Historic Austin
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The history of Austin, Texas, is one shaped by the location of the city at the intersection of geography and politics. Striding the Balcones Escarpment, Austin sits where the limestone hills of the Edwards Plateau meet the clay soils of the Gulf Coast Plains. This unique location has created distinctive natural resources. As the state capital, Austin is also at the juncture of local, state, and national political interests. Home to a major research university, the University of Texas, with a long history of public-private partnerships supporting knowledge-based industries, Austin (among several other cities in the country) is positioned to become a leader in the post-industrial economy. The past growth of knowledge-based industries can serve as a foundation for the city’s future. As a community with a deep talent pool and an ethos of tolerance and serving as a leader in new technologies, Austin and Central Texas serve as a fertile environment for important innovations in technology, music, film, multi-media, green building and sustainability, and other information-based industries.
12. 12.1. Austin’s History in Brief
Prehistoric to Incorporation (1839)
Archeological evidence suggests that people may have inhabited Central Texas as early as 13,000 years ago. Over time, these earliest Central Texans were displaced, assimilated, or overwhelmed by succeeding groups or disappeared due to famine and pestilence. By the 1500s, the Tonkawa and the Lipan Apache Indians were well established in Central Texas. The Comanche and Kiowa tribes arrived in the area by the 1700s. The first European known to have crossed the region was Domingo Terán de los Ríos. In 1691, he and his party passed through on their way to East Texas. Almost 40 years later, when the Spanish moved their missions out of East Texas, they briefly relocated several near Barton Springs. However, unlike San Antonio and other mission towns to the south, the future site of Austin was not affected by Spanish influence. Under the direction of Republic of Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar, a committee of the fledgling Republic of Texas Congress picked the site for the State’s permanent capital on the north bank of the Colorado River in January 1839, which included scattered small settlements at Barton Springs, Hornsby’s Bend, and Waterloo, near the current site of downtown. The capital would be named in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the son of the original Anglo colonizer of Texas and a leader in the Texas Revolution. Under the direction of Edwin Waller (elected Austin’s first Mayor in January 1840), the street grid for Austin was laid out between the river on the south, Shoal Creek on the west, Waller Creek on the east, and North Avenue (present day 15th Street) on the north with four large public squares and spaces designated for government, university, and institutional facilities. This grid layout remains largely intact. The newly relocated Congress convened in a temporary structure in November of 1839 and on December 27 Austin was incorporated.
1859) Independence and Statehood (1840 – 1859)
By 1840, the new capital of the Republic of Texas had a population of 856 as well as diplomatic representatives from France, England, and the United States. Two years later, due to renewed trouble with Mexico, Sam Houston, then president of the Republic, removed the government to Houston. A local innkeeper, Angelina Eberly, was instrumental in keeping the archives of the government in Austin, and the city remained the official, if not the actual,
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capital of the Republic. During the early 1840s, the city languished, and the population dropped below 200 people. In 1844, with the election of Anson Jones as Texas president, Austin was once again restored as the capital. A year later, Texas was annexed by the United States, and Austin was named the state capital. Austin experienced a building boom associated with a tremendous rise in population after restoration of the capital. The 1850s were a decade of economic prosperity in Austin with an end to Mexican and Native American hostilities in the area, the establishment of businesses, and a thriving rural economy based largely upon cotton. The population reached its previous level of 850 by 1850, and grew to over 3,500 by the end of the decade. Several architect/builders arrived in Austin during this period, the most prominent being Abner Cook, who built some of the finest mansions in the city, including the Governor’s Mansion, the Pease Mansion, and several other estates for wealthy Austinites. Cook designed houses in the popular Greek Revival style, with prominent galleries and porticoes, many of them adorned with his signature “x and stick” motif.
1870 Civil War and Reconstruction (1860 – 1870)
Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, though Travis County voters opposed the separation. Due to its relative distance from the battle fronts, the city itself did not experience the ravages of the Civil War, although significant numbers of the citizenry served within the Confederate ranks. Following the end of the war and through the end of the decade, the population of Austin grew and experienced significant demographic change—largely due to the emancipation of former slaves. During the late 1860s and early 1870s, Austin and the surrounding area’s newly freed residents founded a number of communities: Pleasant Hill (south), Masontown (east), Wheatville (north), and Clarksville (west). By 1870, African American residents composed 36% of the city’s population.
