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E.B. Cushing: A Permanent Aggie Legacy

In 1912, the future of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas was uncertain.

Just 36 years after A&M College was established, some Texas legislators thought it should be closed, relocated to Austin, and recast as a college of agriculture at the University of Texas.

The legislature began this process by significantly slowing A&M College’s funding. 

Into this bleak scenario stepped Edward B. Cushing, Class of 1880 and the president of A&M’s board of directors, who found success in the railroad industry after he graduated from A&M in 1899.  

His response to the legislators’ actions was to personally guarantee vendor bills so that A&M could remain open and stay in College Station.

Cushing guaranteed credit from his own pocket to keep the university open, said Krista Oldham, university archivist and director of university archives, in a Texas A&M University Foundation article. She said that he also met with legislators and invited them to visit the Aggie campus to see the college’s success firsthand.

Eventually, A&M’s financial crisis passed and the college, with Cushing’s critical help, was on sound footing. The idea to close the college and move it to Austin was dropped.

His additional contributions to what would eventually become Texas A&M University include creating the Alpha Phi fraternity, a precursor of The Association of Former Students. He also chaired a committee that commissioned the YMCA building, which remains one of the campus’ crown jewels today.

Even after his death, Cushing helped fuel his alma mater’s growth. He willed his extensive collection of engineering books to A&M College with the stipulation that they be part of the college’s first standalone library.

Cushing’s selfless service established him as a giant of Aggie history. He’s honored today as the namesake of one of Aggieland’s historic buildings — Texas A&M’s Cushing Memorial Library & Archives.

The story of the building’s namesake begins in another century when civil war enveloped the U.S.

E.B. Cushing was born in 1863 in Houston to Matilda and Edward Hopkins Cushing. Edward was a newspaper editor and publisher who moved to Texas from Vermont after he graduated from Dartmouth College in 1850. 

He enrolled at A&M College as a member of the Class of 1880, the second class of the fledgling college. But when Cushing’s father died in 1879, he left school to become a surveyor and later joined Southern Pacific Railroad. He eventually returned to A&M and graduated with honors in 1899 with a civil engineering degree. 

He then rejoined Southern Pacific Railroad and eventually became an infrastructure engineer.

Then World War I erupted in Europe. 

Cushing was determined to serve his country, even though he was in his 50s. The U.S. Army commissioned him as a major and sent him overseas, where he was part of Gen. John J. Perhsing’s staff, overseeing the construction and maintenance of rail lines as a lieutenant colonel.

After the war, he remained in Europe for a time, where he helped rebuild docks destroyed in the conflict. He eventually returned to Texas, becoming a federal bank examiner in 1919. He died in 1924.

When classes began at A&M in 1876 with 40 students and six faculty members, its library was housed in the campus’ Old Main building, until a 1912 fire destroyed it. After the fire, library holdings were kept in the Academic Building and other campus structures, but this approach was unable to meet the needs of the growing student body. A&M administrators knew they needed to take action. 

This led to the construction of A&M’s first standalone library, named after Cushing and completed in 1930. 

The Cushing Library, bolstered by several additions that accommodated the library’s ever-expanding collections, remained the primary academic resource for students and faculty for almost four decades. Eventually, the university’s continued growth required a larger facility, which was built in 1968 and named after Sterling C. Evans ’21.

At that point, Cushing Library became home to the university’s first computer lab, the university archives, the Dewey Collection book stacks and a small reading room.

But Cushing Library’s story continued. The Libraries merged the special collections and university archives units in the 1990s, which required more space. 

In 1994, the university began a renovation and repurposing of Cushing Library with funds from a campuswide capital campaign. The building, officially rededicated as the Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, reopened in 1998.

Since then, Cushing’s holdings have grown dramatically, including several renowned collections.

These include one of the world's largest science fiction and fantasy collections and a large collection of 16th-century New World books. Additionally, Cushing continues to add to its extensive military and Texas history collections as well as gender and women’s, Africana and Hispanic studies.

The building is a haven for researchers as the home of the university’s special collections and archives. It holds works of Don Quixote, Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez, George R.R. Martin, Alex Haley, Rudyard Kipling and Walt Whitman, and historic items, including a Sumerian clay tablet and a map of Texas created by Stephen F. Austin. 

The future of Cushing’s legacy is bright, as staff envision enhancing and expanding the library’s resources to educate and delight future generations of students, researchers, and visitors. Cushing is a destination because of its unique collections and programs that support faculty and students, said Robin Hutchison ’91, associate university librarian of special collections and archives, in a Texas A&M Foundation article. Those collections and programs, she added, also attract researchers from around the world.