The National Park Service recently awarded a $500,000 grant to Langston University to restore cottages on the campus that are more than 70 years old.
The NPS, which is a division of the United States Department of Interior, offered the grant in compliance to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Stimulus Bill), to assist LU in preserving its Cottage Row Historic District.
Located at the southern entrance of the campus, the cottages were built in the 1930s to house faculty members, and later went on to double as office buildings until 2006. With one of the cottages being destroyed by a fire, four of the remaining five cottages were converted back into private living quarters in 2006 at the request of current LU president, JoAnn Haysbert.
The cottages were hand-built in the 1930s by Langston students in an effort to provide housing for faculty members.