Rebirth (1871 – 1893)
Texas was readmitted to the Union in 1870, although Reconstruction politics continued in the state for several years more. In 1872, Austin was named the permanent capital of Texas. After the early Capitol building burned, the pink granite Capitol at the head of Congress Avenue opened in 1888. Improvements in transportation infrastructure in the 1870s brought a second “golden” era to Austin. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad reached Austin in 1871, bringing a fast connection to the rest of the state and the country. Railroad facilities in Austin resulted in a much higher grade of building in the city, no longer dependent on locally-produced materials. Architectural details manufactured in far-off cities could be shipped to Austin, and new buildings in town sported the latest architectural fashions, from cast-iron storefronts on Congress Avenue to gingerbread details for houses throughout the city. Within several years of the arrival of the Houston and Texas Central, several other railroads reached the city, making it a hub for local transportation as well as fostering the development of warehouse and industrial districts along the railroad tracks. Enhancements in transportation also resulted in physical growth of the city. In 1891, a new City Charter extended the territory from 4.5 to 16 square miles, bringing an area south of the Colorado River within the city limits. To provide a more permanent connection to the newly incorporated areas, an iron bridge was built in 1884 to replace a pontoon bridge built fifteen
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years earlier. The establishment of streetcar lines in 1875 resulted in the development of suburban areas of the city. No longer did residents have to live within walking or buggy distance from their workplaces; suburban areas such as Hyde Park flourished with the extension of streetcar lines from the city’s downtown core. During this time Austin began to emerge as an educational center. The year 1881 was a significant one for education in Austin: the Austin public school system was established, Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute (the precursor of today’s Huston-Tillotson College) commenced classes, and the Texas Legislature authorized the establishment of the University of Texas. By 1883, the University of Texas began enrolling students for classes. St. Edwards Academy (later St. Edwards University) was chartered in 1885 and located south of the City limits.
City of the Violet Crown (1893 – 1929)
While continued economic expansion helped usher the city into the twentieth century, the most notable event at the start of the new century was the construction of a dam across the Colorado River for irrigation and power. The first largely concrete hydro-electric dam in the world was completed in 1893. The dam generated electrical power for the city and powered Austin’s “Moonlight Towers.” However, within seven years, the Austin Dam was destroyed during a flood. Although several replacement projects were attempted over the following decade, few were completed due to flooding, politics, and financing. Austin’s infrastructure and amenities continued to grow at the turn of the twentieth century. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad became the fourth line to reach Austin, arriving in 1904. Brick paving transformed Congress Avenue from a muddy and dusty quagmire into an elegant thoroughfare in 1905, and the iron Congress Avenue Bridge replaced with a an existing concrete bridge in 1910. In 1909, the city transformed one of Edwin Waller’s original squares which had long been used as a city dumping ground into the first municipal park, naming it in honor of former mayor Alexander Penn Wooldridge. By the mid-1910s, Austin’s municipal water supply was secured by acquiring primary water rights to the Colorado River. In 1928, the City Council adopted the city’s first comprehensive plan. The 1928 plan, drafted by Koch and Fowler, consulting engineers from Dallas, called for a system of parks, playgrounds, and boulevards and steps to preserve the view from the capitol. Typical of its time, the 1928 plan also promoted segregation of the races in Austin. Where Austin, like most Southern cities, had experienced a de facto integrated residential housing pattern, minority residential areas were sometimes located in prime areas for redevelopment, especially in proximity to the University of Texas. The 1928 plan created districts in East Austin for minority populations and industrial uses. Consequences of this relocation policy continue to effect local politics, planning, and community relations. Positive recommendations from the Koch and Fowler plan resulted in the formation of the City’s Recreation Department and the completion of Barton Springs pool. Within two years, nine neighborhood parks were established.
