My brother Steve Sylwester found these two aerial photographs in a box of old stuff. His daughter Liesel scanned them at high resolution and sent them to me.
The first, black-and-white photograph shows all the houses on Faculty Lane, before the eastern four houses were removed in July 1964 to make space for the Music Building. (I think the photograph was done long before 1964.) Our Sylwester family lived in the the house (Faculty Lane House 1) closest to the athletic building.
This black-and-white photograph is on Flickr here. On the Flickr webpage, click on the ALL SIZES click-point above the photograph. Then you can select the maximum (original) and other sizes.
The second, color photograph shows the Music Building in place, so this photograph was done after 1964. Probably both photographs could be dated more exactly by looking for the appearances and disappearances of other buildings.
This color photograph is on Flickr here. On the Flickr webpage, click on the ALL SIZES click-point above the photograph. Then you can select the maximum (original) and other sizes. At larger sizes, you can see that the photograph was made while a football game was being played.
Steve Sylwester wrote me this comment:
A very interesting thing can be observed when comparing the black-and-white picture with the color picture that was taken many years later.
Notice what happened on East Field. Most of what we know as East Field used to be a farmer's planted acreage. Therefore, the ground gently sloped consistent with East Hillcrest all the way down to Plum Creek. That must have been the case during our early years in Seward, and why we never sledded on the very steep man-made embankment that now exists east of East Field where the drop off from the plateau to Plum Creek happens.
If you look at the color picture, you will notice a short row of tall poplar trees standing tall on the east edge of East Field. That defined edge continues as a straight-line due north all the way to East Hillcrest, and the drop-off from the East Field plateau to Plum Creek level is steep. I cannot recall when the farmer's acreage was abandoned to become an enlarged CTC practice field, but I do recall having St John flag football practice on the field immediately east of the Bye house on East Hillcrest [East Hillcrest House 01] just east of the CTC gymnasium.
The color picture still has the old CTC maintenance building with the tall chimney, but it was taken after the new Music Building was built where our house used to be on Faculty Lane. The Concordia campus now looks much different than it did when this color picture was taken.
Jody (Schwich) Marquardt wrote this comment:
For me, the B&W picture represents the way I remember CTC—and the Seward of my childhood—just before we moved to California in 1961. It’s especially neat to see the old playground baseball field at St. John’s—exactly how I remember it—and the “new” tennis courts before the science building replaced them. And, of course, the four big white houses on Faculty Lane that disappeared from campus shortly after we returned to Seward in 1964 to make way for the new music building.
The colored picture looks more like 1968—the last year I lived in Seward and when I graduated from CHS—though I know it is much later because the old gym, Miessler Hall, the old tennis court, and Nebraska Hall (where we practiced piano and organ) were still there in ’68, and the new St. John’s sanctuary was still under construction. I watched it go up bit by bit as I walked to campus from Hillcrest Dorm every day during my senior year. I especially remember when the huge beams went up. The student center across the street from Becker Hall was brand new that year.
Tobin Beck wrote this comment:
The CTC [black-and-white] picture looks like it’s from between late 1960 to early 1962, because it shows the fire escape extension that was built on the back roof of our house while it was being used as a college women’s dorm for the 1960-61 school year while we were in River Forest, Ill., for dad to work on his doctorate. Also the photo doesn’t show our house on Plainview just north of Langevin’s house, so it’s from before spring of 1962, when construction started.
Another thing that’s interesting is the photo shows the steel-post clotheslines that maintenance installed behind the Faculty Lane houses (remember those?).
The newer color photo looks like it’s from between 1997, when the new Concordia stadium was built, and 1999-2000, when the maintenance building and Becker were torn down and the TLEC building was built.
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