-bearing walls were solid brick, while the floors and framing system were timber. All in all, it was a solid and attractive building, popular with the students during ice cream-making classes. With the completion of the "new" Agriculture building in 1922, the Texas Agricultural Extension Service temporarily occupied the building while waiting for the completion of their new home.
   In 1924 with a new purpose in mind, the college remodeled the building and changed the name to Science Hall. The departments of biology, entomology and geology moved into the building in 1925. Over the years others came and went as new buildings were constructed for their use. By the summer of 1963 the structure was at last empty after more than sixty years of service. As one veteran professor said at the time, "That building has paid for itself thousands of times. Lots of good men were trained there. Several hundred medical doctors and dentists received an important part of their education in the old building."