Sorority Hill

Timeline 1956 Constructed An aerial photograph from the early 1900s reveals how close the city of Huntsville sat next to Sam Houston Normal Institute. The houses in the upper half of this photo (across Avenue J) would be the location for Sorority Hill decades later. With Elliott Hall at the extreme left (west) in this late-1940s/early-1950s aerial photograph, the area between Avenues J and I was mostly given over to houses and fields. 17th Street still manages to end and curve northward into Avenue J, however - much as does into the 2000s. Across the top of this mid-1950s aerial photograph are Elliott Hall, a house, and Bearkat Den. Across Avenue J to the east are lots that would soon be purchased by the SHSTC and put to good use. Looking west through Sorority Hill toward Elliott Hall in 2006. Looking east through Sorority Hill toward the Beto Criminal Justice complex in 2006. The eight houses on the Hill at the end of the 2000s (looking south). University parking signage for the lot north of Sorority Hill (on the site of the old Art Lab). Not sure the order they're listed in, however....

"Sorority Hill" (or just "The Hill") is the name and designation used by the Department of Residence Life for the eight small houses located north of 17th Street between Avenues I and J, consisting of:

• Alpha Chi Omega Sorority House
• Alpha Delta Pi Sorority House
• Gibbs House
• Houston House
• Jackson House
• Shaver House
• Sigma Sigma Sigma Sorority House
• Zeta Tau Alpha Sorority House

The eight residences are the oldest small houses on campus, having been constructed in 1956, and have certain traits unseen on other houses, namely their clustered construction and that houses built beside each other appear to share a common wall.

Seven different sororities have lived on the hill, though the most that have existed at one time was six - between whenever Chi Omega moved to the hill (after 1965) and Delta Zeta disbanded (1990):

• Alpha Chi Omega (Delta Kappa chapter; 1959-Present)
• Alpha Delta Pi (Delta Mu chapter; 1959-Present)
• Delta Zeta (Zeta Theta chapter; 1959-1990)
• Kappa Delta (Gamma Rho chapter; 1959-1995)
• Chi Omega (Sigma Theta chapter; 1965-2000)
• Sigma Sigma Sigma (Eta Omicron chapter; 2002-Present)
• Zeta Tau Alpha (Delta Zeta chapter; 1959-Present)

Despite its name, Jackson and Shaver houses appear to have never housed a sorority and today the non-sorority houses are open to both male and female upperclassmen. As the residences have been predominantly female, the honorific names of the non-sorority houses have usually been women.

Presented 2003-2015 | buildingshsu is an independent website and not affiliated with sam houston state university.