Depression and War (1929 – 1949)
Though Austin was affected by the national economic depression and a world war, government aid and the construction of a series of dams along the Colorado River helped diffuse the effects of the worldwide economic downturn. In the 1930s, people were
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attracted to Austin in the hopes of finding jobs. Austin Municipal Airport was dedicated in 1930 (now the site of the burgeoning Mueller neighborhood). The following year, East Avenue (later to become Interstate Highway 35) was paved. Government expenditures (local, state, and federal) funded infrastructure projects and created jobs during the Depression. These included the construction of the University of Texas Tower and, with the championing of decent living conditions by then-Congressman Lyndon Johnson, three public housing apartment complexes were completed: Santa Rita, Chalmers Court, and Rosewood. The Santa Rita still exists and is the oldest public housing project in the United States. The other two still exists; however, not in their original buildings. Lyndon Johnson was also instrumental in the establishment of the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) in 1938, three years after the worst flood on record in Austin. A series of new dams brought rural electrification to the Texas Hill Country as well as flood control along portions of the Colorado River. Tom Miller Dam was built on the site of the former Austin Dam, refilling what is now Lake Austin. Mansfield Dam was built and created Lake Travis. Post-war growth prompted support of a bond issue for a ten-year development project to include the construction of Longhorn Dam in 1960, which created Town Lake (recently renamed Lady Bird Lake in honor of Lyndon Johnson’s wife). In the 1940s, military camps drew people to Austin. Del Valle Army Air Base (later renamed Bergstrom Army Air Field and now the city’s municipal airport) was activated in 1942. Although it was established at the end of the Nineteenth Century for the Texas Volunteer Guard, a forerunner of the Texas National Guard, Camp Mabry was called into Federal service during World War II. It served as headquarters for the Texas Defense Guard, the remaining state militia. Prior to the 1940s, Camp Mabry served as a school for US Army mechanics during the First World War and as a mobilization area during the SpanishAmerican War. During this time, Austin started to gain a reputation for live music. Among the earliest venues was a gas station and beer joint called Threadgill’s. It opened in 1933 (soon after the ratification of the 21st Amendment), with Travis Country Beer License No. 01. Other clubs featuring live music and dancing followed, many as private dinner clubs, as Texas liquor laws did not permit the sale of alcoholic beverages by the drink anywhere but private clubs. The city’s African-American community also had several live-music venues and juke joints, including the Victory Grill on E 11th Street, which as a stop on the South’s famous “Chitlin’ Circuit” featured many of the nation’s best jazz and blues acts.
(1950 Town in Transition (1950 – 1975)
During the post-war decades, Austin experienced an array of changes that widely affected the community. The political awakening of the African-American and Hispanic communities achieved social and political change. The inception of the local high-tech industry marked a huge change in the local economy, as Austin moved slowly from a state government and university town to a high-tech community.. Freeway construction began to change the land use and transportation patterns for the entire region. The emergent music industry brought about the rise of an artistic movement that continues to define and redefine the cultural character of the city.
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Austin’s African-American and Hispanic citizens struggled for equal rights against the City’s imposition of residential segregation spelled out in the 1928 Comprehensive Plan. AfricanAmerican communities such as Clarksville and Wheatville were routinely denied amenities, and experienced school closures in an effort to convince residents to move to East Austin. The construction of IH-35 changed both the physical and social form of the city. Acclaimed as a symbol of progress, the new roadway created a concrete and asphalt dividing line further segregating African American and Hispanic communities from White Austin. Local African-American leaders and political-action groups waged campaigns to desegregate city schools and services. The University of Texas became a focal point for desegregation after Heman Sweatt, an African-American from Houston, applied to the University’s law school in 1950. Because the state had not provided a law school for African-Americans under the old “separate but equal” doctrine, the University was faced with a decision to either deny Sweatt admission or to create a separate facility for him. Sweatt v. Painter, which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, helped pave the way for the groundbreaking school desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. In 1956, the University of Texas became the first major university in the South to admit African-Americans as undergraduates. From these victories, leaders of Austin’s African-American community continued to fight for justice and equal rights for all. Sit-ins at downtown lunch counters and boycotts of local businesses derived from a growing political activism by Austin’s African-American community, led in no small part by men such as Volma Overton, who headed the local NAACP branch for many years. Black Austinites regained a foothold in local politics by winning a school-board seat in 1968 and a city-council seat in 1971. This political breakthrough was matched by Hispanics, who won their first seats on the Austin school board in 1972 and city council in 1975. The birth of the Central Texas high-tech industry occurred in 1955 with the development of a University of Texas research-derived company, Research Associates Corp (later Tracor). The project was promoted by the Chamber of Commerce as a way to expand the city’s narrow economic base. Founded by Frank McBee, the “godfather of high-tech in Austin,” Tracor became Austin’s first home-grown company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Texas Instruments, IBM, and Motorola located to Austin shortly thereafter. Lady Bird Johnson, along with Austin Parks Director Beverly Sheffield, launched the Town Lake Beautification program in 1971. Much of the river bank was neglected or dominated by the Holly and Seaholm power plants. Designed to transform Town Lake into an enjoyable place for all citizens, the program established the hike and bike trail and the park lands that encircle the lake. These amenities are currently used by thousands of people every day. The opening of a west-side freeway, Loop 1 (Mopac), in 1975 dramatically altered the landscape of many established neighborhoods and affected the development patterns of Austin. In 1955, the City agreed to purchase the right-of-way along the railroad tracks from the Missouri-Pacific Railroad for the freeway. Twenty years later, in 1975, the first six miles opened. The construction and later expansion of the Mopac Expressway contributed to sprawling growth over environmentally sensitive areas in southwestern Austin and Travis County. This led to development and political battles that would eventually alter the local political landscape and generate a number of private and public sector actions aimed at improving water quality and preserving environmentally sensitive lands and endangered
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Historic Austin
species habitat. The construction and continued expansion of Mopac also facilitated sprawling residential and commercial development in north and northwest Austin.
