AUSTIN | Photos & Videos Thread

[Riverranchdrone]

Austinwalk by Jason Luebbe, on Flickr
Austinwalk by Jason Luebbe, on Flickr
Austinwalk by Jason Luebbe, on Flickr

[ahealy]

Those pics are kinda breaking my eyes because it looks like Austin has no trees and is in the deep SouthWest. Kinda cool

[Riverranchdrone]

Originally Posted by ahealy

Those pics are kinda breaking my eyes because it looks like Austin has no trees and is in the deep SouthWest. Kinda cool

Well Austins climate is turning into that. This is why I hate taking photos in Winter. Everything is dead.

[urbancore]

Originally Posted by Riverranchdrone

Well Austins climate is turning into that. This is why I hate taking photos in Winter. Everything is dead.

Check pics of Austin from the 50's-80's. Austin has far more trees now than it did then. Allendale was a giant treeless field. LBL had VERY few trees along it, even when I moved here in '83. The weather may be changing, but we will not look like Phoenix any time soon.

[Armybrat]

Originally Posted by Riverranchdrone

Well Austins climate is turning into that. This is why I hate taking photos in Winter. Everything is dead.

Correct.

[Armybrat]

Originally Posted by urbancore

Check pics of Austin from the 50's-80's. Austin has far more trees now than it did then. Allendale was a giant treeless field. LBL had VERY few trees along it, even when I moved here in '83. The weather may be changing, but we will not look like Phoenix any time soon.

Yep, and the Burnet Road/Anderson Lane area was open ranch land when I was in high school in the late 50s and early 1960s.
There was a working farm behind my brother’s back yard fence when he bought his first house on Crestview’s Piedmont Avenue in ‘59.

[resansom]

Originally Posted by Armybrat

Yep, and the Burnet Road/Anderson Lane area was open ranch land when I was in high school in the late 50s and early 1960s.
There was a working farm behind my brother’s back yard fence when he bought his first house on Crestview’s Piedmont Avenue in ‘59.

I'll bet you remember the "Gulf Mart" store that was at Burnet and Anderson - I used to go there with my grandmother in the mid-60s until its demise in the early 70s (as I recall).

[Armybrat]

Originally Posted by resansom

I'll bet you remember the "Gulf Mart" store that was at Burnet and Anderson - I used to go there with my grandmother in the mid-60s until its demise in the early 70s (as I recall).

Yep, on the NW corner of the intersection.

[texastarkus]

for a very brief moment it (Gulf Mart) was taken over and re-branded as a third location of Shoppers World. There was another Shoppers World location further south on Burnet Road at the north west corner at North Loop.

[Riverranchdrone]

• Video Link

[Armybrat]

Originally Posted by texastarkus

for a very brief moment it (Gulf Mart) was taken over and re-branded as a third location of Shoppers World. There was another Shoppers World location further south on Burnet Road at the north west corner at North Loop.

Remember that one too.
And there was another discount department store on Airport prior to the construction of Highland Mall in the early 1970s. Don’t recall its name though.

I was on the faculty at Webb Jr. High when Highland Mall was built. When it opened, a few students would cut class to hang out there for hours.

[resansom]

Originally Posted by Armybrat

Remember that one too.
And there was another discount department store on Airport prior to the construction of Highland Mall in the early 1970s. Don’t recall its name though.

I was on the faculty at Webb Jr. High when Highland Mall was built. When it opened, a few students would cut class to hang out there for hours.

When you talk about saving a whole lot more, what do say? Say SAGE! I remember Sage department store - I understand there was at least one other store in Houston? Something like that.

[Armybrat]

Originally Posted by resansom

When you talk about saving a whole lot more, what do say? Say SAGE! I remember Sage department store - I understand there was at least one other store in Houston? Something like that.

Thanks!
I have been trying to remember the name of that store off & on numerous times.
Even the old native Austinites at our happy hour group couldn’t think of it. Lol

[resansom]

Originally Posted by Armybrat

Thanks!
I have been trying to remember the name of that store off & on numerous times.
Even the old native Austinites at our happy hour group couldn’t think of it. Lol

I used to love those old department stores. They always had a section or two where the kids could spend hours looking at toys, sporting goods, art supplies - Sage used to sell chemistry sets, telescopes, and microscopes. Let's see: Gulf Mart, Sage, Woolco, Gibsons - even the big boys like Montgomery Wards ("Wards") and Sears. Those were the best.

A little off-topic, but does anyone remember being regularly visited by door-to-door salesmen called the "Jewel Tea Man?" Or was it "Jewel-T?" I have lots of (rapidly fading) memories of that guy showing up with this cool assortment of cases of merchandise and trying to sell to my Mom. A little creepy, admittedly, but that was a different time...

[texastarkus]

Originally Posted by Armybrat

Remember that one too.
And there was another discount department store on Airport prior to the construction of Highland Mall in the early 1970s. Don’t recall its name though.

I was on the faculty at Webb Jr. High when Highland Mall was built. When it opened, a few students would cut class to hang out there for hours.

If I remember correctly it was called "Sage Department Store." When it opened in the late 60's a membership was required before you could shop (like Costco) and the idea of helping to pay for building the building really pissed off my dad. Once the note was paid off, the membership requirement was dropped. There might have been another Sage in south Austin I'm not sure but they were out of Houston where there were a number of locations.
Since we're talking stores a little south of what's now ACC Highland campus. There sits the Travis County Sheriff's office. Before the county took ownership, it was a site of a hardware store possibly called Builder's Square. Before it was a hardware store back in the late 60's that building was the site of Spartan Discount Department Store. Not sure when it closed but it was vacant for a number of years before the Hardware store.

[Airwave Dynamics]

• Video Link

[gillynova]

[resansom]

Great pics, Gilly!