In 1945, the college known as Alabama Polytechnic Institute, now Auburn University, was growing rapidly. College sports programs were garnering more headlines and bringing in more revenue and Auburn’s were no exception. Football was the big moneymaker but basketball drew its share of crowds. Officials decided it was time Auburn graduated from a high-school-type gymnasium to its very first sports arena.

Officially named the Auburn Sports Arena, the large building with exposed rafters was nicknamed “The Barn” and earned its warm and fuzzy place in students’ memories from 1946 to 1996. It served as the men’s and women’s basketball venue from 1946-1969, when a new arena was built. After that, the old building was used for the gymnastics and wrestling programs and for a variety of student activities, including intramural sports, PE classes, dances, movie showings, concerts and lectures.

See photos of historic Auburn basketball venues in the gallery at the top of the story.

Claudia Swift of Monroeville, Ala., Auburn Class of 1976, said she remembers taking exercise classes there and attending other activities. “When I first got to Auburn, it was still being used for pep rallies and the occasional dance,” she recalled. “On Halloween of my first year, they invited us to bring blankets and sit on the floor to watch classic horror films – ‘Frankenstein,’ ‘Dracula,’ etc.”

The old arena would live on until 1996 when it was destroyed in an infamous fire that horrified fans who could see it from Auburn’s football stadium. The fire also consumed $38,000 in gymnastics equipment and a few cars parked nearby, according to Jeremy Henderson, a communications and marketing specialist at Auburn University.

History of AU basketball venues

Before the first arena was built in 1947, Auburn’s basketball players used venues that were the size of high school gymnasiums.

• From 1906 to 1916, sports teams used the venues known simply as The Gymnasium.
• From 1916 to 1947, games were played in the larger Alumni Arena.
• From 1947 to 1969, the basketball teams used the Auburn Sports Arena, aka “The Barn.”
• From 1969 to 2010, basketball was housed in the Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum.
• From 2010 to present, the teams use Neville Arena.

The Auburn Sports Arena officially opened for the 1948 basketball season, according to a Jan. 30, 1948, article in The Birmingham News.

The new facility was described in an article in The Montgomery Advertiser: “When the final seating arrangements are completed, the Auburn Arena will comfortably seat a record sports throng of 3,500 – quite a contrast to ‘old swing and sway Alumni Gym’ which used to heave when 500 bulged the sides out.”

The arena building was initially used at Camp Livingston but the “bit of war surplus” was moved to Auburn in sections and reassembled, the article said.

“Coach Danny Doyle’s red hot cagers, riding a five-game consecutive win streak, deserve the honor of opening the massive ex-GI arena, that will probably seat an overflow crowd tomorrow night,” the article said.

The end of an era

“The Barn” was already scheduled to be demolished in coming months when fire broke out on Sept. 21, 1996, during Auburn’s football game against LSU in the nearby stadium. Still, the fire occurring before the building was emptied led to losses of equipment, Henderson wrote in an article for The War Eagle Reader.

“The heat was so intense it melted plastic lenses on the cars, and in some even melted their vinyl tops,” University Police Chief Bill Nevin told The Plainsman at the time. “One car received extensive damage on its right side. The entire right side of the car practically melted and the tires caught fire and burned.”

It was later determined that the likely cause of the blaze was a grill left by fans tailgating beneath an overhang of the building.

The worst consequence of the fire, though, was the fear it aroused among attendees of the LSU football game. Because the massive plume of black smoke was visible over the side of the stadium, many people at the game thought the stadium was on fire. Fortunately, announcers let people in the stands know what was happening before anyone tried to rush out, according to an AL.com article by Wes Sinor.

“During the early and scoreless stages of the first quarter, the smoke appeared and rapidly grew larger and darker, causing concern and fear for many of the 85,214 people in attendance,” Sinor wrote. “Fans on the corner walkway and adjacent upper deck had the best view in the house.”