Austin | Historic Images & Postcards

[KevinFromTexas]

Austin skyline in 1992 as the 12th TRS was being deactivated. Note the scaffolding on the Capitol dome.


South Austin Memories - via Facebook

Aerial photo from early 1984/late 1983 showing the site prep for the William B. Travis State Office Building that was built in 1985 at 1701 Congress Avenue. It's located at 17th & Congress just behind that other large state office building.


South Austin Memories - via Facebook

[corvairkeith]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Aerial photo from early 1984/late 1983 showing the site prep for the William B. Travis State Office Building that was built in 1985 at 1701 Congress Avenue. It's located at 17th & Congress just behind that other large state office building.


South Austin Memories - via Facebook

My lodge, Capitol #23 IOOF, used to own a block of Congress Ave at 17th Street. They sold it off around 1977 for something like $175,000. I've seen the paperwork on it but it's been a few years. I don't remember the address but I think it was on the West side of the street just South of the Bullock State History Museum. It's now a parking lot. We should have held on to that property.

[LoneStarMike]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I am still missing some building dates. Out of 171 highrise buildings that I have heights for now, I'm missing dates for 9 of them. 6 of those are those IBM office buildings near Burnet & Mopac.

I'm not sure if this link will work.

Texas Monthly issues

If you click on the "Texas Monthly" link to the right of the image for the cover of the November 1990 issue "Vanishing Texas" and then scroll down to page 146, there's a special advertising section about Texas real estate in different cities. Under the section for Austin it says

At a May groundbreaking for IBM's new 1.1 million-square-foot research center, officials said the site is master-planned for further expansion that will be undertaken when real estate market conditions are favorable.

In a sidebar titled "Big Deals" it says

IBM RESEARCH CENTER: A 1.1 million-square-foot, nine-building complex in Austin. The development is a fifty-fifty joint venture of IBM and Prentiss Properties Limited, Inc. of Dallas and estimated at %150 million.

Knowing that it broke ground in May of 1990 might help narrow down the completion date.

This is the complex you're talking about, right? (I took these a few years ago flying into ABIA.) Is this the same complex that the Texas Monthly article is talking about, or are they referring to a different facility somewhere else in N. Austin?

[the Genral]

Yeah but who knew back then what was to come a quarter century later Keith? I got here in '81 and saw a relatively sleepy little town, well, compared to NYC. After the 80's building boom, and then the economy went flat, I think a lot of people thought it was a good time to sell.
Kevin, I'll tell you what...I lived in a trailer park, the Royal Palms, which btw is still there at 71 and 183 and had to deal with the incredible noise those F4's made during takeoff with their afterburners on full blast. When they ran their simulated sorties especially at night, it was relentless. You literally could not sleep or carry a conversation with someone 2 feet away, so I would park on 183 next to the runway and watch them for hours. I think that's partly why I'm partially deaf. Incidently, I witnessed an F4 crash in April of '88, saw the jet start to nose down, the canapies pop open, the two men on board eject, and the fireball after impact. There were trees in the way so I didn't see the plane actually hit the ground, but I was close enough to feel the explosion. I have video on vhs of the fire brigade rushing to the scene. Right place, my porch, at the right time. Too bad it was at a time when video recorders were not instant or on hand.

[KevinFromTexas]

That probably is it. What other 9 building complex could they be talking about?

EDIT: the Genral, I remember my dad and his friend saying an F-4 Phantom had crashed back then. If I'm remembering right it was along 71 near 183 actually in the right of way. Is that right?

We were/still are plane and train geeks. We used to park in a parking lot overlooking Mueller and watch the jets land. They'd come right overhead. Our vet is also at 51st and Duval, and I'd always sit outside on their deck and watch the jets fly over. After Bergstrom became our airport we always would go to the viewing area just off 71. It's really nice and peaceful out there just sitting and watching them come in over the city. Back when Bergstrom was still an air base, we used to go to a landfill in East Austin along FM 812. It had a very good view of the city and the runways at Bergstrom. I remember us watching the F-4 Phantoms do their touch and go landings. My dad's friend also heard once somehow that there was going to be a B1 Bomber at Bergstrom. He pulled off on the side of 183 on the backside of the base to watch it land. He faked a flat to see it. He said two base guards came over to check him out.

