Carlisle Cannons

The six 75mm Howitzer cannons that boomed at the Homecoming football game represent the resur­rection of a UTA tradition with a long (although somewhat fuzzy) past. The firing of a cannon after a football score has been initiated often as a spirit booster–ever since the early 1940s when a salute cannon, dubbed Little Bertha, reportedly bellowed fire and smoke at parades and football games. Her keepers were members of the Bull Pen Society, commuter students who were responsible for promoting school spirit when UTA was North Texas Agricultural College. But Bertha’s description […]

  In 1982, while serving on the cadre of the ROTC department at the University of Texas at Arlington, I came across some information referencing a cannon that the university had called “Little Bertha”. After determining that the cannon (s) over the years were very much a part of the university and its spirit, and being an artilleryman myself, I thought that it would be appropriate to try to replace the cannon and resurrect the history and spirit of Little Bertha (and Roaring Rebel, reported to be another cannon that […]