 "Photo: Eliot Meyer")
What started as an April Fool's Day prank in 1908 would eventually become a legacy to UT engineering students.
Patron saint of the Cockrell School of Engineering, Alec was the brainchild of then-engineering sophomore Joe H. Gill and his friends. They were just trying to find a way to disrupt classes, according to a compilation of engineering history by the college.
Gill and his friends stopped by Jacoby's Beer Garden while on their search for a prank and stumbled upon a wooden statue of a Dutchman holding a chalice. They took the statue - whether with permission or by force is still under debate - and the Dutchman began his first tour of the UT campus. According to the Engineering Foundation's compilation of history, Gill presented the statue to students in front of the Main Building on April 1, tracing his ancestry to the pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the aqueducts of Rome.
It was this wooden form that would eventually be named Alexander Frederick Claire, or Alec, for short, whose genealogy would be traced to the Garden of Eden.
Alec is only one of the engineering school's many traditions that have persevered through many generations of students and has become a subject for alumni bonding
and recognition.
Alec became the subject of many midnight raids in a friendly feud between engineering and law students, which were then the only two professional undergraduate schools. Yes, law was undergrad then.
During these raids, Alec lost limbs and was even arrested and then subsequently pardoned by Gov. James Ferguson, according to the Foundation. But through all of his suffering, Alec endured and came to represent a certain level of innovation and perseverance to faculty and students of the school.
Alec became part of the family, hanging out in faculty offices and student common areas and joining Dean T.U. Taylor for Thanksgiving dinner. Eventually, Alec even offered a part of himself to former UT engineering students as a little something to help get them through the day.
During World War I, many former students were at war serving in the American Expeditionary Force. Taylor had Alec's leg amputated, cut into wooden slivers and stamped with "CELAFOTRAP," which was "part of Alec" written backwards, said Ben Streetman, dean of the engineering school. Taylor then sent a sliver to each former student serving in the war.
"The last time Alec was stolen was in the '80s when he was on display in the Tarleton Law Library," Streetman said. "A few engineering students convinced the librarian at the time that they were taking pictures of Alec for the paper and needed to take him out in the sun for better lighting," he said. Then two "unidentified men" stole Alec while they were taking the pictures, said Streetman, who is also a former UT engineering student.
After several raids by law students and his self-sacrifice to those fighting in the war, all that is left of Alec today is his torso, which is securely locked away in a hermetically sealed display case in the engineering library in the Ernest Cockrell Jr. Hall.
Be the first to comment on this article!