[the Genral]

It crashed into one of the bridge abutments of the 183, 71 interchange system. It punched a sizable hole in it so the repair site might still be visable. If you drive west on 71 towards Riverside, it will be one of the abutments on your left at or near the 183 interchange. If you go by there someday to check it out and you see it, let me know. I too am a plane geek. I just got a new flight tracker app for my tab. We're in a flight path and sitting in my back yard, we get one jet after another flying overhead. Now I can see where they are coming from.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by the Genral

It crashed into one of the bridge abutments of the 183, 71 interchange system. It punched a sizable hole in it so the repair site might still be visable. If you drive west on 71 towards Riverside, it will be one of the abutments on your left at or near the 183 interchange. If you go by there someday to check it out and you see it, let me know. I too am a plane geek. I just got a new flight tracker app for my tab. We're in a flight path and sitting in my back yard, we get one jet after another flying overhead. Now I can see where they are coming from.

When I first moved to Austin (also '81) I lived on Ave H right under the Mueller flight path. Even though Austin's air traffic was much less back then, those planes would fly just over our roof about every 45 minutes or so and all conversations, TV listening etc., would come to an abrupt end. Annoying! I also lived off Pleasant Valley after that and the Jets from Bergstrom would buzz our neighborhood every now and then, and the noise was obscene.

[KevinFromTexas]

Yeah, I remember how noisy it was at our vet. Those homes around there must have been miserable. The jets would come over pretty low. The building pretty much shook whenever they would come over. I'd always run outside to see them. The viewing spot along I-35 where we would watch the jets land was in that day labor parking lot with the awning. The property is fenced off and gated now, but at the time you could drive back in there and sit. We would park in there facing the airport. My brother and I and our dad would sit outside on the car looking west for that tell tell sight of landing gear lights. My favorite time to go was when it was slightly cloudy or even foggy. It was such a wickedly cool sight seeing the planes coming in with their lights flying through the clouds and fog. I also remember once they would fly over that you would see these contrails behind the plane and you could even hear the wind whipping around behind them.

I'll have to remember to look for that bridge abutment. My sister lives in Del Valle, so we drive by there fairly often. That area is a mess right now with the Riverside construction.

We bounced back and forth between doing that and going downtown. We also went to the train station a lot to watch trains. We even talked with the engineers several times and they let us up in the cab of two switcher engines. They let my brother push the engine start button. We set in the cab with them as they moved the engines about 50 feet. They even gave my brother and me two lanterns and some Union Pacific goggles. And of course we went to the Capitol a lot. My brother and I grew up running around the Capitol grounds chasing crickets and lightning bugs and going up and down the stairs inside the Capitol.

[LoneStarMike]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Yeah, I remember how noisy it was at our vet. Those homes around there must have been miserable. The jets would come over pretty low.

There was a crash in that neighborhood in 1970 that killed 8 people.

Manor Airport
After 40 years, Austin was outgrowing its cozy, convenient Robert Mueller Municipal Airport. By the 1970s it began to show.
Austin Chronicle
July 4, 2003

In what is still Austin's worst air accident, a private plane with six people onboard crashed into a house at 916 E. 48th in April 1970, killing the young couple who lived there as well as all onboard the aircraft. The house was in a residential neighborhood on the approach to Mueller Airport, only a quarter-mile from the threshold of the longest runway. In 1974 the Citizens Airport Advisory Committee recommended closing the airport and moving it to Bergstrom Air Force Base on Austin's southeastern tip, but the Air Force denied the request.

In April 1975, Texas Monthly published an article on the state's most potentially dangerous airports. Austin was labeled "High Risk," the worst rating. According to the article, any trouble during landing or takeoff could send a plane onto I-35, the Capital Plaza Shopping Center, or the Morris Williams Golf Course.

To read the April 1975 Texas Monthly article, click here then click on the image of the cover to "open" the magazine. The story starts on page 64.

Texas Monthly ran another story in December 1980, where it ranked DFW as the safest airport in Texas, and Austin the most dangerous. This is the photo of Mueller that accompanied the 1980 article:



Texas Monthly December 1980 issue

Story starts on page 178.

[AusTxDevelopment]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I am still missing some building dates. Out of 171 highrise buildings that I have heights for now, I'm missing dates for 9 of them. 6 of those are those IBM office buildings near Burnet & Mopac. The other 3 are the John H. Winters state office building at 51st & Guadalupe, the Tarlton Law Library on the UT Campus, and the Travis County Jail. I know that the old jail building predates the taller Blackwell-Thurman building adjacent to it. Google Earth shows an image from 1995 and it's visible in it.