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Centered around the iconic Armadillo World Headquarters, Austin’s music scene of the early 1970s combined diverse musical influences such as country, pop, blues, and rock to create the Cosmic Cowboy and Outlaw Country sound. The Austin sound also gained popularity through Willie Nelson’s annual Fourth of July picnic, first held in 1973. In 1974 the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) television series, Austin City Limits, first aired with Willie Nelson as the featured performer. The program is still on the air and is American television's longest-running concert music program. The tradition established by these musicians continues to cast long shadows on successive Austin music scenes and laid the ground work for the City’s official slogan as “the Live Music Capital of the World.”
2007 From Town to City (1975 – 2007)
The last three decades have witnessed significant changes to many facets of Austin’s appearance and character. Austin’s population has, more or less, doubled every 20 to 25 years since 1839. While an impressive growth rate for the first 160 years of the city’s history, the number of people truly becomes impressive when examining the 27 years between 1980 and 2007. During this time, the population increased by nearly 50% from 345,890 to 735,088, or almost 400,000 people. During the same time frame, the land area within the City’s corporate limits grew by over 43%. In 1980, Austin was 129 square miles; by 2007, it had grown to 298 square miles—an increase of 169 square miles. However impressive Austin’s population growth was over that period, the growth of the regional population is also quite significant. Since 1975, the city has contributed less than half of the growth in the region. Between 1980 and 2007, the population of the AustinRound Rock Metropolitan Statistical Area grew from 585,051 to 1,501,522, or by over 900,000 people. During the 1980s, other elements of the city’s character began to change. Multi-family construction experienced a marked increase over previous decades resulting in a number of sprawling “apartment cities” located throughout Austin. Two major high tech research consortium companies, Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation and Sematech opened in Austin. By the early 1990s, the region had about 400 high-technology manufacturers. Presently, local technology industry includes Samsung Electronics, Freestyle Computing, and Computer Services Corporation, but is dominated by Dell. The pressures generated by this growth along with the expansion and construction of Mopac and Loop 360 hastened development in the hills of west and southwest Austin and Travis County. Conflict erupting over development in these environmentally sensitive areas marked a change in local politics. One event in particular galvanized public interest in protecting the Edwards Aquifer. On June 7, 1990, the Austin City Council agenda had an item concerning a planned unit development in the Barton Creek watershed. Over 800 people signed up to speak, mostly against the project. The public hearing stretched till dawn of the next day when the Council voted to reject the proposal. Public dissatisfaction with the actions the City Council was taking to preserve the water quality of the Barton Creek segment of the Edwards Aquifer led to a citizen’s initiative ballot measure. In 1992, the Save Our Springs (SOS) Ordinance was passed by a margin of more than two to one. The
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municipal elections following the passage of the SOS Ordinance witnessed a change in Austin politics. The progressive and “green” candidates quickly established themselves as a majority on the Council. This shift seemed to reestablish the importance of Austin’s natural resources as a long-standing part of the community’s character. The first years of the 2000s saw an increase in residential development in Austin’s downtown. Between late 1999 and 2001, seven projects resulting in over 935 new units were begun and accommodated about 1,600 residents. In 2006, Austin Mayor Will Wynn expressed his desire to see 25,000 people living downtown within the next ten years. As of January 1, 2009, seventeen projects were either completed or under construction, accounting for 1,678 new residential units and accommodating an estimated 5,500 new residents. Depending on the state of the economy, there are eleven more projects planned to break ground in 2009 and 2010, which could add 1,596 new units and an estimated 3,500 new residents. The built and planned downtown units since 2000 could accommodate about 10,600 new residents. As the city has grown, its residents and their options for entertainment have become more cosmopolitan as well. Austin has become the center of two of the largest music festivals in the country: South by Southwest and the Austin City Limits Festival, as well as the home of several major film and multi-media festivals every year. The continued drive to maintain Austin’s unique reputation as the live music capital of the world has brought challenges almost directly linked to greater downtown residential density, the rising cost of downtown land, and increasing perceptions of crime downtown. Balancing preservation of the city’s identity, character, and lifestyle with increasing demands for urban services, rising real estate values, and residential density will prove to be the most challenging and discussed issues in Austin for years to come.
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