Helen M. Kirby Hall was built in 1924 by the Methodist Board of Missions as a dormitory for girls attending the University Texas. The building was built by Sanguinet and Staats of Fort Worth, a firm that built two other buildings in Austin, the First Methodist Church near the State Capitol and the Scarborough Building. It was one of UT's first dormitories for women.
Helen Kirby was born Helen Marr Swearingen in Mobile, Alabama. When she was eleven she moved with her parents to Texas, via Mississippi, and settled in Chappell Hill. Her mother prepared Helen for college using textbooks borrowed from her friend, Mrs. R.K. Red, principal of the nearby Live Oak Female Seminary at Gay Hill, Texas. With this training, Helen entered Wesleyan Female College at Macon, Georgia, earning both B.A. and M.A. degrees.
Helen Swearingen married Jared E. Kirby, and the couple built a handsome colonial mansion in Waller County on property next to the immense estate of Mr. Kirby's cousin, Mr. Leonard W. Groce. Named "Alta Vista," the Kirby house became a gathering place for the socially prominent, and the well-educated Mrs. Kirby a well-known socialite of Waller County.
Mrs. Kirby's life was disrupted by the Civil War in which her husband, one of her sons, and the family fortune were lost. After the war, she attempted to improve her finances by opening a boarding school for young ladies at Alta Vista and later sold the property to the State of Texas. It was in this residence that the Prairie View A&M College (now University), the second oldest state-supported school in Texas, was opened on March 11, 1878.
Mrs. Kirby continued to teach, this time in Austin, and after several years she accepted an invitation to become supervisor of young women studying at the newly-established University of Texas. She declined the title of matron, accepted the name of Lady Assistant, and in 1903 was renamed Dean of Women, a title she retained until her retirement in 1919. Helen Kirby died on January 17, 1921 and is credited with making coeducation a reality in Texas colleges.
Helen M. Kirby Hall at 306 West 29th Street opened in September 1924 as one of the first dormitories for women at The University of Texas. It was built by the Methodist Women of Texas in honor of Mrs. Kirby's long service to the Methodist church, and continued as a self-sustaining project of the Methodist diocese.
The dormitory operated until the fall of 1971, closing three weeks before school opened because it was under subscribed and already carried a $16,000 deficit. At that time university women drifted away from dormitory living and moved to apartments. From 1971 to 1973 the dormitory was used by vagrants who entered through broken windows and cooked in the former dormitory rooms, leaving burns on the oak flooring.
In 1973 Austin developer David Barrow bought the building to use as headquarters for The Environmental Institute. He painted and carpeted and made office spaces of the dormitory rooms for use of government funded environmental organizations. The Texas Bi-Centennial Headquarters and several attorneys also rented space in the building.
Though Mr. Barrow had agreed that the school could lease the second floor, and though he had let dormitory walls be torn out to make classrooms, he did not ask the school to sign a lease until he came to the building on registration day to be sure that a school was indeed starting here. He and his lawyer David Tisinger and Kirby Hall's lawyer Verne D. J. Philips stood in the door of the Ball Room watching parents and children register. Then he led the group back into the Library to undertake the signing of the lease. To let the school remove walls and ready the second floor for classrooms, the few renters on second floor moved to the third floor. William Hooper and Richard Tims stayed until Mr. Hooper's death and Dr. Tim's retirement. They became early donors and attended plays and parties and ceremonies. They said they had a good understanding of everything that was happening because they observed from above. they were considered the school's Godfathers. Mr. Hooper had been Director of Admissions at St. Stephens School and had much advice for the school, especially on the subject of admissions. Dr. Tim's daughter had attended Vassar and he expressed opinions on college preparation too.
When the school was a few years old and after the building had been purchased from the Barrow estate, Kirby Hall mother Marty Terry, now an attorney for the City of Austin, assigned her legal intern the task of researching Kirby Hall's history. Her purpose was to present it and other papers to Austin's Historic Landmark Commission with the hope of being awarded historic designation. By this time everyone at Kirby Hall had become completely enamored with the school's historic home and since the school's future was not certain, sought to protect the building from the bull dozer. (To most developers, the land was more valuable than the building.) Many who seek historic designation do so to avoid taxes, but the school was already non-taxed. We knew that destroying a building is not legal if it is recognized as a historic property.
Betty Baker was head of the Historic landmark Commission and was instrumental in guiding our efforts in gaining historic designation. She and City Council member Sally Shipman spoke at the ceremony at which the plaque was awarded. Mrs. Baker also helped the school in securing grants from the Commission that let us restore the building. Two grants of $25,000 and one grant of $37,000 completed the major restoration of Kirby Hall.