The first fieldhouse at the University of Arkansas became known as “Schmidt’s Barn” for the athletic director and coach Francis Schmidt.
The structure had originally been created for an automotive sales showroom in Fayetteville.
The famed cowboy humorist Will Rogers spoke at the fieldhouse twice, joking on the second occasion that he was glad to see that Arkansas was not following the lead of other universities by building grand showplaces for playing sports.
Near the end of the 1930s, though, the university did indeed build a new modern fieldhouse. The structure of the old fieldhouse was disassembled and moved to the west side of the first Fayetteville High School, where it remained in use as a gymnasium until the new high school was built in the 1950s.