Carrie Richardson: Papa [Hamilton Johnston, professor in the College of Engineering] designed the stadium, and that was, that was even before we came over here. He was very provoked though two or three years later after it was built. They made him put rooms under all that, rooms to make, and he just thought that was a terrible idea. He said he had built it and it was all working very well, and to stick all these little, all these people in regular cells down underneath it. He just thought that was terrible, but he did it of course, there wasn't any, and . . .
Roger Richardson: Well that was during the Depression, and they wanted, they needed, this was when the expansion of the student population started . . .
Jack Fiser: Right.
R. Richardson: . . . and they needed some low-cost housing for men, and they sought, thought that since they had the structure there, they could build room, rooms much, at much lower cost than they could a new building, and of course they could. But they weren't what you would call comfortable. They were more like cells [laughs], and I think they have been regarded as that since.
-- Roger & Carrie Richardson, interviewed by Jack Fiser, 1983
In 1936 Tiger Stadium capacity was more than doubled when the north end zone was enclosed with a 24,000-seat addition. Money was not allocated in the state budget for the seating expansion, but money was allocated for dormitories. To bypass the legislature and increase his beloved school's stadium capacity, Governor Huey P. Long ordered that dormitories be built in the stadium, with seating above the student living quarters.