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The Orange Bull

Submitted by farnham on Fri, 09/05/2008 - 5:44pm. Bars | UT

When I came to UT in '67, it was at the end of the alcohol burning big iron culture, just before the smoke fueled hip scene caught on, and the Drag (and even Speedway just south of the campus) was sprinkled with old dives that sold beer to students. The Orange Bull was one of those, on the Drag about 2600 block, above a dry cleaners.

When I became a Summer Orientation Adviser in '68, the group would meet there every Thursday after the kiddies went back to Dumas or Abilene. The Order of the UT drank too much beer and sang too many Hank Williams songs. Good times and fun people. I'm looking for pictures of the OB, if anybody has any.

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The Orange Bull

Submitted by BeyondBoomer on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 7:31pm.

I was pleasantly ssurprised to see this blog about an old place I could barely remember. What I do remember though,was a friendly little tavern-type joint somewhere along the drag behind the front buildings like the Co-OP and up a flight of stairs. They sold draft beer to students and had a great jukebox.Long before I entered the frat scene and learned how to binge drink beer,this little place was stiil fairly innocent in 1967- 1968,as we were still wide-eyed optimistic young students who felt like the future was ours for the taking.Even though JFK had been killed, we still felt optimistic about challenges(we were going to the moon!),and idealistic.The Vietnam War was a minor footnote in the daily news,RFK and MLK were yet to be killed.The draft was not yet implemented,so as a goofy young college sophomore, at the huge University of Texas,everything still looked rosy.We went to the OB with hopes of meeting new girls or at least interesting new guys while listening to the great tunes on their jukebox.I can recall Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay," and some fifty or so buzzed kids trying to whistle the great fade-away.Likewise, another great tune was ,"The Letter" by the Boxtops.It got everyone singing to the part about going home.I guess we were all a bit homesick at times.The sheer innocence of those times really came back after reading the first poster's comments,especially since I weathered the two aforementioned assassinations, the draft,and when "grass swept the streets" while in college.I even sniffed some tear gas trying to meet genuine flower girls in a protest march on the capital.What a great education and what a great little pub.

I even had the bumpersticker:'67-Year of the 'Horns!

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