The IBM campus was completed in 1990, according the Travis County Tax Assessor. http://propaccess.traviscad.org/clie...prop_id=820050 (If the link doesn't work for you, go to www.traviscad.org and search under "Account Number" for Property ID 820050)

Also, it looks like the Travis County Jail was completed in 1986. https://www.tcsheriff.org/about/agency-history/history

And...it appears the Tarlton Law Library was built in 1953. http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/exhibi...gs/townes.html

[LoneStarMike]

Originally Posted by AusTxDevelopment

(If the link doesn't work for you, go to www.traviscad.org

Wow - that's a great resource. Thanks for posting that. It helps clear up a mystery for me. I had been looking at an aerial photo taken of Austin in 1969 on the Portal to Texas History's website and wondered about this mid-rise building I saw on Congress Ave. where 1005 Congress is today.



http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth33282/

Here's a cropped and zoomed in version




It also shows up in a different photo I found from 1978




Texas Monthly - June 1978 (page 164)

The Travis County Appraisal District's website shows the building was completed in 1957. Since it's still listed under the entry for 1005 Congress, I'm assuming the current 1005 Congress is actually this building with a different facade (and perhaps some additional floors added?)

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by AusTxDevelopment

The IBM campus was completed in 1990, according the Travis County Tax Assessor. http://propaccess.traviscad.org/clie...prop_id=820050 (If the link doesn't work for you, go to www.traviscad.org and search under "Account Number" for Property ID 820050)

Also, it looks like the Travis County Jail was completed in 1986. https://www.tcsheriff.org/about/agency-history/history

And...it appears the Tarlton Law Library was built in 1953. http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/exhibi...gs/townes.html

What if you don't have the address? There's another that I was having trouble with. The Jesse H. Jones Hall.

[LoneStarMike]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

What if you don't have the address? There's another that I was having trouble with. The Jesse H. Jones Hall.

You can try doing a google advanced search. Search for the exact phrase of the building name and also the word "address." Doing that, I found this webpage

https://www.utexas.edu/facilities/bu...ilding&id=0602

The address for that building is 721 E Dean Keeton St, Austin, TX 78705.

The page says it's been a UT building since 1980, so I assume that's when it was completed.

[KevinFromTexas]

I must be doing something wrong. I typed in 401 Congress Avenue, the Frost Bank Tower's address, and it still says none found.

I would love to be able to double check my dates.

[LoneStarMike]

I got it work for me. I just typed in "401" in the top box for street number and "Congress" (without the word Avenue) in the second box for street name.

You can also do a search by the type "Doing Business As (dba)" I typed in "Frost Bank Tower" and it comes up. (It's property #192833)

[KevinFromTexas]

Thanks! Ok, I think I got it now. From what I can tell the dates seem to be the start dates. It lists the Frost Bank Tower's date as 2002, but it was competed in 2004. It broke ground November 27, 2001 (my birthday).

[LoneStarMike]

Yeah, they definitely have to be start dates. If the IBM buildings broke ground in May of 1990, there's no way they could have been completed by the end of the year. I also looked up the complex I live in. It shows 1983, but I know the first tenants didn't move in until August of 1984.

Another thing I noticed was that most buildings on the UT campus don't seem to be listed, but I'm thinking it's because they're not subject to paying property taxes. (They don't, do they?) I was able to find Dobie Mall, but that was about all I could find.

And BTW, I meant to ask you about about the William B. Travis State Office Building. Wasn't it (and the Hobby Building) originally supposed to be a commercial office building rather than a state office building?

[KevinFromTexas]

Are you talking about the William P. Clements building? The one at 15th & Guadalupe? It originally was a commercial office building. It was originally called One Capitol Square, by the way. I believe the William P. Hobby Building was the same way. The office market tanked back then and the state must have snapped up some deals.

[LoneStarMike]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Are you talking about the William P. Clements building?

Yeah, I got the two "William" buildings (Clements & Travis) mixed up.

[Homecreek]

Any idea what the red 7 or 8 story building is on the lower left side of the cropped and zoomed in photo? I'm guessing it was an old hotel.